In a second term as president, Donald Trump would seek repeal of crop subsidy and export promotion programs, make farmers pay more for crop insurance, and move all of USDA’s public nutrition programs, including SNAP and school lunch, to the Department of Health and Human Services if he follows the advice of Project 2025, written by conservatives. The USDA would lose most of its funding and have a much smaller portfolio if he does.
Farm-state Republicans seek opposite results in some instances in the new farm bill, notably larger crop subsidy spending and an expansion of taxpayer-subsidized crop insurance. On other points, they are in tune with Project 2025, which wants to reduce SNAP eligibility and block USDA access to a $30 billion reserve fund.
Spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 models itself as a blueprint for a new Trump administration. Republican Party leaders will begin writing the party platform this week. “It is not enough for conservatives to win election,” says Project 2025. “If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on day one of the next conservative administration.”
“The next administration should champion legislation that would … [i]deally, repeal the ARC and PLC programs,” said the Project 2025 chapter on the USDA, referring to the two largest crop subsidy programs—Price Loss Coverage and Agriculture Risk Coverage. It said farmers should pay at least half the premium for crop insurance, compared to the current 38 percent, and there should be a ban on collecting crop subsidies and crop insurance indemnities in the same year.
Project 2025 also would eliminate the 24.7-million-acre Conservation Reserve, sugar subsidies, marketing orders and checkoff programs, and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The farm bill, traditionally a combination of public nutrition and agricultural programs, should be split in half so Congress considers farm supports and nutrition separately, it said.
“All means-tested anti-poverty programs should be overseen by one department — specifically HHS, which handles most welfare programs,” said Project 2025. It advocated stricter eligibility rules for SNAP, including stricter work requirements for able-bodied people without children. Access to school food programs should be narrowed. “Restore programs to their original intent and reject efforts to create universal free school meals,” it said, calling for elimination of the Community Eligibility Provision, which allows free meals to all students at schools in high-poverty neighborhoods. Roughly 70 cents of each dollar in the USDA budget is spent on public nutrition.
Many of the Project 2025 proposals for the USDA have been raised in the past by conservatives.
The Project 2025 chapter on USDA reform was available here.