USDA Launches $700M Regenerative Agriculture Program

By Ryan Hanrahan

“In an announcement at USDA (yesterday) morning, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the funding for the pilot project would be delivered ‘through existing programs our farmers already know and already trust,’ which Natural Resources Conservation Service Chief Aubrey Bettencourt specified would be the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Conservation Stewardship Program,” Davies reported. “‘It’ll be the same application that our farmers know already,’ Bettencourt said. ‘The difference is, they’ll be able to apply for multiple practices on a single application.'”

“She added that ‘what’s important about that is, it ties back to that whole-farm plan, the idea being that we’re going to look at all of the resource concerns on the property at one time, instead of drive-by conservation, where we’re only looking at maybe soil health here, and maybe in a few years, we’re going to look at water management,'” Davies reported.

“Regenerative agriculture has no widely agreed-upon definition, but Rollins called it ‘a conservation management approach that emphasizes natural resources through improved soil health, water management and natural vitality for the productivity and prosperity of American agriculture and all of our communities,” Davies reported.

“The program appears similar to the $1.4 billion Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities program begun during the Biden administration,” Davies reported. “That program, which was canceled and then rebranded as Advancing Markets for Producers, uses both government and corporate matching funds to help farmers implement a host of conservation practices.”

Progressive Farmer’s Chris Clayton reported that “it should be highlighted that the Trump administration has pressed to reduce NRCS’s staffing and Conservation Technical Assistance funding this past year. Through elimination of probationary staff and early retirement buyouts, USDA cut nearly 2,400 NRCS staff this year, roughly a 20% decline in staff. The department’s proposed budget for FY 2026 also called for cutting another 1,200 positions and dramatically cutting CTA funding. Congressional appropriators, however, rejected those proposed cuts to the department’s budget.”