USDA Terminates 49 of 50 Grants from $300M Program Citing Waste and Misalignment with Priorities

U.S. Department of Agriculture sent termination notices to 49 of the 50 recipients of the Increasing Land, Capital, and Market Access grants during one week in March 2026. The grants totaled $300 million and supported projects intended to increase land, capital, and market access for farmers.

Steven Peterson, associate administrator of the USDA’s Farm Service Agency, sent the written cancellations. Each letter gave grantees two business days’ notice and stated that the programming did not align with agency priorities and that the funding structure was not in keeping with the intent of Congress. Peterson’s letter cited specific expenditures as examples of waste.

It listed purchases of gazebos, massages, a camper or RV, and oversized office supply budgets, including one case exceeding $130,000. The USDA separately pointed to a $20,000 budget for pens among the expenditures used to justify the terminations. 5 million grant under the program.

The grant was structured largely to help farmers of color acquire and sustain land. By the end of March 2026, the organization had not received a termination notice. Agroecology Commons lost multiple grants during the USDA’s funding reductions that began after President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has described the reductions as efforts to stop wasteful spending. In response to earlier terminations, Agroecology Commons joined a lawsuit against the USDA. The suit claimed the grants were terminated unlawfully.

In August 2025, a judge granted the plaintiffs a preliminary injunction that restored access to some of the funds until the court issues a final ruling. Leah Atwood, a staff member at Agroecology Commons, said the organization continues to operate under uncertainty.

“We are trying to accomplish as much as we can in the time that we have, because we don’t know when it’s going to be canceled,” she said.