Minnesota agriculture institute joins lawsuit against USDA to save grant funding

WASHINGTON – A Minnesota agriculture group says the Trump administration’s canceling of so-called DEI grants in farm country broke the law and imperiled a food network initiative’s future, in a federal lawsuit filed in the District of Columbia.

The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) in Minneapolis joined other farm sector nonprofits that said last week in a lawsuit that the U.S. Department of Agriculture slashed grants for DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion — haphazardly and without individual review, violating federal law.

The grants are intended to promote DEI efforts, from a San Francisco Bay Area initiative to boost LGBTQ and multiracial farmers to a New York soil health program. In Minnesota the IATP’s grant for $111,695 to finance the MinneAg Network, including tools for connecting farmers with food and ag industry officials, was terminated just six months from the finish line. That forced the organization to spend $30,000 from its own pocket to finish the grant’s goals.

“The abrupt and unexpected cancellation of our grant comes at a critical juncture just before we were planning to finalize our ‘Farm and Food Systems 101′ resources to make this information available to all," said Erin McKee VanSlooten, community food systems program director at IATP.

VanSlooten said the cuts amount to “negating” 18 months of work, and she worries about the program’s future.

Upon taking office in January, President Donald Trump signed a flurry of executive orders aiming to root out government funding for equity, sustainability and diversity programs under the charges that such programs were discriminatory or wasteful.

According to the ag groups’ lawsuit, when USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins posted on X that she’d canceled a grant in the Bay Area to “educate queer, trans and BIPOC urban farmers and consumers about food justice,” she said her agency would refocus around “American farming, ranching and forestry.”

The lawsuit alleges staff at the USDA did not properly review programs and the agency could not revoke funding previously granted.

The plaintiffs cover a wide swath of agriculture groups working to build pathways for nontraditional farmers to enter the industry, improve soil health and build climate and food resilience.

One nonprofit’s grant work aimed to build more trees in cities to provide buffers from the heat. Another sought to teach producers about no-till farming.

The lawsuit names the USDA, Rollins and other Trump administration officials, including the acting director of the Department of Government Efficiency. In a statement, a USDA spokesperson said they would not comment on pending litigation.