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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (NEXSTAR) — The United States Department of Agriculture will make $1 billion of cuts to food purchasing programs. It’s just the latest hit to the agriculture sector, as the trump administration works to strip down government agencies.
Lawmakers in Springfield held a hearing to discuss those 11cuts, the lack of federal funding coming in for other food programs, and the impact the president’s on-again off-again tariff plan is having on farmers.
“it definitely puts you in a more precarious spot,” Ed Dubrick, a farmer from Cissna Park said.
The hearing covered a wide array of topics, with farmers, officials from the University of Illinois, staff from programs designed to tackle food insecurity and Illinois Department of Agriculture officials all taking part.
The Illinois Department of Agriculture is short millions of dollars that was appropriated to the state by the federal government. The agency’s director, Jerry Costello says the money stopped coming right after the Trump Administrations threatened Federal funding freeze from early February. It’s all a part of the $2 billion Governor Pritzker said has been withheld from the Illinois government.
Costello says the lack of federal money is causing problems for multiple programs, including the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program (LFPA) and the Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure Program (RFSI). Both programs worked to get food to food insecure areas all over the state, including to school programs and food banks.
“We try to get guidance, we cannot get guidance,” Costello said. “We go to pull down monies that again were contractually agreed upon for reimbursement. It does happen. It doesn’t happen.”
University of Illinois officials have also seen impacts from the cuts. A lab on the Champaign-Urbana campus for studying soy beans had to be shut down after the Trump Adminstration. While research projects could be affected by future cuts, the Dean of the College of ACES said the University will continue with projects where they can.
“We are stewards of the dollars that they give us to do this research uncertainty. You know, it’s really making it difficult to plan ahead,” Professor Germán Bollero said. “We continue to focus on the research that we do, and the research done have impact to society.”
The University has had to take other temporary changes though, including pauses to hiring graduate students for certain programs.
While the USDA cuts are specific to food purchasing, there are other impacts of federal actions that could lead to problems for farmers.
Trump’s inconsistent tariff strategy is causing a lot of uncertainty in an already struggling market. Trump’s tariffs target three of Illinois’ biggest trade partners, and the three have already threatened retaliatory tariffs. If those were to be put on agriculture products, it could hurt the bottom line for farmers.
While all of this was discussed under the dome in Springfield Tuesday, there was an issue. Illinois has no real control over what is going on. Democrats argued this hearing was meant to highlight the impacts of the cuts, but Republicans argued it strictly political in nature.
This is the second hearing in the past week held to highlight federal cuts that were outside the state governments control. Last week, lawmakers discussed the potential cuts to Medicaid that could come with the congressional spending plan.