When Brain Neff retired from the Air Force, he had his eyes on a farm on the outskirts of Traverse City, Michigan. 

The land was once operated by his wife’s grandparents before it was leased out for years after her grandparents stopped tending to it. In 2021, the Neffs bought the property back with plans to transform it in retirement. 

“We had it in mind that we were going to turn it into more of a destination farm akin to the types of things that we saw when we were in the military, out in California and other places in the country,” Neff said.  

Neff says he was anticipating 2026 to be their first profitable year, but because of the financial issues they, and many other farmers are facing, he no longer thinks so.  

“My projection would be that we will not turn a profit this year,” Neff said. 

Neff’s story is not an isolated one.  

An April survey from the American Farm Bureau Federation found nearly 70% of American farmers say they cannot afford fertilizer. It also found almost half of Midwestern farmers report they cannot afford all the supplies they need.  

The survey drew from 5,400 farmers in each state and Puerto Rico. According to the responses, 94% of respondents reported their financial situation has worsened or remained the same since last year, while only 6% reported improvement. 

The survey shows Midwestern farmers reported slightly stronger purchasing plans, but nearly half still said they could not afford all the supplies they needed. While farmers in the other parts of the country are less likely to purchase fertilizer ahead of planting season, this could sharpen stress on America’s “breadbasket” which a 2026 report from the Future of Food Coalition described as “one of the most intensively farmed agricultural regions globally.”  

For many farmers across the Great Lakes region, those numbers are not abstract statistics but are shaping what gets planted, harvested and what is profitable. 

Neff says the cost of urea, a chemical used as a fertilizer, went up from $612 to $892 from April 2025 to April 2026, changing the decisions he is making this year.  

“I chose to forego putting urea down on our grass hayfields this spring,” he said. “Any additional growth I expected to see from the hay would have just been eaten up in cost.” 

The decision to forego the urea will likely impact the outcome of production, Neff said he will “have a reduced first cutting because of it.” 

“We’re continuing to put our own equity into this farm to establish it and hope that things turn around next year,” he said.   

Causes  

National policy decisions have continued to impact farmers.  

Bob Thompson, president of the Michigan Farmers Union, said the first ”hammer” to farmers was “the implementation of tariffs” that “has had a real detrimental effect at the local farm level.”  

As part of a larger implementation of sweeping tariffs, in February 2025, the Trump administration announced a 25% tariff on all imported steel and aluminum products. Economists warned the tariffs could raise costs for farm equipment, replacement parts and transportation. 

As these tariffs are still in effect, the Iran conflict has only exacerbated these issues, with the Strait of Hormuz being closed. 

In the survey, Farm Bureau wrote: “The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is keeping critical fertilizer supplies and crude oil from reaching global markets, putting a squeeze on supplies around the world.” 

Roughly 25% of the world’s oil supply travels through the Strait of Hormuz.  

As gas and oil prices continue to rise, the blockade has been felt immediately by farmers.  

“I was spending below $3 for agricultural diesel, and I just called to get my tanks filled, and I was told it was going to be $5.98 a gallon,” Neff said.

And the effects of the Strait of Hormuz being closed will not just be felt by farmers but “consumers are going to continually feel the pinch because virtually all goods move by truck in this country,” Thompson said.   

Farmers are stuck playing the waiting game, Dennis Kellogg, who sits on the Michigan Farmer’s Union Board of Directors, said. 

“It’s very difficult to plan for a future with these unknowns,” Kellogg said.   

For organizations looking to help farmers, like employees at Michigan State University’s Extension program, they are also seeing these effects.  

“This is heightening what’s already a bad situation for many farms,” Jon LaPorte, a Farm Business Management Educator at MSU Extension, said. 

LaPorte said that many farmers are still experiencing loss from the previous years, “Everyone’s worried about it because 2024 and 2025 weren’t the most profitable years either” which is forcing farmers to ask the question of “What’s the bare minimum that we would have to put out (money) to ensure a crop?”  

Outcomes  

Through these difficulties, farmers are forced to make short-term decisions that may have long-term consequences.  

Thompson warned the long-term consequences could extend beyond one growing season. 

“The outlook is pretty bleak right now, right across the board,” Thompson said and later added. “The end result is that there will be fewer farmers. There will be bankruptcies.”  

Though farmers may be resilient, Thompson warned of the mental stress these families are going through, which can include increased drug use and in the worst cases, suicide.  

“We need to try to be aware that our friends and neighbors might look good on the outside, but be torn up on the inside, and we need to try to be friends,” Thompson said.  

The post ‘The outlook is pretty bleak’: Farmers brace for a difficult season appeared first on Great Lakes Now.

By Zaria Johnson

This story was originally published by Ideastream Public Media.

Federal money will aid a long-term project to convert 106 acres of shoreline near the St. Clair-Superior and Glenville neighborhoods into publicly accessible greenspace.

The partial funding for phase one of the CHEERS (Cleveland Harbor Eastern Embayment Resilience Strategy) project comes at a time when nearly 80% of the lakefront is privately owned, Cuyahoga County Chief of Integrated Development Debbie Berry said.

“Located between East 55th Marina and the Intercity yacht club, the project site represents a critical gap in lakefront access in Cleveland’s East Side,” Berry said. “Investing in Cleveland East Side lakefront advances more equitable distribution of public resources, bringing meaningful lakefront to communities that have historically lacked direct connections to the lake.”

CHEERS aims to reestablish natural habitat, support the local ecology and improve public access to Lake Erie, according to Cleveland Metroparks.

Phase one, known as the Early Action Project, will use dredge from the Cuyahoga River to restore 4.3 acres of submerged and emergent wetland habitat along the North Coast. The park district will also add a trial network and fishing spots.

“People really want to see progress on their lakefront,” said Brian M. Zimmerman, Chief Executive Officer of Cleveland Metroparks. “They want to see more connections. They want more green space. They want some more activity. Let’s make no mistake, travel and tourism dollars matter. So, fishing and all of the other things, all the recreation activities, the biking, all of that matters.”

Democratic U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown presented the funding.

It took more than a year to get the money to the Metroparks, Brown said, but it’s essential to addressing disparity in lakefront access.

“When you grow up on the east side, you see that it feels like we are very under resourced,” Brown said. “It feels like we are often overlooked. So, being able to deliver some real money back onto the east side was personally important to me and then I’m excited about the future.”

The Metroparks began its first rounds of public engagement in 2020 and wrapped up a series of stakeholder meetings earlier this year. This award is essential to moving the project closer to implementation, Zimmerman said.

“It makes it real,” he said. “We’ve got some very poor existing conditions that we’re actually working with … So, it is bringing the CHEERS model up. CHEERS is a big, hairy, audacious goal and this is one more step in its project.”

The Metroparks and project partner the Port of Cleveland now have more than $9.1 million committed to the project from local, state and federal agencies, according to a news release. An additional $13.06 million remains on the table from the federal BUILD grant program and an award decision is expected later this year.

Cleveland Metroparks will now begin the permitting phase for CHEERS’ Early Action Project. Construction is expected to begin in 2028.

U.S. Representative Shontel Brown (D-Cleveland) presents Cleveland Metroparks with nearly $1.1 million to support the first phase of a major redevelopment to promote public access on Lake Erie.

The post Cleveland Metroparks receives $1.1M to redevelop 106 acres of lakefront appeared first on Great Lakes Now.

Catch the latest energy news from around the region. Check back for these monthly Energy News Roundups.

Ontario is moving ahead with big plans for new nuclear. Expansion of the eight-reactor Bruce nuclear site in Kincardine, on the shores of Lake Huron, would be the province’s first large nuclear power project in decades. As proposed, the project could add 4,800 megawatts of nuclear generation capacity, contribute about $238 billion to Canada’s GDP and create 6,700 permanent jobs, the province said. Pre-construction work is set to get underway, though several approvals from the Canadian government will be required before construction can begin.

Mining can proceed near northern Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness after President Donald Trump lifted a ban imposed by the Biden administration. That’s welcome news for Twin Metals, a subsidiary of a Chilean mining company that for years has been looking to mine copper and nickel just outside the Boundary Waters. It’s less welcome news for conservation groups worried mining operations will contaminate the fragile wilderness. The resolution, the latest reversal in a yearslong political struggle over mining in the region, passed the Senate in a 50–49 vote last month before heading to Trump for his signature.

A rural, deep-red Ohio county came close last week to overturning its ban on utility-scale solar and wind. Richland County residents voted 53% to 47% to preserve the restrictions the county adopted last July. The referendum was spearheaded by a local property rights group and opposed by farmland preservation advocates. Election results show that turnout was 30%. Recent reporting from Canary Media looks into how confusing wording on the ballot may have played a role. 

Environmental groups say the Trump administration’s proposed rollback of federal coal ash cleanup requirements would be especially damaging in Indiana, which has a long history of coal ash pollution and is often in the top five for states with the most coal ash sites. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency imposed the first federal regulations on coal ash disposal under the Obama administration in 2015 and expanded them in 2024 under the Biden administration. Trump’s EPA wants to loosen them again.

A western Pennsylvania natural gas well is set to become a geothermal system in a first-of-a-kind pilot project for the eastern United States. The $14 million project will convert an existing Indiana County well owned by natural gas company CNX into an enhanced geothermal well that can extract heat from deep underground and bring it up to the surface, where it will be used to heat nearby buildings and generate electricity.

More energy news, in case you missed it:

• A lawsuit by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel seeking to shut down the Line 5 pipeline through the Straits of Mackinac can stay in state court, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously.
• The Michigan Court of Appeals largely upheld state rules limiting local governments’ authority over renewable energy projects in accordance with a controversial 2023 law.
• Wisconsin regulators approved special rates for data centers to protect customers served by the state’s largest utility, while a separate rate proposal was approved with criticism for a Meta data center campus.
• A major Ohio utility doesn’t have to refund customers the nearly $75 million it charged them to support a pair of coal plants tied to the largest energy bribery scheme in state history, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled.
• The U.S. Supreme Court declined to reconsider the convictions of former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges for their roles in the same bribery scheme.

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What does it mean to be a freshwater person? We’re finding out!

Freshwater People is a podcast from Great Lakes Now at @detroitpbs. Every month, we’ll introduce you to experts, writers, and enthusiasts who share your love for the Great Lakes.

Find us wherever you get your podcasts or at https://GreatLakesNow.org

#greatlakes #podcast #environment #publicmedia #interview
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By Laura Herberg, Bridge Michigan

The Great Lakes News Collaborative includes Bridge Michigan; Circle of Blue; Great Lakes Now at Detroit PBS; Michigan Public, Michigan’s NPR News Leader; and The Narwhal who work together to bring audiences news and information about the impact of climate change, pollution, and aging infrastructure on the Great Lakes and drinking water. This independent journalism is supported by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Find all the work HERE.

Elliot Hubbard and his wife own a small hobby farm in Michigan’s Thumb region where Hubbard said “it’s not uncommon to see 30 to 40 does in our fields and a handful of bucks.”

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources doesn’t know the ratio of does to bucks in the state’s white-tailed deer herd, but officials suspect females outnumber males. 

Many people believe that’s because Michigan hunters prefer to kill bucks because state policy told them to do so for decades. As a result, the state’s herd is likely unbalanced, which some worry hurts the population and the quality of hunting because it means fewer big bucks left to target. 

To try to reverse that trend, advocates have since the 1990s tried to get state regulators to limit hunters to one buck per huntingseason, but had been told it was nearly impossible because of state legislation. Countless hours of research and advocacy proved fruitless for years, even as someother states with one buck rules saw more balanced kills and balanced herds.

This year, however, the DNR reversed course and recommended the Michigan Natural Resources commission enact a one buck rule that also puts doe tags at the forefront.

A vote could happen as soon as Wednesday, which some hunters feel would be historic for the state. 

In reality, today’s issues with the herd likely exist because a version of the rule first passed about 100 years ago.

‘They didn’t want to harvest any does’

After logging, development, fires and a period of unregulated commercial venison sales took its toll on Michigan’s deer herd, the state passed a law in 1921 requiring hunters to kill just one deer — and it had to be a buck.

“It is expected this provision will re-populate the forest of Michigan with deer,” an article published in the St. Joseph Herald-Press said at the time.

“They didn’t want to harvest any does because, in their mind, does make the babies,” explained Baraga County hunter Jordan Hoover, who grew up with a father involved in deer conservation. “So, if we don’t take any does, we’ll have more deer.” 

In practice, the “one buck only” policy appears to have not only helped the deer population grow in Michigan but also affected sex ratios and the psyche of hunters.

By the 1930s, Michigan reported 2.4 does for every buck statewide, though many hunters believed the imbalance was even greater. In the 1940s, the state began holding antlerless deer seasons to control growing deer populations that were damaging farms. By 1965, hunters could use an archery license to take a deer of either sex, though many hunters still sought that trophy buck.

“As the herd grew, the mentality didn’t evolve with the changes of the environment and the population as a whole,” said Todd Johnson, the director of policy and advocacy for the state council of the National Deer Association in Michigan.

Buck was still king. In fact, starting in 1977, hunters could shoot two bucks in one year if they took one with a firearm and another with a bow. Then the bag limit doubled to four in 1986. 

Some hunters started to feel that encouraging antlerless deer harvests and limiting hunters to one buck could increase the health of the herd and grow the number of big bucks in the future by letting more young bucks mature. 

In 1998, the combination license was created and hunters were limited to two buck tags.

“Conscientious hunters everywhere rejoiced,” read an article in the Lansing State Journal published that year.

‘The countless phone calls’

Hoover, the Baraga County hunter, said it was around that time when his father, David Hoover, “started standing on the gas pedal” in lobbying for a one buck rule.

The younger Hoover recalled his dad driving back and forth between their home in Calumet and Lansing. 

“And just the hundreds if not thousands of hours that I saw him put into studies, sitting at his desk, the countless phone calls, the emails, pouring over all the data,” he said. “It made a big impression on me.”

By the early 2000s, the idea of a one buck rule seemed at a fever pitch. In 2005, one sportswriter opened a story this way: “State wildlife officials say they’re hearing a mantra about deer hunting across the state: one buck, one buck, one buck.” 

But the DNR said that a one buck rule couldn’t be implemented without new legislation. Officials also worried a one buck rule would likely result in the loss of more than $5 million for the department because second buck tags could not be purchased. 

In 2007, the Natural Resources Commission looked at two proposals for a one buck rule, but both were unanimously opposed, with commissioners citing preliminarysurveys showing “a strong majority of hunters” were not interested in being limited to one buck.

‘An overdue correction’

Today’s hunters are divided. In 2020, a DNR survey found nearly half of them — 48% — would support limiting the combination license to allow for only one antlered deer to be killed.

Meanwhile, a highly vocal contingent has emerged to push the one buck rule. They swap studies in Facebook groups, talk on podcasts and are involved in advisory groups created by the DNR.

They point to other Midwestern states, such as Ohio and Pennsylvania, that have had a one buck rule for more than a hundred years and have more balanced hunts.

In 2025, Ohio hunters reported killing 1.42 antlerless deer for every antlered deer. In Pennsylvania, hunters reported killing 1.73 antlerless deer for every antlered deer. In Michigan, hunters reported killing 0.92 antlerless deer for every one antlered deer.

“In this state, we’re buck-centric in the fact that people just want to shoot their buck,” said Lincoln Rohn, a hunter based in Comstock Park. “A lot of them don’t care how big it is, and they want to shoot two of them.”

Rohn, Hoover, Hubbard, Hubbard’s wife, Rashel, and others had been pushing for the one buck rule but running into similar obstacles as past advocates.

“We’ve always been told that we could not do one buck,” said Rohn. “We were told, because the Legislature needed a combination license, that we could not do it. It had to be two bucks.”

But the advocates noted the law called for a combination license allowing for two deer, but didn’t say two bucks. At their urging, the DNR asked for a legal review and determined the advocates were right. That allowed the department to support a one buck rule. 

“This change is an overdue correction due to the evolution of the deer herd in Michigan,” Johnson, of the National Deer Association Michigan, said. “We’re at a point where we need to manage the herd for sustainable health.”

The post Michigan created a buck-centric culture regulators now want to change appeared first on Great Lakes Now.

When winter descends, traveling the lakes becomes a dangerous proposition for freighters. Ice can trap even the largest ships in place, and it’s up to a small fleet of U.S. and Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers and tugboats working in tandem to keep vital shipping routes moving.

#Freighters #Ships #Shipping #Winter #Ice #GreatLakes #Boats ===========================================
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Produced and Written by
Kathy Johnson

Narrated by
Mila Murray

Edited by
Jordan Wingrove

Camera
Greg Lashbrook

Additional Material
Captain Paul LaMarre III
PolkaDot Perch
U.S. Coast Guard
Lance Aerial
Jonathan Ellsworth
Cody Ames

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By Beatrice Lawrence, Wisconsin Public Radio

This article was republished here with permission from Wisconsin Public Radio.

Johnson Bridgwater celebrated his 50th birthday by spending a full month in the wilderness, paddling and camping in the hundreds of thousands of acres that make up the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeastern Minnesota.

It’s a place that reminds him of his father, whom Bridgwater lost when he was in his 20s.

“My father, who was a zoologist, considered it one of the last places in North America that you could truly get to some place pristine that had not been impacted by settlers or industry,” Bridgwater said.

He’s not alone. Among the more than 150,000 visitors the region sees each year, a significant portion of them come from Wisconsin. 

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump signed a bill overturning a 20-year mining ban in the area surrounding the Boundary Waters. The decision paves the way for the Chilean company Twin Metals to build a copper and nickel mine in the area, which is the world’s largest known undeveloped copper, nickel, cobalt and platinum group metals deposit. Supporters of the idea hope for a boom in jobs, but critics worry about pollution and contamination, and an economic impact on tourism and recreation.

Wisconsin lawmakers in both chambers of Congress voted on the bill along party lines — Republicans voted to overturn the ban, Democrats to sustain it.

Bridgwater, who is the water advocates organizer for River Alliance of Wisconsin, said that the decision doesn’t only affect Minnesota.

“All water is connected, and I’m not sure that the general population truly understands how big that connection is,” Bridgwater told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.” “Up north — northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan — they carry (one) water identity. It also has very busy state lines. People are traveling across all three of those states daily.”

Economic boom or environmental disaster?

After Congress designated the Boundary Waters as a wilderness area in 1964, a robust outdoor industry sprung up in northeastern Minnesota as people flocked there every year to paddle, camp, fish and enjoy nature in the uniquely pristine and remote setting.

Critics of the Twin Metals mining project say that the recreation economy of the area will be put at risk if companies are allowed to mine nearby.

“This area is beloved,” said Minnesota Public Radio reporter Dan Kraker, who has been covering mining projects near the Boundary Waters for 15 years. “People are extraordinarily concerned about the potential pollution impacts on this amazing landscape. … They argue, even without the pollution concerns, that these mines surrounding the wilderness area could be a detractor to investment and recreational development.”

But advocates for the projects say that these mines will instead boost the area’s economy by creating thousands of jobs in both mining and construction, and will provide the U.S. with vital resources. 

“This progress ensures our state remains competitive when it comes to workforce and jobs, not to mention the global impact of reducing foreign dependence for these critical minerals,” Dave Lislegard, Jobs for Minnesotans executive, said in a statement. 

A 2020 Harvard study compared the projected economic impact of a 20-year mining ban in the area with a scenario in which the Twin Metals mine is developed. That study found that introducing copper-nickel mining would likely have a negative overall effect on the regional economy.

Northern Minnesota has a rich mining history. But copper and nickel mining carry different environmental risks than the traditional iron ore mining in the area.

“When sulfide-bearing ore is brought up from under the ground, and it reacts with air and water, it can create sulfuric acid and result in what’s known as acid mine drainage, and this can leach heavy metals out of the ground and potentially into the water,” Kraker said.

In 2023, the Biden administration enacted a 20-year ban on mining in the 225,000 acres surrounding the Boundary Waters. Twin Metals claimed this “locked up” necessary resources and negatively impacted communities in the area. The new law repeals that ban.

Twin Metals said that the protections already in place are sufficient enough to prevent significant environmental impact.

“Projects must prove they can meet the stringent environmental standards that have long been in place in Minnesota before moving forward,” said Kathy Graul, director of public affairs and communications for Twin Metals. 

But Bridgwater pointed to a report assembled by mining researcher Steven Emerman for the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, which found that even “model” sulfide ore mines have extensive records of environmental contamination.

Bridgwater is concerned not only about recreation in the Boundary Waters, but also the wild rice economy that exists in the region and how it intersects with the hunting and gathering rights of tribes in the Midwest.

“What you’re looking at is this overlay of uses that have been functioning and doing what they were intended to do for hundreds of years,” Bridgwater said. “We would like to see anything that can be done to stop metallic sulfide mining that could potentially impact these water environments.”

Even with the mining ban being repealed, it’s not clear if or when the mine will be approved, Kraker said.

“The state will have ultimate say on whether this goes forward, in addition to federal regulators also having to sign off on any potential mines in this area,” Kraker said. “So there is a long story yet to be written.”

The post Why mining in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters matters to Wisconsin appeared first on Great Lakes Now.

On Ohio’s Kelleys Island, Tom and Paula Bartlett have spent years catching and banding birds. Their work has helped shape our understanding of how birds migrate through the Great Lakes.

Watch the full segment on the Great Lakes Now YouTube channel.

#GreatLakes #Birds #Birding #Science #Wildlife #Short
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Join a livestreamed expedition to the deepest point in the Great Lakes! Explore a hidden underwater world from your own screen and have your questions answered LIVE.

June 6, 2026
1 P.M. ET

More than 400 meters (1,300 feet) beneath Lake Superior lies the deepest point in the Great Lakes. It’s a place where no light reaches and few people have ever seen. Great Lakes Now is teaming up with freshwater explorers Yvonne Drebert and Zach Melnick to send cameras to the bottom and explore the area for the first time in 40 years. 

What we’re hoping to see:
• The kiyi, a rare deepwater fish that is believed to live only in Lake Superior.
• Alien looking deepwater sculpin
• Forests of colorful hydra
• The deepwater-adapted siscowet lake trout

Along for the voyage is Michigan DNR fisheries biologist Shawn Sitar, who has been investigating the recent appearance of “zombie fish,” emaciated siscowet turning up across Lake Superior, many of them from the deepest parts of the lake.

Watch live and ask questions in real time as Drebert, Melnick, and Sitar guide you through the depths of one of the largest lakes on Earth.

The date and time of this livestream are subject to change due to weather conditions. Sign up for the Great Lakes Now newsletter to get reminders and updates delivered directly to your inbox: https://www.greatlakesnow.org/great-lakes-now-newsletter/

Follow Great Lakes Now and Hidden Below: The Great Lakes on social media to stay updated about the expedition:

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By Christian Thorsberg, Circle of Blue

The Great Lakes News Collaborative includes Bridge Michigan, Circle of Blue, Great Lakes Now at Detroit PBS, Michigan Public and The Narwhal who work together to bring audiences news and information about the impact of climate change, pollution, and aging infrastructure on the Great Lakes and drinking water. This independent journalism is supported by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Find all the work HERE.

More than two years have passed since the Agriculture Improvement Act — better known as the Farm Bill — expired, leaving the nation’s primary agricultural policy framework in a state of prolonged uncertainty.

The bill, which steers the economics, logistics, and environmental priorities of America’s food production and land and water use, is one of the largest pieces of legislation authored by Congress. The 2018 package, which lapsed in 2023, is more than 500 pages long. 

Two full legislative sessions have come and gone without the approval of a new five-year Farm Bill, and this year is unlikely to yield more productive results. The U.S. House Agriculture Committee passed a new version of the bill out of committee earlier this month, but its chances of gaining Senate approval, policy experts tell Circle of Blue, are slim.

The absence of a new Farm Bill has been temporarily stop-gapped with consecutive one-year extensions of the 2018 bill, in 2024 and 2025. But these interim fixes have been vulnerable to cuts, with environmental protections and funding taking acute hits. 

Last year, hundreds of Farm Bill-supported conservation programs and grants administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) were paused or cancelled by the Trump administration. Many were stalled or eliminated on grounds of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

Some of these grants include those administered by Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), a USDA effort that subsidizes farmers who address “natural resource challenges” on their lands, including water pollution, invasive species, and flooding.

Responding to a September FOIA request from Circle of Blue, the agency in February declined to release records identifying specific projects affected by cancellations, but acknowledged that at least 69 RCPP projects tied to those decisions are under legal review.

Each passing year without a new bill, environmental advocates say, is a missed opportunity to enshrine reliable funding for programs, including the RCPP, that prioritize healthy watersheds. 

Conservation-Minded Farmers Absorb Losses

Many farmers around the Great Lakes, still reeling from the financial impact of last year’s sudden changes, have testified to their positive impact on local watersheds. 

Ross Bishop, a farmer in the town of Jackson, Wisconsin, has used no-till practices for nearly 30 years on his 700-acre plot to manage flooding, drought, and water contamination. This proved especially effective in August, when more than nine inches of rain fell on his property in the span of 24 hours. The sheets of water that ran through his land and cover crops carried no sediment, according to the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage District — a far cry from the two millimeters of soil that erode off the average midwestern field every year, often carrying fertilizers that pollute water sources. 

Frozen USDA grant programs that support Bishop’s no-till work cost him $44,000 last growing season, he estimates. 

“The healthy farming practices that we do here are definitely keeping soil in the field,” Bishop told Circle of Blue. “If it erodes, you’re losing organic matter, so there’s a lot of value in these practices, and you need to show you’re making money by doing it. We’re all in trouble right now with economics.”

In northwest Indiana, Tom Eich has slowly been expanding his farming acreage since he began running Kankakee Valley Homestead in 2017. His vegetable plots grew from a quarter-acre to three acres, then 45 acres in 2024.  Before last growing season, supported by two USDA-funded programs — Local Food Purchase Assistance and Local Food for Schools — he made the decision to expand his farm to 150 acres for 2025.

The ink wasn’t even dry on the lease for these new plots when Eich received word that those grants had been canceled. Of the roughly 100 extra acres he acquired, he could only afford to grow vegetables on roughly one-fifth of this land.

“The beginning of the year left us with debt that we’re still kind of finishing paying up and unfortunately, that minimal cash flow throughout the year had ripple effects,” Eich said. “I wasn’t able to afford the normal help that we had on the farm. I wasn’t able to grow as much this year. Then we weren’t able to bring as much to the market.”

The Kankakee River, which is one of the most-polluted rivers in Indiana, runs through Eich’s farm. He says he’s the only one of his neighbors who doesn’t plant his crops right up to its banks, and instead has a line of trees and native plants that help combat flooding and preserve water quality. It’s a sacrifice he’s willing to make even without reimbursement from the USDA, but it’s not a luxury every farmer can afford. 

“Instead of putting into the program, they could potentially make more money farming it. So they still do that,” Eich says. “For the most part, a lot of the people that were doing it were doing it out of a mind of conservation, rather than necessarily the payback. But there are people for whom [grants] did make a real difference, and they are going to have to adapt.”

Further south, near Culver, Indiana, the impact and timing of grant cancellations added up quickly. A USDA cost-sharing cover crop research grant that was cancelled last February put Chad Gard, a farmer at Hole in the Wood Farms, in an $8,000 hole to start the spring. That snowballed, Gard said, into about $160,000 worth of losses over the year. Roughly 80 percent of his farm “went to weeds” instead of crops.

This meant that Gard wasn’t able to focus as closely on efforts to improve watershed quality and biodiversity.

“We work really hard to make sure that we’ve got buffer areas so we don’t have runoff from our fields,” Gard said. “We don’t use any synthetic chemicals at all, we’re careful not to use excess compost or leave our manure, you know, where it would run into the waterways, because that’s all ending up in the groundwater and in the river.”

Since he started implementing these practices several years ago, Gard said he has noticed the waters in the wetland woods adjacent to his land containing fewer algae, a sign of decreased nitrogen. The population of singing frogs has increased. Clearing invasive species like honeysuckle and silver maple from the outskirts of his land has brought birds back to the landscape. 

“The environment has been responding,” he said. “But if I spend 100 hours clearing out honeysuckle, I’m not spending that producing lettuce that I could sell and make income from. With a grant paying a portion of it, it’s a little easier to justify the expense.”

Even programs whose grants have remained untouched are dealing with the ramifications of defunded farmer outreach and education programs. Many of these rural efforts rely on word-of-mouth communication and trust. A year of instability has ruptured this grassroots momentum. 

In 2023, Ducks Unlimited was awarded $8.8 million through the USDA’s Regional Conservation Partnership Program to “restore and protect 800 acres of wetlands and associated upland areas” in priority watershed areas in Wisconsin.

But getting this program off the ground, even years later, has been difficult. “Finding agronomists to deliver these programs can be challenging,” Joe Genzel, the organization’s regional communications coordinator, told Circle of Blue in September. “It’s a very specialized position. Finding a biologist who can talk the talk to farmers is extremely niche.”

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