Project 2025: Threats to Local Agriculture & Human Health
Dear family farmers and folks working in food security,
Before the 2024 election we put together a range of essential recent reporting and information about Project 2025 to educate our community and and the public about the threats Project 2025 poses to US agriculture and human health, including to farmers and to our communities in New England.
Project 2025 is the libertarian-theocratic billionaire-backed Heritage Foundation’s systematic blueprint for the next Republican president, but which has the tacit or explicit endorsement of local Connecticut and New York officials and candidates wherever you may live and work. Specific policy goals of Project 2025 that relate to our community are intended to degrade or destroy entire agencies (USDA, NOAA, National Weather Service, Education…) and gut or eliminate practices supporting organic agriculture, climate change mitigation, school food, hunger relief, and so much more. (Note: you might also have heard of “Agenda 47” and been told that it’s different from Project 2025. It’s not, it’s a shorthand version and just as dangerous.)
Sorry to say, it’s now too late to turn back. [We deleted a section here exhorting folks to register to vote and then vote.] We’ll continue to post new information here as the full catastrophe of the incoming Trump administration becomes clearer.
11/4/24: “Grocery Update #30: Notes On A Trump Food Economy“ by Errol Schweizer - Read Schweizer’s The Checkout covering Discontents: 1. Mass Deportations Means Trumpflation. 2. Trump Will Kill The Economy To Make America Great Again. 3. Project 2025 And Food Workers. 4. Feature Story: How Target Wins With Big Food. 5. Meet The New RoundUp, Worse Than The Old RoundUp. 6. Robyn O’Brien on #MAHA and Misogyny. 7. WSJ on Wholesale Fees.
10/29/24: “Project 2025 is All Trick, No Treat” with Peggy Bailey - Listen to Bailey on Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer discuss the devastating potential effects of the House Republican agenda and the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. The proposals, supported by candidates who will be on your ballot this November, include a wholesale dismantling of federal government programs, cutting benefits, shifting costs to states, and penalizing working families in order to slash taxes for the rich. Bailey reveals the massive economic disinvestment and inherent racism and discrimination in the trickle-down agenda of Project 2025 and the House Republican agenda, even as she emphasizes the need for the federal government to revitalize the economy from the bottom up with investments in those who have been marginalized.
Please feel free to share this information widely with family, friends, and fellow farmers around the US, not just in our area. (At the very end, below the main section, there is info on further reading and taking action yourself.)
Holley Atkinson (she/her/hers)
Questions? Got more materials to share? holley@northwestcornerfarm.com
Co-Owner, Northwest Corner Farm
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TL;DR: If you only have time for ONE thing, start with one of the below, depending on your learning style —>
Watch: Sylvanaqua Farms 8/3/24: Project 2025: Agriculture
Great intro/explainer by a fellow farmer on Project 2025 plans to dismantle and downgrade the USDA - well worth the 20 minutes to hear him break down the big picture:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEYS0EV8dMc&ab_channel=SylvanaquaFarms
Read: Salon 7/10/24: More food, less regulation: Project 2025’s alarming vision for agriculture
SNAP cuts, little regulation, the project’s proposal for the Department of Agriculture is a race to the bottom
Listen: Food Sleuth Radio 8/29/24: Jim Goodman, retired dairy farmer and farm activist discusses farm labor, policy, and Project 2025 with Melinda Hemmelgarn
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If you have time for more research, take a look at the reporting resources below. You can pick and choose a few topics that are of particular relevance to your own work, and either watch, read, or listen, depending on your learning style.
At the end, below the main section, there is info on further reading and taking action yourself. Please share if you find this useful!
WATCH:
Sylvanaqua Farms 8/3/24: Project 2025: Agriculture
Great intro/explainer by a fellow farmer on Project 2025 plans to dismantle and downgrade the USDA - well worth the 20 minutes to hear him break down the big picture:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEYS0EV8dMc&ab_channel=SylvanaquaFarms
KGW8-NBC TV 7/24/24: What we can VERIFY about Project 2025’s plans for the Head Start program and free school lunches: VERIFY readers asked us if Project 2025 plans on cutting the Head Start program and free school lunch. It’d eliminate Head Start and reduce the free lunch program.
READ:
CT Mirror 8/29/24: Opinion: What’s that foul odor? It’s the anti-labor Project 2025: Project 2025 would strip CT workers of dignity and autonomy, suppress workers’ rights in CT and around the nation and gut the standard of living for our friends and neighbors, eliminating overtime, legalizing child labor…
https://ctmirror.org/2024/08/29/project-2025-ct-workers/
Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) 9/6/24: Project 2025 Outlines Devastating Changes to USDA and the Federal Nutrition Programs A summary of what Project 2025 would do specifically to work in the school food and nutrition field
https://frac.org/blog/project-2025
The Hill 7/24/24: What to know about Project 2025’s plan for agriculture, and how it could lead to ‘real chaos’: Steep increases in logging. An end to federal environmental enforcement for farms. Work requirements for food aid. Fewer school meals for children. And the demolition of the network of farm subsidies that have backstopped Big Ag since the New Deal.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4791069-project-2025-farming-food-aid/
Food & Water Watch 7/24/24: How Project 2025 Puts People and Our Planet in Peril: This right-wing “battle plan” declares war on our food, water, and climate for the sake of corporate profits. Here’s what you need to know about Project 2025.
https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2024/07/24/project-2025-food-water-climate/
Salon 7/10/24: More food, less regulation: Project 2025’s alarming vision for agriculture: SNAP cuts, little regulation, the project’s proposal for the Department of Agriculture is a race to the bottom
Up North News 8/6/24: Project 2025 would take kids’ school lunch off the table in some Wisconsin schools: Today, families with tight food budgets in rural and low income districts can count on their kids getting two nutritious meals at school for free, thanks to the Biden-Harris Administration. Donald Trump’s Project 2025 calls for an end to that program, leaving millions of kids without food.
https://upnorthnewswi.com/2024/08/05/project-2025-eliminates-money-for-school-lunch/
LA Times 7/28/24: Project 2025 plan calls for demolition of NOAA and National Weather Service: Project 2025 calls for the elimination of some of the nation’s most dependable resources for tracking weather, combating climate change and protecting the public from environmental hazards.
Center for American Progress 7/25/24: Project 2025’s Elimination of Title I Funding Would Hurt Students and Decimate Teaching Positions in Local Schools: Project 2025 would decimate more than 180,000 teacher positions and negatively affect the academic outcomes of 2.8 million vulnerable students across the country.
Good Faith Media 7/10/24: Project 2025 Takes Aim at a Favorite Conservative Punching Bag: School Meals: Aside from the U.S. Department of Education, perhaps no government agency has been more of a target of far-right extremists in our country over the years than the Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The Daily Yonder 7/9/24: Commentary—Project 2025 to Rural America: Let Them Eat Cake (Without a Nutrition Label): The Heritage Foundation’s policy document for a second Trump term has more to say about horses than healthcare
Counterpunch 6/6/24: The GOP’s Stalinesque Plan 2025 to Shape the Future of U.S. Food and Agriculture: ‘Liberating’ the USDA From Environmental Issues
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/06/06/the-gops-stalinesque-plan-2025-to-shape-the-future-of-u-s-food-and-agriculture/print/ [this article was the basis for the recent 8/29/24 episode of Food Sleuth Radio podcast below]
LISTEN:
Food Sleuth Radio 8/29/24: Jim Goodman, retired dairy farmer and farm activist discusses farm labor, policy, and Project 2025 with Melinda Hemmelgarn
Conspirituality 4/1/24: "The GOP Thinks Food Stamps Are the Real Problem” [bonus sample of full episode on the USDA]
This week Derek and Julian investigate the chapter on the Department of Agriculture which aims to strip funding for SNAP and welfare programs [as well as Head Start] and further deregulate Big Ag. And if you think the author is part of a climate change denial think tank you'd be correct.
MSNBC How to Win 9/16/24: “The Threat of Project 2025 on Climate”
In the final episode of this MSNBC special series, Chris Hayes speaks with climate experts on the threats Project 2025 will pose to our already warming planet.
https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-podcast/how-to-win/win-2024-threat-project-2025-climate-rcna171289
FURTHER READING ABOUT PROJECT 2025:
Review the full 900+ page document, called “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise” - it’s all here in black & white. The intent is to weaponize government agencies that harm people, and gut or eliminate agencies that help people:
https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf
Tip: Search the document for short keywords on issues you care about to get a sense of the scope and breadth of the planned attack on all institutions and aspects of our society.
If you’d like to just dip in to the chapter on Agriculture, have at it here:
https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_CHAPTER-10.pdf
ACTION STEPS:
Join the many groups actively working to spread the word and inform the public about Project 2025
–Explainer on what Project 2025 will dismantle re Climate: https://www.stopthecoup2025.org/climate
–Explainer on what Project 2025 will do to Farmers: https://www.stopthecoup2025.org/farmers
Democracy Forward: The People’s Guide to Project 2025
"We read Project 2025’s entire 900+ page “Mandate for Leadership” so that you don’t have to.”
Project 2025 is among the most profound threats to the American people.
What we discovered was a systemic, ruthless plan to undermine the quality of life of millions of Americans, remove critical protections and dismantle programs for communities across the nation, and prioritize special interests and ideological extremism over people.
From attacking overtime pay, student loans, and reproductive rights, to allowing more discrimination, pollution, and price gouging, those behind Project 2025 are preparing to go to incredible lengths to create a country only for some, not for all of us.
If these plans are enacted, which Project 2025’s authors claim can happen without congressional approval, 4.3 million people could lose overtime protections, 40 million people could have their food assistance reduced, 220,000 American jobs could be lost, and much, much, more. The stakes are higher than ever for democracy and for people.
VOTE:
Connecticut 2024 Early Voting starts Monday, October 21 and ends Sunday, November 3 (depending on location). Election Day is Tuesday, November 5 and you can register in person at the voting site or online by Friday, October 18
CT Registration deadlines
In person during early voting : Oct 21 - Nov 3
Online : Oct 18 by 11:59 p.m. EDT
By mail (postmarked by) : Oct 18