The USDA ILCMA program canceled on March 26, 2026, when the Farm Service Agency sent termination letters to 49 of the 50 organizations that had received five-year contracts under the Increasing Land, Capital, and Market Access program in June 2023. The program was funded with $300 million from the Inflation Reduction Act and the American Rescue Plan, and its contracts had been awarded to tribes, farmer associations, and universities specifically selected to address the two barriers that the National Young Farmers Coalition has repeatedly identified as the most significant facing beginning farmers: access to land and access to capital.
Steven Peterson, the FSA associate administrator who signed the termination letters, wrote that the contracts do not align with the agency’s current goals and priorities. He described the awards as representing discriminatory preferences and wasteful spending that did little to further lawful agricultural land purchases. As directed by Congress, the ILCMA program specifically targeted farmers who had historically been underserved by USDA programs, including Black, Indigenous, women, and immigrant farmers. The Trump administration’s effort to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs put the ILCMA directly in its sights.
USDA cited specific expenditures including a smoker, gazebo, and $20,000 in ink pens
The USDA provided a list of seven expenditures it considered inappropriate to justify the cancellations, ranging from $10,000 to $130,000. The examples included the purchase of a barbecue smoker, the construction of a gazebo, payments for massages, and a $20,000 budget for ink pens from a single contract recipient. Those examples, while striking, are a small portion of a program whose $300 million total represents a sliver of total federal agricultural spending: the USDA Economic Research Service projects that direct government payments to farms will total $44.3 billion in 2026, the vast majority flowing to large, established commodity operations with no spending restrictions attached.
Critics of the cancellations pointed to the context. JohnElla Holmes, CEO and president of the Kansas Black Farmers Association, said her group had six farmers actively waiting for down payment assistance to purchase small farms when the terminations arrived. Breanna Horsey, executive director of the Sustainable Iowa Land Trust, said the program had been helping bridge the gap for beginning farmers ready to step into land ownership but facing steep financial barriers. She described the cancellations as harmful not just to individual farmers but to the resilience of rural communities. For broader context on the barriers young farmers face in accessing land and transferring family operations, Agroinformacion covered the Illinois estate tax and succession cost barriers blocking the next generation of farmers.
Organizations have 30 days to appeal and some may pursue legal action
Contract recipients have 30 days from receipt of termination letters to file appeals, and some organizations have already indicated they may pursue legal action. Agroecology Commons, one of the 50 original contract recipients, is already a plaintiff in a lawsuit arguing that the USDA cannot unilaterally cancel contracts that were legally binding agreements authorized and vetted by Congress. Agroecology Commons is also the one organization that did not receive a termination letter, suggesting its participation in the lawsuit may be a factor.
House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Angie Craig (D-Minnesota) called the cancellations a total slap in the face for farmers and said the American people deserve better. The National Young Farmers Coalition has been one of the loudest voices defending the program, repeatedly citing national survey data showing that land access and capital are the two largest barriers facing the next generation of farmers. The ILCMA was designed specifically to fund locally-led solutions to those problems. The original reporting on the USDA ILCMA program canceled was published by Civil Eats on March 25, 2026.