DOGE and Department of Agriculture’s “Climate Smart” Grants

Editor’s Note: This article is part of the DOGE Files, a series of investigations into federal grants to nonprofits that Capital Research Center is conducting. We are pleased the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and others are exploring the vast forest of nonprofits trying to influence the U.S. government—an area that Capital Research Center has spent years mapping.

This article explores grants made by the Department of Agriculture.

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One of the many things wrapped in the voluminous packaging of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act was $19.5 billion for “climate smart agriculture.” What exactly that means is hard to say, but the Department of Agriculture has committed over $1 billion in federal grant money to nonprofits funding it. What does “climate smart” mean, how many nonprofits are getting this funding, and is it being used effectively?

A Case Study of the Biggest Grant: The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation

A review of all federal grants mentioning “climate smart” shows that that the largest grant of this program was a $95.4 million pledge to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) for climate smart corn and soybeans. NFWF used the money to create the Farmers for Soil Health (FSH) project, managed by a partnership of NFWF, National Corn Growers Association, United Soybean Board, and National Pork Board. The irony of including “National Pork Board” in a government funded project should not be lost on anyone. What did the money actually go to?

Well, the top grantee of the Farmers for Soil Heath project in 2023 was the Conservation Technology Information Center (CITC), which received $2.5 million. CITC advises farmers on how to use “cover crops,” usually grasses or legumes that are grown to improve soil quality and prevent erosion, not for harvesting—a practice that experts say provides questionable environmental benefits at best while greatly reducing farmland productivity and thus raising food prices. On top of that, planting cover crops means forgoing a whole season of revenue from cash crops such as corn and soybeans.

So why would farmers want to do it?

Well, the CTIC grant description says that it hopes to enroll 200 farmers into Farmers for Soil Health by providing them with “dedicated, full-time Soil Health Specialists” who can “work one-on-one with farmers and their advisors.” Yet as of September 2023 CTIC reported employing only six individuals. A quick visit to the enrollment webpage shows what the Farmers for Soil Health actually does.

CITC essentially received a $2.5 million grant to act as a salesman for NFWF to entice farmers to enroll in a government-sponsored program in which NFWF pays them up to $50 an acre to not grow anything useful on their fields for up to three years. Apparently, the way to farm “climate smart” is to not farm at all. (Notably, this program should not be confused with letting farmland lie fallow as part of a planned crop rotation to replenish the soil with nutrients and water. Such planning usually takes farmland out of production for only one growing season.)

No data are available on the effectiveness of NFWF’s program or its grantees, except for a lone report from October 2024 that indicated 238 farmers enrolled in Farmers for Soil Health in its first year, registering 78,000 acres of new or existing cover crops. At the blistering pace of 78,000 acres per year, Farmers for Soil Health is on track to meet its stated goal of 1 million acres over five years in roughly 13 years. That’s a minimum of eight years behind schedule assuming that every single one of the 78,000 acres was new cover crop land and not previously existing cover crop land, which can also be enrolled in the subsidy program for $2 an acre.

USASpending.gov records show that as of January 2025 roughly $5.8 million has actually been “outlayed” to NFWF, with the remaining $90 million still in federal coffers, potentially able to be reclaimed or impounded by the government.

Basic math shows that, given $5.8 million of outlayed funds and assuming 78,000 acres of cover crops enrolled in the first year, the project has been spending just over $75 per enrolled acre. That’s three times more than the $25 per acre payment provided to farmers for brand new cover crop land and over 30 times more than the $2 per acre payments for pre-existing cover crop land. Where has the extra $50 per acre gone? Are NFWF and grantees like CITC spending two-thirds of their grant funds on overhead and labor? How much of the 78,000 enrolled acreage was preexisting cover crop land receiving just $2 instead of $25?

The numbers just don’t add up, and it seems like the majority of the money never reaches the farmers.

Many More of the Same

The fiasco of NFWF’s Farmers for Soil Health is the biggest of the “climate smart grants” but far from the only one. Data obtained from USASpending.gov by Capital Research Center for the DOGE Files project show that the Biden Administration pledged 173 different new grants totaling $1.4 billion using the words “climate smart” or “climate-smart” in the description. The other 172 grants are very similar to the NFWF grant.

The second largest grant ($95 million) to the Iowa Soybean Association, a 501(c)(5) agricultural nonprofit, was used to create the Soil and Water Outcomes Fund that also aims to enroll farmers in a program that pays them for farming soybeans in ways the Soil and Water Outcomes Fund deems desirable, namely using cover crops and no-till farming. Meanwhile, the third largest grant ($90 million) to the US Cotton Trust likewise subsidies cover crops for cotton farmers. In fact, numerous grants in the high-eight-figures create nonprofit-run programs for climate smart production, or non-production, of virtually every crop and livestock that exists. An $85 million grant to the California Dairy Research Foundation funds “DairyPlus+” paying farmers to use vermifiltration, or feeding manure to worms, and other technologies meant to reduce methane emissions, otherwise known ascow farts.

An $85 million grant to the USA Rice Federation created the Rice Stewardship Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities, which paid farmers for eco-friendly rice. A $69.9 million grant to the National Sorgum Producers Association created the Sorgum Resource Conserving Group, which pays farmers to plant cover crops in sorgum fields. All told, individual groups subsidizing “climate smart” almonds, berries, bison, coffee, corn, cotton, dairy, fruits, pork, poultry, rice, sorgum, timber, vegetables, wool, and hay received one or more grants larger than $10 million. It seems like America’s taxpayers are unwittingly paying for farmers to not produce half of the contents of an average grocery store in the name of sketchy climate science.

DEI Requirements

As with many other grants distributed by the Biden Administration, restrictions on the “climate smart commodities” funds necessitate that grant allocation should prioritize “disadvantaged” or “underserved” communities in some way, a gift to the American human resources and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) industries. These restrictions essentially required every grantee to hire DEI-focused staff and consultants. A Department of Agriculture Q&A webpage makes it very clear that “Equity/Environmental Justice (EJ)/Minority Serving Institutions (MSI) Reach” was one of the selection criteria for applicants. The department is explicitthat the selection committee examined how applicants would benefit “underserved communities” and how many “underserved producers” would be enrolled when making decisions. In other words, the Department of Agriculture made race a mandatory consideration of the entire program, placing the whole programs at odds with recent Supreme Court rulings and more recent executive orders.

How Much Can be Reclaimed?

There is simply no obvious reason the Climate Smart Commodities program should continue to exist. Paying farmers not to farm is a controversial and counterintuitive policy as is, but paying DEI-focused interest groups and nongovernmental organizations to pay farmers not to farm because of vague and unattainable “climate smart” goals is lunacy. The most recent available data indicate that over $1 billion of the allocated funding has not been outlayed, meaning the checks have not yet been cut. Any administration with an interest in saving the taxpayers money, reducing food prices, and bolstering American agriculture would do well to claw back every possible penny of the Climate Smart Commodities grants.

Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/doge-and-department-of-agricultures-climate-smart-grants/