$127M In Cancelled Grants Restored From USDA’s Increasing Land, Capital, And Market Access Program – AfroTech
The federal government has reversed its decision to cancel grants that benefited “underserved producers.”
As AFROTECH™ previously told you, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Increasing Land, Capital, and Market Access (LCM) Program provided federal funding to tribes, farmers’ associations, and universities to assist them with down payment assistance, low-interest loans, beginning farmer training, crop seeds, equipment, technical guidance, infrastructure, procurement agreements, and succession planning support.
The program was funded by the Inflation Reduction Act and the American Rescue Plan Act under President Joe Biden’s administration, and starting in 2023 it funneled an estimated $300 million to these entities to serve underserved producers, per AFROTECH™. Under Donald Trump’s presidency, support for the program was cut with the administration claiming the grants were wasteful, fraudulent, and abusive. This prompted the USDN v. USDA lawsuit filed in June 2025, with the primary plaintiff Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN).
Twenty-four additional organizations and local governments later joined the lawsuit.
“The LCM program was the federal government’s most meaningful attempt to address the compounding challenges the next generation of producers like me face,” Amanda Koehler, a young farmer and manager of the LCM Network, said in a press release. “Awardees were building the financial, social, and physical infrastructure required for young and underserved producers to actually succeed – and the Trump administration unlawfully pulled the rug out from under them.”
Plaintiffs include the 2020 Farmers Collaborative; African Alliance of Rhode Island; Agraria Center for Regenerative Practice; Agrarian Trust; Black Oregon Land Trust; Center for Heirs’ Property; Cultivate Kansas City; Four Bands Community Fund; Heru Urban Farming; H.O.P.E. For Small Farm Sustainability; and more who joined initial plaintiffs including Agroecology Commons, the Institute on Agriculture and Trade Policy, Providence Farm Collective, and USDN.
In the latest update, 24 grantees have won a preliminary injunction restoring $127 million in grants, which were required to go into effect by 5 p.m. ET on July 3. The decision was made by Judge Beryl Howell, who said the plaintiffs “have demonstrated that the terminations of their individual grants were likely contrary to statute, that they will suffer irreparable harm in the absence of relief, and that the balance of equities and public interest favor preliminary injunctive relief,” according to a press release shared with AFROTECH™.
“The court’s order reinstating $127 million in Increasing Land, Capital, and Market Access grants is a massive victory for the people across the U.S. who are building a fairer and more sustainable food system in their communities,” said Hannah Wolf, FarmSTAND staff attorney and counsel for the plaintiff groups in USDN. “Through this order, and in previously enjoining other grants terminated by USDA and DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), the court has consistently recognized that USDA has an obligation to assist all farmers and ranchers. It cannot diminish services to certain farmers by invoking phrases like ‘illegal DEI.’”
