NFFC condemns the Trump Administration’s abrupt cancellation of the Increasing Land, Capital, and Market Access (ILCMA) program – a key program that provided $300 million in public funds to community organizations to acquire farmland and cover related costs for young, beginning, and underserved producers in the U.S. – and pledges to continue fighting for fair access to land for family farmers and rural communities. This cancellation on March 25, 2026 comes after more than a year of chaos at USDA and multiple lawsuits after the program funds were largely frozen in early 2025.

Public oversight of land markets is fundamental to ensure strong family farms and rural economies. For too long, family-scale farmers have been let down by policy-makers in Washington who support policies benefiting agribusiness companies and their corporate partners. While farmers persevere to feed the country and take care of the land and water, they endure chronically low prices that have led to levels of corporate concentration in the US food system not seen in a century. Combined with farmland prices at an all-time high, thousands of new and beginning family farmers are unable to secure land. Family farmers also know that access to land has also been historically denied to farmers of color, immigrant farmers, and Indigenous farmers. Corporations use predatory tactics and buy-outs to take advantage of farmers facing financial hardship and consolidate farmland, turning families and rural communities into tenants paying ever higher rents and creating a food and farm system that the American people do not want.

The ILCMA program was a real way that the federal government was supporting new producers. Its cancellation betrays fund recipients, undermines farmers, and allows even more corporate capture of US farmland and land markets.  

Four of NFFC’s member organizations were selected to receive these grants, based on their excellent track record of supporting farmers and rural communities and economies. These organizations were using the funding for a range of land access projects for family farmers who want to produce food for local communities and have been historically barred from accessing land. Our members commented on the cancellation of this program:

Kavita Koppa, Co-Executive Director of RAFI: “The abrupt termination of 49 of 50 Increasing Land, Capital, and Markets Program grants denies farmers critical support on the most fundamental needs in agriculture. Without the assistance this program promised, farmers will not only continue to lose their land, but we will lose future farmers who can’t access land and related inputs to get started. This termination pays little heed to what farmers need day in and day out to steward land and feed communities.”

Nagisa Manabe, Land Access Coordinator with NOFA-NJ: “We sincerely hope the USDA will quickly reconsider its decision, and we are very willing to work with the FSA team on how we deploy the resources effectively and in compliance. We have had regular communication with the team throughout this project, always careful to comply with requirements. We are on the verge of a wonderful success. We have 210 acres in discussion with six farmers, and this is in the most expensive state in the country! These six farmers are all qualified, knowledgeable, experienced working farmers, who we believe will be successful with our support. The termination came at possibly the worst time of year; we were poised to begin spring land preparation and planting.”

Jennifer Studebaker, Executive Director of the Women, Food, and Agriculture Network: “The ILCMA opened doors to beginning farmers of all backgrounds, and we need new farmers to keep building regional food security and economic resilience. With the average farmer age over 50 years old, farming and the land to grow on need to be more accessible to those with the drive to do this as a career. The cancellation of this program is a loss to communities across our country.” 

Nathan Galaviz, Commons Manager at Agrarian Trust: “At a time when working lands are being lost to speculation and consolidation, this decision breaks a chain of trust and undermines one of the few pathways we have to keep land in agriculture, feed our communities, and support the next generation of farmers, ranchers, and land stewards. We can either invest in the real work it takes to keep land in agriculture, or we can continue to let it slip out of reach. Calling that work inefficient doesn’t solve the problem; it avoids it. If we’re serious about farmland access and long-term stewardship, we have to deal with how land actually changes hands. Programs like ILCMA were one of the few attempts to do that.”

NFFC stands in support of ensuring that public funds be made available to communities that have been denied access to land, markets, and resources needed to farm successfully. With our members, we urge Congress to enact policy avenues for farmers to attain affordable and secure farmland tenure, like the Farmland for Farmers Act and the New Producer Economic Security Act.

• • The Farmland for Farmers Act would ban corporations from buying agricultural land, helping to keep farmland prices more affordable and keeping our farms in the hands of farmers, not Wall Street absentee landlords. A handful of states have had laws banning corporations from owning land, and where they have been enacted, they have protected family farming. But now, the powerful forces buying up land can move all across the country, and now it is time for these laws to be national.
    
  • The New Producer Economic Security Act (S.1237 / H.R. 2536) would embed a new pilot program within USDA’s Farm Service Agency to provide funds to communities for land access. Passing this bill would ensure stronger legal language for the program, protecting it from future attacks like those of the current Administration.
• • Support oversight of farmland ownership in fiscal year 2027 agriculture appropriations, including strengthening enforcement of the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA) and improving data collection through the Tenure, Ownership, and Transition of Agricultural Land (TOTAL) survey by increasing funding levels and providing technical direction to USDA.

Photo credit: Jessa Leigh/PEXELS