U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has announced the termination of the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities (PCSC), a key climate programme introduced under the Biden administration. The decision follows what the Department of Agriculture (USDA) described as a comprehensive review of the scheme, which found that administrative costs often consumed a significant portion of funding, leaving less than half available for direct support to farmers.
“Many of these projects had sky-high administration fees,” said Rollins. “We are cutting bureaucratic red tape, streamlining reporting, lowering the paperwork burden on producers and putting farmers first.”
Projects that can demonstrate a significant proportion of funding benefits are being delivered directly to farmers may be allowed to continue. The USDA also confirmed that existing partners will be contacted individually, with all eligible costs incurred before 13 April 2025 to be honoured. No new funding will be allocated under the reformed framework.
The PCSC will now be restructured into a new initiative, Advancing Markets for Producers (AMP), which Rollins said aligns more closely with the Trump administration’s agricultural priorities. The revamped programme will be guided by three key criteria: at least 65% of federal funds must benefit producers directly; recipients must have enrolled at least one producer by the end of 2024; and payments must have been made to at least one producer by the same date.
Rollins was critical of the original PCSC scheme, stating it was designed more to serve non-governmental organisations than the agricultural community. “The Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities initiative was largely built to advance the green new scam at the benefit of NGOs, not American farmers,” she said. “We are correcting these mistakes and redirecting our efforts to set our farmers up for an unprecedented era of prosperity.”
The USDA emphasised that the AMP initiative would use existing funds without requiring new allocations from federal budgets.
