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Cutting Conservation Funding Endangers our Food System
The Trump administration is gutting USDA funding that helps small farms preserve local heritage breeds that boost the biodiversity and resilience of U.S. livestock.
Apr 09, 2025
As part of the Trump administration’s overhaul of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, funding for several programs, including conservation contracts and local food purchasing for schools, was cut or frozen.
The lack of funding of these and uncertainty for other programs is already having a chilling effect on farmers and our food systems, and the impacts have been immediate and wide-ranging. These programs support critical conservation initiatives in agriculture—from assisting local farms and sustainable agriculture research to farmer technical aid. These local programs also support smaller-scale farmers to maintain local or heritage breeds such as Galloway cattle or Tamworth pigs that are not suitable for large-scale, industrial agriculture.
As a result, farms and livelihoods throughout the country are threatened. These programs provide vital support for U.S. agricultural infrastructure and long-term sustainability including the diversity of food available to the public. The link between biodiversity and food security is well known—vibrant biotic life supports soil fertility, pest control, pollination, water quality, and sustainable agriculture. Genetic biodiversity in our foods is also important—domesticated plants and animals that are genetically diverse are less likely to succumb to the same diseases or pests, and many have adapted to a range of environmental and climatic conditions. The more genetically diverse our food system is, the less vulnerable it is to collapse.
Local breeds are living genetic repositories. They are the result of long-term histories and cannot be simply made in a laboratory. They are the future of our food security.
For this reason, conservation efforts must include protecting domestic animal breeds to establish living genetic banks for future food security during times of abrupt climate change. Unlike plants that can be propagated from seeds stored in vast seed banks, the most efficient way to maintain biodiversity in domesticated livestock is by keeping herds of local or heritage breeds, since sperm cryopreservation is expensive; susceptible to damage or loss; and limited to rich, industrialized nations and communities. Breed conservation can occur on a local level and doesn’t need to be expensive—it’s been successfully done in the past.
Almost 100 years ago, Texas longhorns—the iconic emblem of the state of Texas—almost went extinct. At the time, American tastes in meat favored fattier cattle breeds and the lean, grass-fed longhorns were unpopular, difficult to transport in railroad cars due to their big horns, and not economically viable for ranchers. This breed already had a long history in the area and was particularly well adapted to the hot, arid climate of southern Texas. In the 1920s when the breed was on the brink of extinction, U.S. Forest Service employees established a protected herd at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma, and a small group of ranchers established other small herds in Oklahoma and Texas, including in Texas state parks. It was through the efforts of this small group of people that the breed was kept alive. As American tastes in meat changed, Texas longhorns became economically popular once again.
Today, they are highly valued for their lean meat and their specific climatic adaptation. They are also living genetic repositories—their specific genetic adaptations are now used to help create new breeds of cattle for dealing with future climate change such as those predicted for several parts of the southern United States and elsewhere.
According to data collected by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, Texas longhorns are one of over 8,700 breeds of domesticated animals used for food production on the planet today. Most are part of the “big five”: cattle, sheep, chickens, goats, and pigs. Over 8,000 of these breeds are local—recorded in only one country and most of them are specific to particular areas or regions like Texas longhorns, Gulf Coast sheep in Florida and Louisiana, and Mulefoot pigs in Missouri.
Many of these breeds, however, are also vulnerable to extinction—they are not as profitable and farmers focus on a few breeds to maximize products for national and global markets. There are estimates that over 100 livestock breeds have gone extinct in the last 15 years, and29.54% of existing livestock breeds worldwide are at risk of extinction, while for the majority of breeds we lack data on their status, size of population, or likelihood for survival for the future.
Why are local breeds important? They are the result of centuries and even millennia of adaptation to their environments through human management and natural selection pressures. They are living gene banks of biodiversity and have special traits in comparison with industrial livestock—some are resistant to parasites or diseases; feed on different forage; or are highly fertile or long-lived. Others thrive in hot or humid environments such as Gulf Coast sheep that don’t have wool on their bellies, legs, or heads.
Despite many years of research, current information on these breeds is sorely lacking. There is very limited genetic data on most of the economically important animal breeds on the planet, and the pressures of industrialized agriculture are pushing farmers to focus on the few breeds with the current highest economic rewards. But this comes at a cost—today’s industrial farming strategies are not sustainable for an unknown future. Local breeds are living genetic repositories. They are the result of long-term histories and cannot be simply made in a laboratory. They are the future of our food security.
Many species are on the brink of extinction and need conservation help, and many are perhaps more photogenic or emblematic than cows or sheep. However, livestock breeds need this help too if we want to secure genetic diversity in our foods. This conservation doesn’t need to be expensive—dedicated farmers and conservation groups should be financially supported in maintaining local breeds. If the federal government is turning its back on these initiatives, state and local governments need to help fill the gap. Small investments today will pay dividends in the future to keep our food systems resilient.
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The Real Reason for Soaring Egg Prices? Gouging by the 'Rotten Egg Oligarchy'
A new Food & Water Watch report details how "corporations use the worsening bird flu crisis to jack up egg prices, even as their own factory farms fuel the spread of disease."
Mar 04, 2025
The nation's largest egg producers would have American consumers believe that avian flu and inflation are behind soaring prices, but a report published Tuesday shows corporate price gouging is the real culprit driving the record cost of the dietary staple.
The fourth installment of Food & Water Watch's (FWW) Economic Cost of Food Monopolies series—titled The Rotten Egg Oligarchy—reports that the average price of a dozen eggs in the United States hit an all-time high of $4.95 in January 2025. That's more than two-and-a-half times the average price from three years ago.
"While egg prices spiral out of reach, making eggs a luxury item, Big Ag is profiting hand over fist," FWW research director Amanda Starbuck said in a statement. "But make no mistake—today's high prices are built on a foundation of corporate price gouging. Our research shows how corporations use the worsening bird flu crisis to jack up egg prices, even as their own factory farms fuel the spread of disease."
FWW found that "egg prices were already rising before the current [avian flu] outbreak hit U.S. commercial poultry flocks in February 2022, and have never returned to pre-outbreak levels."
Furthermore, "egg price spikes hit regions that were bird flu-free until recently," the report states. "The U.S. Southeast remained free of bird flu in its table egg flocks until January 2025, and actually increased egg production in 2022 and 2023 over 2021 levels. Nevertheless, retail egg prices in the Southeast rose alongside January 2023's national price spikes."
"The corporate food system is to blame for exacerbating the scale of the outbreak as well as the high cost of eggs," the publication continues. "Factory farms are virus incubators, with the movement of animals, machines, and workers between operations helping to spread the virus."
"Meanwhile, just a handful of companies produce the majority of our eggs, giving them outsized control over the prices paid by retailers, who often pass on rising costs to consumers," the paper adds. "This highly consolidated food system also enables companies to leverage a temporary shortage in one region to raise prices across the entire country."
Cal-Maine, the nation's top egg producer, enjoyed a more than 600% increase in gross profits between fiscal years 2021-23, according to FWW. The Mississippi-based company did not suffer any avian flu outbreaks in fiscal year 2023, during which it sold more eggs than during the previous two years. Yet it still sold conventional eggs at nearly three times the price as in 2021, amounting to over $1 billion in windfall profits. Meanwhile Cal-Maine paid shareholders dividends totaling $250 million in 2023, 40 times more during the previous fiscal year.
The report highlights how factory farming creates ideal conditions for the spread of avian flu, a single case of which requires the extermination of the entire flock at the affected facility, under federal regulations.
"These impacts cannot be understated," FWW stressed. "Today's average factory egg farm confines over 800,000 birds, with some operations confining several million. This magnifies the scale of animal suffering and death, as well as the enormous environmental and safety burden of disposing of a million or more infected bird carcasses."
Citing U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) figures, The Guardianreported Tuesday that more than 54 million birds have been affected in the past three months alone.
Egg producers know precisely how the supply-and-demand implications of these outbreaks and subsequent culls can boost their bottom lines. Meanwhile, they play a dangerous game as epidemiologists widely view a potential avian flu mutation that can be transmitted from birds to humans as the next major pandemic threat—one that's exacerbated by the Trump administration's withdrawal from the World Health Organization and cuts to federal agencies focused on averting the next pandemic.
"We cannot afford to place our food system in the hands of a few corporations that put corporate profit above all else."
So far, 70 avian flu cases—one of them fatal—have been reported in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, under Trump, the CDC has stopped publishing regular reports on its avian flu response plans and activities. The USDA, meanwhile, said it "accidentally" terminated staffers working on avian flu response during the firing flurry under Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. The agency is scrambling to reverse the move.
"We cannot afford to place our food system in the hands of a few corporations that put corporate profit above all else," the FWW report argues. "Nor can we allow the factory farm system to continue polluting our environment and serving as the breeding ground for the next human pandemic."
"We need to enforce our nation's antitrust laws to go after corporate price fixing and collusion," the publication adds. "We also need a national ban on new and expanding factory farms, while transitioning to smaller, regional food systems that are more resilient to disruptions."
That is highly unlikely under Trump, whose policies—from taxation to regulation and beyond—have overwhelmingly favored the ultrawealthy and corporations over working Americans. Meanwhile, one of the president's signature campaign promises, to lower food prices "on day one," has evaporated amid ever-rising consumer costs.
According to the USDA's latest Food Price Outlook, overall food prices are projected to rise 3.4% in 2025. Eggs, however, are forecast to soar a staggering 41.1% this year—and possibly by as much as 74.9%.
"If President Trump has any interest in fulfilling his campaign pledge to lower food prices," Starbuck stressed, "he must begin by taking on the food monopolies exploiting pandemic threat for profit."
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The USDA and Corrupt Organic Certifiers Are Betraying Farmers and Consumers
Corporate agribusinesses are playing fast and loose with the rules by choosing friendly compliant certifiers—and when they are caught in the act, the USDA often fails to take action.
Oct 13, 2024
Some of the oldest and largest U.S. Department of Agriculture-accredited certifiers have partnered with corporate agribusiness to change the working definition of organics, allowing large livestock factories; certified, uninspected imports; and soilless hydroponic produce grown in giant industrial greenhouses to be certified organic.
Organic certifiers are mixing lobbying, marketing, and activism with their certification responsibilities, and taking payola from the clients they certify. They are also certifying “producer groups” in Eastern Europe, Central America, and Asia without inspecting and certifying each individual farm.
This is against the law and an egregious conflict of interest—and it’s crushing U.S. farmers in the marketplace while raking in billions of dollars in profit for these large certifiers.
The corrupt practices employed by these certifiers have left authentic organic farmers, who focus on sound soil stewardship and humane animal husbandry based on pasture, highly disadvantaged in the marketplace.
In 1990, Congress passed the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA), tasking the USDA with oversight of dozens of certifiers to ensure their independence and harmonization of standards.
Fast forward to today and the USDA is now allowing a handful of the largest certifiers to collude with corporate agribusiness to industrialize or import the organic food supply at the expense of high standards and the livelihoods of U.S. farmers who adhere to them.
As executive director of OrganicEye, an organic industry watchdog, I’ve witnessed family-scale organic farmers who abide by the USDA’s organic standards get crushed in the marketplace by dubious organic imports allowed into the U.S. without the certification or inspection that federal law requires.
In September, OrganicEye requested that the USDA Office of Inspector General investigate the National Organic Program for failing to prevent corporate influence—including financial payments made to certifiers over and above inspection fees—and failing to enforce other USDA regulations that prevent conflicts of interest, thus lowering the quality of certified organic food.
OrganicEye recently filed a third formal legal complaint against a certifier, Florida Organic Growers (FOG), and their certification arm, Quality Certification Services (QCS), for accepting contributions, conference sponsorships, and other payments over and above certification fees from operations they oversee.
FOG has joined two of the other largest “independent” certifiers in the country, California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) and Oregon Tilth, in selling out hard-working produce and livestock farmers by certifying giant industrial operations, many allegedly flagrantly breaking the law. Legal complaints against all three are currently pending.
When money changes hands between agribusiness clients and the profiting organizations that certify them, we call that “payola,” classically defined as corruption. These certifiers are acting as agents of the USDA. And the regulators in Washington responsible for auditing them are looking the other way.
Large organic certifiers should not be partnering with corporate agribusiness and cashing in on the growth of organics, especially while other certifiers are upholding the traditionally high standards.
In its first action to reign in certification abuses, OrganicEye filed an administrative law complaint against CCOF, the nation’s largest certifier, in November 2023 to address this out-of-control certification system.
We’ve seen organizations like CCOF, Oregon Tilth, and FOG morph from being among the founding farmer-led groups facilitating the growth of organic farming in the U.S. to multimillion-dollar business enterprises certifying multibillion-dollar corporate agribusinesses.
Recent IRS filings show these certification giants have reaped tens of millions of dollars a year in revenue while “masquerading” as tax-exempt public charities, with the vast preponderance of income derived from service fees paid by their business clients.
In addition to the controversies surrounding certification of livestock factories, a number of prominent certifiers, along with the industry’s primary lobby group, the Organic Trade Association, executed a stealthy campaign in 2017 that resulted in regulators allowing mammoth hydroponic greenhouses (soilless production) to be certified as organic, despite statutory and regulatory language requiring careful soil stewardship before a farm can be certified as organic under the USDA program.
That rich, organically-curated soil microbiome is the foundation of organic farming practices, resulting in superior nutrition density and flavor. That’s lacking in hydroponics, which uses liquid fertilizers derived from materials like conventional soybean meal.
The corrupt practices employed by these certifiers have left authentic organic farmers, who focus on sound soil stewardship and humane animal husbandry based on pasture, highly disadvantaged in the marketplace. With many small organic farms struggling economically—and hundreds more being forced out altogether—the devastating impacts are clear.
It doesn’t have to be this way. And not all certifiers are behaving badly.
For example, Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association is universally viewed as one of the most ethical certifiers. They do not approve hydroponic greenhouses or factory farms as organic.
Since OrganicEye began publishing its research concerning alleged improprieties at the nation’s largest certifiers, we have received numerous inquiries from farmers indicating interest in switching certifiers.
We hope that our research inspires ethical farmers and certified organic business operations to consider switching their allegiance and economic patronage to certifiers who share their values and interpretations of federal law.
In the meantime, consumers and eaters can use the same guide that we have prepared for farmers to help identify some of the most creditable organic food in the marketplace. Federal law requires every package with the word “organic” on the front label to include the name of the certifier supervising the production process. This is commonly found on the back or side panel near the ingredient list.
With the USDA delegating so much authority to certifiers, there are now effectively two organic labels: corporate brands affiliated with OTA lobbyists and certified by their members, motivated by profit and industry growth, and other ethical brands that have not lost touch with the foundational precepts of the organic movement.
OrganicEye is offering free consulting and other resources to farmers around the country who are switching their patronage to certifiers who share their values rather than undercutting their livelihoods.
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