Democrats on a U.S. House spending panel slammed President Donald Trump’s proposed cuts to farm and nutrition programs Thursday, as Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins pledged to collaborate with members of both parties to address their concerns.
The president’s budget request would make deep cuts to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, gutting programs to help feed hungry people and support farmers in need — even as the rising costs of groceries, gas and other necessities made those programs even more essential, Democrats on the House Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee told Rollins.
“It’ll be hard for our constituents to believe that USDA serves America’s farmers and rural communities when USDA is taking away their services,” the panel’s ranking Democrat, Sanford Bishop of Georgia, said.
The proposed USDA budget for fiscal 2027 would cut $4.9 billion, or nearly one-fifth of the department’s budget. Already, due to the Republican spending and tax cuts law last year, 2.5 million people have lost access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the department’s major food assistance initiative.
Trump overall in his budget request is seeking a huge boost in defense spending accompanied by cuts in domestic programs.
Rollins defended the budget proposal, but projected a spirit of cooperation with the panel, which writes the annual spending bill for her department, telling Democrats and Republicans that she would be happy to address their priorities. She offered to field direct phone calls from several members.
Asked by Michigan Republican Rep. John Moolenaar about foreign growers undercutting U.S. sugar producers, she said she was ready to take on the issue in upcoming trade negotiations.
“We’ve got a lot going on around the world, but anything you hear, Congressman, that you think would be helpful for me, any way I can lean in… I would love to get more involved in that,” she said. “We are making progress but it does need to remain a priority.”
Rollins also touted some of her department’s wins over the past year, noting that bird flu cases were down 61% and that egg prices had also dropped.
The administration has also increased exports of key crops and Republicans’ massive spending and tax cuts bill raised the exemption to the federal estate tax that allows more family farms to be inherited with fewer taxes, she said.
She also called the Make America Healthy Again initiative that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spearheaded, with USDA also playing a major part, “one of our most important legacies.”
She agreed to Maine Democrat Chellie Pingree’s request to develop a “comprehensive overview” for the Make America Healthy Again philosophy.
Democrats on the panel, including leading members Bishop and full Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, hammered the budget request’s many cuts.
The budget would eliminate more than 70 USDA programs and was particularly ill-timed as prices continue to climb, DeLauro said.
“The price of everyday goods continues to escalate: Grocery prices are up, gas prices are up, utility costs, housing costs, health care costs are through the roof,” she said. “And the administration’s only plan is to decimate the public programs that help alleviate the strain on working families and farmers across the country.”
Bishop complained that assistance from the Farm Service Agency, which provides credit, disaster relief and other financial programs, would be more difficult for farmers to access.
Rollins sought to justify the proposed decrease, noting that the cuts Bishop mentioned made up only about 4% of the total department budget.
But she also said she would never close a Farm Service Agency office and offered to work directly with the Democrat and others to address understaffed offices.
“But as we are looking to make sure we are honoring the taxpayer, making sure we’re doing the best we can with every tax dollar, while putting the farmers first, (we are) taking key advice from you,” she said.
She added that members should contact the department “if you hear of an FSA office that isn’t fully staffed, or that the farmers aren’t getting what they need — and I realize they’re out there, I’m not living in some Pollyanna world, these are very difficult times.”
She ended her dialogue with Bishop by telling him to “feel free to call me, sir, anytime.”
DeLauro and Bishop led a push to assert Congress’ power to control spending, executed by Appropriations committees in both chambers.
Bishop said he expected USDA to “not circumvent this appropriations process by refusing to spend or obligate program funding once it is signed into law.”
DeLauro quizzed Rollins about a grant program that was created in a December 2024 law to assist farmers hit by extreme weather events over the prior two years. “Not a single dime” of the $220 million appropriated in the law had been allocated to qualifying states, DeLauro said.
Again, Rollins was conciliatory, saying the issue was a priority for the department and that funding for DeLauro’s home state was “at the finish line.”
“Yes ma’am, we’re moving on that,” she said.