When Sharon Mallory’s nonprofit received a $13 million federal grant to help farmers, it felt like a blessing and answered prayer.
Through the 2020 Farmers Cooperative, the group had planned to purchase equipment and land and offer technical assistance to Black farmers. But in March, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency snatched those dollars when it sent Mallory a letter terminating the grant.
It was part of the Increasing Land, Capital, and Market Access Program, which awarded $300 million to 50 projects. The program, created under former President Joe Biden’s administration, was designed to address the yearslong discrimination against farmers of color that led to their historic land loss. However, the Trump administration alleged the program resulted in an “egregious misuse of taxpayer dollars” and no longer aligned with USDA’s priorities. Capital B filed a FOIA request with the USDA to investigate the agency’s claims regarding the expenses.
Mallory wasn’t the only one impacted — and now they’re taking their fight to the courts.
This week, 24 organizations, including the 2020 Farmers Cooperative, joined a lawsuit to sue the USDA, four of its departments, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and its leaders. The coalition of groups argue that the eliminated grants violated their due process rights. They want the judge to reverse the terminations and require the USDA to restore $127 million in grants allocated to these organizations.
“There’s no secret to land loss in the country. There’s no secret to how this country was built, so when you’re providing preferential treatment to some and not others, that is my biggest problem,” she said. “When you try to wipe out things just based upon DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion], you really miss the whole impact of what agriculture is really all about. To cancel those grants only compounds an issue that America didn’t have a good grip on.”
The suit was originally filed in June 2025 on behalf of five organizations that also faced similar grant cancellations of programs established during Biden’s tenure.
These programs included:
- U.S. Forest Service’s Urban and Community Forestry Assistance Program
- National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Community Food Projects Competitive Grant Program
- NIFA’s Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program, and
- Agricultural Marketing Service’s Regional Food System Partnerships Program
Farmers say the failure to deliver the programs is acutely impacting Black farmers jobs, livelihoods and the communities they serve, the lawsuit said. Producers are already struggling with increased costs of fertilizer, equipment, and paying for certifications, Mallory said.
The attorneys alleged that the USDA and DOGE “began engaging in a policy, pattern, and practice of unlawfully terminating federal grant awards” following Trump’s executive orders targeting DEI efforts.
The plaintiffs also argued that the USDA’s internal appeals division found that the terminations weren’t based on the “individual application of specific program criteria,” but that termination was based on the general policy priorities of the USDA. They filed a preliminary injunction to expedite the process to receive the funds.
Assistant U.S. Attorney John Bardo did not respond to Capital B’s request for comment. However, a USDA spokesperson said in a written statement to Capital B that it will not comment on pending litigation.
The defendants claimed the plaintiffs failed to establish “irreparable harm” and their claims would not succeed, according to court documents. The USDA said the farmers should have brought their claims to the Court of Federal Claims, not the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C, where it was filed. The agency did agree in its argument that several of the grants no longer aligned with the USDA’s priorities.
In August, U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell ruled the USDA illegally terminated the funds and ordered the department to honor the grants. While it protected those five organizations, there were many others that were impacted. That is why when the Land Access Program was nixed in March, an additional 24 new plaintiffs were added to an amended complaint, said Hannah Wolf, FarmSTAND staff attorney and counsel for the plaintiffs.
“They were kind of using keyword searches to find anything related to DEI, and just canceling them without any sort of rigorous and reasoned review explaining the termination,” Wolf said. “That’s what happened last year, and that’s exactly what it seems like happened this time around.”
Some of the farmer-led organizations alleged they never received a termination letter, but learned of the elimination of the grant through a USDA press release. California-based Agroecology Commons was one of them.
The group was awarded nearly $2.5 million through the land access program to help queer, Indigenous, and Black farmers to acquire land, capital and markets. In early 2025, the USDA froze the funds, which halted the work. By June, Agroecology read a press release where U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the closure of the program, court documents show.
In Oregon, Qiddist Ashé didn’t get any money out the door.
Her organization, the Black Oregon Land Trust, was awarded $2.5 million. She planned to use $800,000 to purchase land, distribute $300,000 to the Black Food Fund for mini-grants to local farmers, and increase market access for the state’s Black farmers. She couldn’t get in contact with USDA employees regarding the grant. The next thing she knew she received a termination letter.
“It’s definitely a loss, but not a surprising one,” she told Capital B in April. Her organization is part of the lawsuit.
Kwabena Sika, founding director of OurSpace World Inc., was also not surprised at the agency’s decision. After being awarded nearly $8.5 million, Sika said the organization experienced significant delays.
“The USDA required additional, unexpected approvals for the major components of our project, including land purchase and construction. But due to staffing reductions at the agency, our emails and correspondence often went unanswered,” Sika wrote Capital B. “Because we couldn’t get those necessary approvals, we were forced to pivot and focus only on the smaller pieces we could actually accomplish on our own.”
Despite the challenges, the organization did get to connect some farmers with new markets and help them with infrastructure. For example, one farmer sold his first dozen eggs.
In such a difficult political climate with dwindling resources, this program’s deterioration is yet another setback for Black farmers, Sika added. OurSpace also joined the suit to fight back.
“The current environment is financially disincentivizing us from helping Black farmers, and signaling that it is wrong to focus on helping certain socioeconomic classes,” he said. “Instead of slowing our efforts to help Black farmers, the current climate has served as a wake-up call that has us recommitting and doubling down on our efforts.”
While the legal process plays out, Mallory is calling on the public to buy and support local, small-scale farmers.
“Hit those farmers markets this summer and support small-scale farmers,” she said. “This grant elimination is not just about unfair and unjust practices, it’s really about starving America.”
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