This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
At a White House roundtable last Monday, president Donald Trump, alongside Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and a handful of other leaders in the government, announced a $12 billion farm aid program intended to offset the economic blowback that US farmers have faced this year as a result of the president’s volatile trade policies.
But there’s a catch: only major commodity farming operations—such as those that grow corn, cotton, peanuts, rice, wheat, and soybeans—will be eligible for more than 92 percent of the money, which is scheduled to begin flowing in February. Just $1 billion of the bailout has been set aside for farmers who produce other crops; when those payments will be made available has not yet been announced.
The move is par for the course from the administration, which has allocated a near-record total of $40 billion in farm subsidies this year, with at least two-thirds of those payments having gone to commodity farms. But Trump’s latest billion-dollar bailout does much more than funnel even more cash into Big Ag, which accounts for a significant share of the roughly 10 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions released by agricultural activities nationwide. The corporate handout is also adding kindling to a feud brewing within factions of the right wing in American politics.
During the president’s 2024 reelection campaign, Trump and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. both repeatedly promised to reign in the widespread use of dangerous pesticides and industry influence within the federal government. This messaging struck a chord with everyone from mom influencers to chiropractors and vaccine skeptics—all eager for an administration that would do away with all the corporate-fueled toxicity in the air we breathe, water we drink, and food we eat. Voters rallied around the need to clean it all up, and quickly.
After taking office, the administration changed course. Its new Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin has initiated a series of actions that have softened regulations on the chemical industry, including on products that have agricultural applications. In March, Zeldin promoted Nancy Beck to help lead the agency’s chemicals office. Beck previously worked as a lobbyist for the chemical industry, and as an EPA official during the first Trump administration, she fought against rigorous chemical regulations and became known for championing industry interests.