This article was originally written by Marcie Craig from the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA-NY).
In a major win for climate-resilient agriculture, the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York (NOFA-NY), along with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Environmental Working Group (EWG), has secured a legal settlement compelling the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to restore critical climate-related content that had been unlawfully removed from its website.
Filed in February 2025 with the support of Earthjustice and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, the lawsuit challenged the USDA’s removal of essential online resources under pressure from President Trump’s administration. These erased webpages had offered vital tools for farmers navigating the climate crisis—including guidance on risk management, climate-smart practices, and access to financing options.
Vital Climate Resources Erased from USDA Website
For NOFA-NY and its members, along with farmers nationwide, web-based USDA resources serve as information and resources for farmers to advance their climate-smart agriculture practices, improve their capacity to identify and manage climate-change-related risks and vulnerabilities. More importantly, farmers use the website resources to explore financing options for implementing practices or expanding their operations. The abrupt removal of this content on 31 January 2025 made it harder for farmers to find support during a time when flooding, droughts, and other extreme events are intensifying across regions like New York and New England.
The Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York (NOFA-NY) was joined by the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Environmental Working Group (EWG) in suing the U.S. Department of Agriculture for unlawfully removing department webpages focused on climate change.
A Wider Hit on Climate and Farming
This lawsuit is just one front in a broader struggle. The current administration has been issuing a barrage of Executive Orders and policy decisions that are putting farmers across the United States of America at great risk. Some of the most impactful orders and actions for the agricultural community include rolling back key climate change resilience investments and climate justice efforts made by the previous administration, gutting the federal workforce including thousands of United States Department of Agriculture employees, targeting immigrant farm and food chain workers for deportation, implementing tariffs that increase costs for all farmers, not just those that sell internationally, and attacking efforts to increase diversity, equity and inclusion in government funded programs.
This lawsuit is just one front in a broader struggle. The current administration has been issuing a barrage of Executive Orders and policy decisions that are putting farmers across the United States of America at great risk.
In response to the orders, government agencies (already experiencing challenges from workforce reductions) are being required to review programs and public resources, including billions of dollars of public agriculture funding, for compliance with President’s Trump mandates. This has resulted in funding freezes which have halted payouts for signed and executed government contracts for farming and agriculture and has stalled the execution of new contracts and funding requests for proposals.
Standing Up for Food Sovereignty and Climate Justice
This is just the beginning of what is likely to be a long struggle to protect and strengthen farms and local food systems in the face of threats to food sovereignty and democracy.
Many other US organisations with missions supporting organic agriculture have joined us in this case and some are also involved in other legal battles with the federal government. NOFA-NY remains committed to defending organic and regenerative farmers and food businesses and will continue to advocate on their behalf for the tools and support they need to operate climate-resilient, socially just and profitable businesses.
