{"id":137554,"date":"2026-03-13T17:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T17:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/137554\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T17:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T17:25:08","slug":"usda-restores-59m-contract-with-pennsylvania-farm-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/137554\/","title":{"rendered":"USDA restores $59M contract with Pennsylvania farm group\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pasa Sustainable Agriculture has announced the reinstatement of a $59 million contract with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. <\/p>\n

Soon after President Trump took office last year, the federal government abruptly stopped payment and then terminated<\/a> the five-year agreement, which was part of the Biden administration\u2019s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities Program.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m thrilled to say that after a year of lawsuits and appeals and repeatedly going back to USDA to renegotiate that, we did secure our contract,\u201d said Pasa executive director Hannah Kinney Smith.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As part of the renegotiations, the contract no longer covers payments for climate and equity-focused farm investments, but still includes conservation projects, business and marketing for farms.<\/p>\n

Smith said Pasa has been able to rehire half of the 60 people it had to lay off when the contract was canceled.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania farm group faces layoffs amid federal funding freeze<\/a><\/p>\n

Pasa\u2019s initial contract with USDA was intended to help 2,000 smaller farmers in 15 states, from Maine to South Carolina, address climate issues, such as projects that reduce flood risk by fencing cattle away from waterways or planting perennial crops.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The equity aspects directed some benefits to underserved farm producers, environmental justice organizations, minority-focused institutions of higher education and tribal groups.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before Pasa\u2019s contract was terminated, it had funded 125 farm conservation projects through the program and received 850 additional applications.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Under the renegotiated $59 million contract, Pasa has about $50 million left to spend, according to Smith.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She said that by making the funds available again, the money can help farmers, strengthen agricultural communities and care for landscapes, at a time when it is sorely needed.<\/p>\n

\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\"A\t\t\t<\/a>
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\u201cThings right now are downright volatile when it comes to agriculture, when it comes to markets, when it comes to trade, when it comes to the climate,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd so it\u2019s really, really important to just keep plugging away at what farmers need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pasa joined a federal lawsuit<\/a> last March along with municipalities and other non-profit organizations affected by President Trump\u2019s funding freeze.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, we did have a lawsuit; yes, we did an appeal,\u201d Smith said. But she doesn\u2019t think that was the main driver behind the government capitulation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s more that we were so determined, and we kept going back and going back and going back, that the federal government realized that there was going to be a lot of pressure to have these funds be returned,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

USDA has not responded to a request for comment about the Pasa contract.<\/p>\n

Details about timelines, application processes and farmer eligibility will be released in the coming weeks, according to Pasa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pasa Sustainable Agriculture has announced the reinstatement of a $59 million contract with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[63297,21682,28,30,29],"class_list":["post-137554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-13-march-2026-episode","tag-flooding","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}