We were awaiting payment for a USDA grant awarded to us in 2024 when the Administration froze all payments on January 27th. Initially we were hopeful that the judge’s ruling would lift the freeze, but the Administration has kept the freeze in place.
 
The grant would have allowed us to expand our regenerative farming approach. My wife Sue and I took money out of retirement savings to pay for work completed in October 2024 with the expectation that the USDA would uphold their end of the bargain. Other farmers have done similar.
 
Perhaps that was a bit naive on our part. Our grant was awarded out of USDA’s Climate Smart Commodities Partnership. It would help us conserve more forest, reduce fire risk without the use of herbicides while providing food and medicine for our cattle. With the word “climate” in it, it was bound to be a target for the Administration. I think of it as a Conservation grant. Most farms cut down forest to make room for cattle. This grant would have allowed us to conserve the forest by fencing it and allowing our Pineywoods Cattle herd to graze it, also know as silvopasture.

A Food & Medicine Forest attempts to mimic nature. It provides bio-diverse, perennially growing food and medicine and tools. The benefits of growing a Food & Medicine Forest range from carbon capture to self-reliance to increasing biodiversity. We have started started converting an old hay field intoto a Food & Medicine Forest. This area of the farm contributes heavily to our health and is one of the reasons Sue, who is a cancer survivor, has not taken any prescription or over-the-counter drugs in 8 years.

We’ve allowed wildflowers and ‘weeds’ to grow and added native species of shrubs, trees and flowers, and perennial food plants. Our goals have been multi-fold. In no specific order, these include: