For forty years, sustainable farmers have counted on USDA conservation programs Swampbuster and Sodbuster. These two programs make farmers who take on good land stewardship practices eligible to access certain pools of federal funding. Yet, a lawsuit now before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa puts these programs in jeopardy. 

The case, CTM Holdings, LLC v. U.S. Department of Agriculture, is an absentee landowner’s attempt to convince a court that Swampbuster is unconstitutional. This tactic is a page straight out of Project 2025, the playbook for the Trump presidency written by ultra-conservative groups. Project 2025’s authors believe USDA shouldn’t incentivize commonsense land management practices on the millions of acres within the agency’s regulatory purview. But many farmers disagree.

Beyond protecting vital wetlands and preventing soil erosion, these programs help stabilize crop prices by preventing excessive planting, ensuring sustainable incomes for farmers. That’s why a group of farmers and their families represented by Food & Water Watch, the Environmental Law and Policy Center, and Iowa Environmental Council moved to intervene in the CTM Holdings case. 

On December 3, 2024, the Court agreed with us that sustainable farmers deserve a seat at the table, granting our coalition’s motion to intervene. Three days later, the Court issued a second order denying CTM Holdings’ premature attempt to win the case before it was even fully briefed. In that order, the Judge specifically noted that he shared our concerns about the factual claims the Plaintiff has made to support its case. 

We have the law and common sense on our side. Multiple Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals cases have already agreed that restricting access to funding based on reasonable public policy goals is perfectly constitutional. And upholding Swampbuster just makes sense. The government should not be forced to provide funding to farmers who refuse to steward the land for future generations. Plus, ruling Swampbuster unconstitutional would imperil myriad government programs that include commonsense eligibility requirements for federal funding recipients. We plan to safeguard our government’s right to deem irresponsible farmers ineligible for federal funding until we have an administration that agrees that wetlands and sustainable farmers are worth protecting.