These past few months have been heart wrenching for those of us who care about, and are concerned about, social justice, human rights, the environment, the climate, our education system, freedom of speech, the right to choose, LBGTQ rights, and our farmers and food system. It seems like this administration has gotten great pleasure is dismantling and disrupting any programs that have to do with the bettering of this country.

As a board member of NOFA-NY, I am concerned about the future of our organic farmers, and whether they will be able to ride this wave of federal cuts to the grants and programs they depend on. The climate crisis is real, and we have a president who disregards the world’s scientists, and is turning back the clock on all safe guards and advancements prior administrations have made. The cuts he has made to the Dept. of Agriculture directly impacts our small and mid-sized farmers, and puts our whole food system at risk.

NOFA-NY, along with Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and the Environmental Working Group (EWG), represented by Earthjustice and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for unlawfully removing department webpages focused on climate change. These websites were used by farmers to help them make critical decisions on climate-smart farming, federal funding, conservation practices and ways to be more resilient to extreme weather.

This lawsuit asserts that the USDA is violating three federal laws: the Freedom of Information Act, which guarantees public access to important documents; the Paperwork Reduction Act, which requires proper notice before changes to information access; and the Administrative Procedure Act, which forbids arbitrary government actions.