Agriculture

Kim Paul, executive director of the Piikani Lodge Health Institute, a nonprofit on the Blackfeet Reservation that promotes health and well-being, saw the email notification flash across her computer screen as she was working late one day recently.

It was the U.S. Department of Agriculture saying a nearly $9-million grant contract with Piikani Lodge had been terminated.

“The U.S. Department of Agriculture has determined that awards under this program involved discriminatory preferences based on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and wasteful spending that did little to further lawful agricultural land purchases,” the USDA wrote.

Paul was stunned. Piikani Lodge had planned to use the grant to improve operations for Native and non-Native farmers and ranchers in the Montana region. The nonprofit had already separately acquired 600 acres on the Blackfeet Reservation and planned to use the USDA funds to build a training hub for food producers and support about 300 farmers and ranchers in Glacier and Pondera counties.

Paul said she became short of breath when she saw the email. She dreaded sharing the news with her team.

“It was horror,” she said. “The horror of losing stability for our community.”

Funded through the Biden-era American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the Increasing Land, Capital and Market Access Program was designed to support “underserved” farmers and ranchers. It awarded about $300 million to 50 grantees in 2023. Forty-nine of those grants were terminated last month.

At least two additional projects in Montana were affected by the cancellations: a Chippewa Cree Tribe project to purchase land and train young farmers and ranchers how to manage it; and one run by South Dakota-based Four Bands Community Fund that would have trained and financially supported at least 25 low-income agricultural producers in North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana.

Montana-based awardees called the terminations “devastating.” They also say the grant cancellations were based on a false presumption that tribal initiatives fall under the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion — DEI — rubric, and that USDA claims of wasteful spending are baseless.

Asked for comment, a USDA spokesperson said in a statement Thursday that the agency “has worked to clean up the mess left for us by the last Administration. To no surprise, a peek behind the curtain of this Biden-era program revealed the egregious misuse of taxpayer dollars.”

Piikani Lodge Health Institute leaders say they will have to restructure budgets and reconfigure staffing to keep some semblance of their project going. The Chippewa Cree Tribal project may be halted altogether. Four Bands Community Fund did not respond to an interview request by publication deadline. Awardees say the terminations hinder economic progress, not just in their communities but across the state.

Montana projects targeted

The Chippewa Cree Tribe in north central Montana was awarded a grant of nearly $6 million for a land acquisition project.

Chippewa Cree planning director Neal Rosette said the tribe planned to purchase agricultural land on and around the reservation and train prospective farmers and ranchers how to manage it.

Though reservation land can be used for farming and ranching, Rosette said, land prices can keep people from entering the industry. The Rocky Boy’s Reservation is home to almost 3,400 people, about 35% of whom live below the poverty line, according to U.S. census data. The median household income on the reservation is $49,550, almost $26,000 less than the state average.

“We are trying to give opportunities to our young folks to make a living,” Rosette said.

Rosette said people working on the project had been trying to close on a 320-acre reservation property for months. The land costs about $400,000, but, according to Rosette, the tribe has received only about $50,000 of the nearly $6-million grant since 2023. The tribe, he said, asked USDA repeatedly to release the funds, but received minimal communication from the agency.

“They drug their feet, drug their feet, and then finally they pulled the rug out from under us,” he said.

Rosette has written many grants for the tribe in the past. He said receiving the termination letter from USDA marked “the first time I’ve ever got to the point where I felt like crying.”

“It’s so, so, so cruel,” he said. “It’s the worst feeling in the world. It was devastating for everybody. We were so proud of this project. We were so happy that we were finally going to be able to recover some lands for the benefit of our young people. And now it’s gone.”

Micaela Young, development director at Piikani Lodge Health Institute, said the canceled grant will delay construction on the community training center on the Blackfeet Reservation.

The Piikani Lodge project included building an industrial community kitchen where agricultural producers could prepare and process products such as jam and jerky.

In its termination letter to Piikani Lodge, the USDA cited a “$20,000 allocation for a [barbecue] smoker” as an example of funding for items “outside the program’s mission of increasing land access.” The USDA has also mentioned a “$20,000 [barbecue] smoker” in statements to other media outlets as an example of “inappropriate spending.”

Paul said the characterization is hurtful.

“We did all this work, we spent so many years on this,” she said. “To say this was built on fraud? It’s a travesty. This was going to be five years of jobs for our people. Can you imagine the economic development that would come from that?”

‘’DEI’ is the new buzzword’

Paul and Rosette both took issue with the USDA’s assertion that programs benefiting tribes fall into the category of DEI. It’s well established in federal law that tribal citizenship is a political classification, not a racial one.

In a May 2025 memorandum, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins acknowledged the distinction, writing that “the Department’s unique government-to-government relationship” with tribes and their members “are legally distinct from policy-based Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs.”

“We are a sovereign nation,” Rosette said of the Chippewa Cree Tribe. “We have a political relationship with this government.”

Democratic state Sen. Jonathan Windy Boy, a citizen of the Chippewa Cree Tribe who is running for Congress in Montana’s eastern district, called the agriculture department’s DEI reasoning “ludicrous.”

“‘DEI’ is the new buzzword in D.C.,” he said. “Why isn’t our delegation protecting the sovereign status of the tribes? The bottom line is we don’t have representation in D.C.”

Asked for comment on the grant terminations, a spokesperson for the incumbent in the eastern district, Rep. Troy Downing, said his “office is aware of the rescinded grants and welcomes input from community members regarding their impact.” A spokesperson for Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) said the senator “is looking into the grant cancellations and will always work to support Montana’s tribal communities.”

Sen. Tim Sheehy and Rep. Ryan Zinke, both Republicans, did not respond to requests for comment.

Walter Schweitzer, president of the Montana Farmers Union, said that as land, livestock and equipment prices increase, and as more farms are purchased by corporate entities, it becomes increasingly hard for young people to enter the agriculture industry.

“The average age of a farmer or rancher is somewhere around 60,” he said. “We need to encourage and incentivize any way we can to get young people involved in agriculture. And having diversity in who gets into agriculture is a positive thing because they bring a diverse set of ideas.”

Young, of Piikani Lodge Health Institute, said agricultural producers living on tribal land also face unique challenges. A patchwork of historical and sometimes conflicting federal policies have congealed over the course of more than a century into an unwieldy system of property ownership on reservations. Banks have not learned to effectively navigate the legal, bureaucratic and financial peculiarities of that system, making it difficult for prospective producers to access the capital necessary to enter the agricultural industry. Tribes, Young said, are also often located far from markets where they could sell their products.

“These kinds of projects that bring capital into Native communities can really help revitalize their main streets, increase public safety, there’s the opioid crisis, the suicide crisis in tribal communities, and people are really looking for hope,” Young said. “People are looking for jobs. Families need that income. So this kind of work really does lift up our Native communities to strengthen the overall state.”

What’s next?

Piikani Lodge leaders said they plan to file an appeal through the National Appeals Division, which reports directly to the secretary of agriculture, before the 30-day deadline.

Andrew Berger, director of agriculture and climate adaptation at Piikani Lodge, said the organization is drafting a petition urging restoration of the funds.

“We’re still wrapping our heads around this,” he said. “[The grant] supported salaries and internships and all kinds of things. So we need to fill those gaps with other funding.”

Rosette isn’t sure whether the Chippewa Cree Tribe will file an appeal, which he noted requires time and resources. He said the tribe plans to ask the USDA to reconsider its decision.

“Whether they will listen?” he said. “Who knows?”

This story was originally published by Montana Free Press and distributed through a partnership with the Associated Press.

Gurdaspur, Punjab, India – Ramesh Kumar, 42, is anxiously doing the calculations for his crops this year.

Standing at the edge of his wheat field in northwest Punjab’s Gurdaspur, he runs through the numbers in his head, totting up fertiliser costs, expected yield, and market prices.

Then he shifts to more personal concerns: School fees, household expenses, loan repayments and the money he has been saving for his daughter Varsha’s wedding.

“I don’t know if we can afford it this year,” he says. “Everything depends on the crop.”

The uncertainty has crept in quietly.

Fertiliser, once a fairly predictable staple in farming, has become more expensive and harder to secure in time. For Kumar, it is not so much a question of cost as it is the difference between stability and strain.

“If prices go up more, we will have to cut somewhere,” he says. “Maybe delay the wedding. If things get worse … even children’s education becomes difficult.”

School fees for his eldest son, Amit, 12, are due in the coming weeks, and Kumar has been setting aside money for his younger daughter Varsha’s future wedding.

It’s never easily affordable, even in good times. “We somehow manage,” Kumar says. “But if the harvest is weak, then we have to think about what to prioritise, what to delay.”

For farmers like him across South Asia, the United States-Israel war on Iran – unfolding thousands of kilometres away – is not just a matter of distant geopolitics.

It is shaping decisions inside their homes.

A distant crisis with local consequences

At the centre of the unfolding crisis is the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow shipping lane more than 2,000km (1,240 miles) from India’s northern plains. It lies between Iran and Oman, linking the Gulf and its oil producers to the open ocean and, from there, to global markets.

About one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies pass through this body of water, which Iran closed down shortly after the first US-Israeli strikes on Tehran on February 28.

Vast volumes of LNG, essential for manufacturing nitrogen-based fertilisers, are transported from Gulf producers to Asia via this route. Any disruption can delay shipments, push up freight and insurance costs and place a stranglehold on supply.

Interruptions to the supply of fertiliser can ripple quickly, reducing crop yields, increasing costs and raising food prices.

The risks are already being felt thousands of kilometres away.

South Asia, home to nearly two billion people, relies heavily on fertiliser-intensive farming to produce staple crops such as wheat and rice. Over the past few decades, the increasing use of fertilisers – which can hugely boost crop yields – has played a key role in agricultural productivity across the region.

The agriculture sector now employs about 46 percent of the workforce in India, about 38 percent in Pakistan, nearly 40 percent in Bangladesh, and more than 60 percent in Nepal.

The degree to which countries in the region depend on the Strait of Hormuz varies, but all rely heavily on the trade in fertilisers that this shipping route facilitates.

In India, the agriculture sector is worth $400bn, according to Indian government and World Bank data, and supports the livelihoods of more than half the population, either directly or indirectly. More than 100 million farming families are directly dependent on the sector.

The country imports a substantial share of its fertiliser requirements and other key raw materials, particularly phosphates and potash, as well as natural gas used to manufacture fertiliser, with about 30–35 percent of these supplies moving through or originating from routes that pass via the Strait of Hormuz.

In Pakistan, the agriculture sector contributes close to 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), according to Pakistan government estimates, and employs millions. About 20-25 percent of Pakistan’s fertiliser imports, particularly DAP (diammonium phosphate), pass through the Strait of Hormuz at some point in transit. Additionally, the sector relies on domestic natural gas for the production of urea, a key nitrogen-based fertiliser and, with Gulf natural gas supplies held up in the Strait of Hormuz, the price of natural gas everywhere – even at home – is on the rise.

In Bangladesh, where millions of smallholder farmers rely heavily on imported fertilisers, the agricultural sector accounts for about 12-13 percent of GDP, according to government data. The country’s farming industry relies heavily on imported fertilisers to sustain crops, meaning farmers are highly exposed to international supply shocks and price swings.

Furthermore, roughly 25-30 percent of Bangladesh’s imported fertiliser is shipped via routes passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

Nepal, where agriculture contributes about 24 percent of GDP, imports nearly all of its fertiliser needs, with about 25-30 percent of arriving via India, via the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.

Livelihoods at stake

Overall, even minor disruption in the Gulf – let alone the complete closure of the critical Strait of Hormuz – can have dire consequences for hundreds of millions of people.

The Indian government has sought to reassure farmers that supplies remain secure – for now.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Parliament on March 23: “Adequate arrangements have been made for fertiliser supply for the summer sowing season…The government has diversified options for oil, gas and fertiliser imports… Domestic production of urea, DAP and NPK [nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertilisers] has been expanded… Farmers now have access to Made in India Nano Urea and are encouraged to adopt natural farming…”

He added: “Under the PM Kusum scheme, more than 22 lakh (2.2 million) solar pumps have been provided, reducing dependence on diesel… I am confident that through joint efforts, India will manage these challenges effectively and continue to support our farmers.”

On the ground, however, confidence is low. Farmers say uncertainty is already influencing decisions.

In Pampore, in the south of Indian-administered Kashmir, 53-year-old mustard farmer Ghulam Rasool says price signals travel faster than supply disruptions.

“We hear about war, about shipping problems,” he tells Al Jazeera. “Even before shortages happen, fertiliser becomes expensive.”

Rasool says farmers often respond early by cutting down on the amount of fertiliser they are using, even before actual shortages emerge.

“If we use less, production will fall,” he says. “But sometimes we have no choice.”

In Pakistan’s South Punjab, wheat farmer Muneer Ahmad, 45, is preparing for the next sowing cycle.

“If fertiliser becomes expensive, it will affect everyone here,” he says.

Government officials have expressed confidence in Pakistan’s fertiliser supply amid the Middle East conflict, and claim the government is fully prepared to ensure adequate supplies during the region’s peak sowing period, which typically begins between April and June, depending on the crop.

According to a statement by Pakistan’s federal secretary for agriculture to Al Jazeera, Federal Minister Rana Tanveer Hussain told a meeting on March 25 that the government has started proactive monitoring, is expanding domestic urea and DAP production and taking steps to ensure fertilisers reach farmers at affordable prices.

However, urea production requires supplies of natural gas, meaning global energy price shocks can still translate into rising production costs.

For farmers, even small increases matter

“We already have loans and expenses,” Ahmad says. “If costs go up, we feel it immediately.”

In Rangpur, northwestern Bangladesh, farmer Mohammad Ibrahim, 41, says fertiliser supplies are already becoming unpredictable.

“Sometimes it is available, sometimes not,” he says. “And when it comes, the price is higher.”

Meanwhile, in Nepal’s Gulmi district, farmer Meghnath Aryal, 38, worries that crops will be reduced if a major supply problem does appear.

“If fertiliser does not arrive on time, the crop suffers,” he says. “If it becomes expensive, we reduce use.”

Bangladesh’s Agriculture Secretary Rafiqul Mohammad told Al Jazeera the government is “closely monitoring the situation” and officials have tried to reassure farmers that fertiliser supplies are sufficient for the coming months.

The government has finalised plans to import about 500,000 tonnes of urea in the near term, while also exploring alternative suppliers such as China and Morocco to secure additional supplies in the longer term.

There is no immediate shortage at present, the Agriculture Ministry says.

Ram Krishna Shrestha, joint secretary at Nepal’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, told Al Jazeera that fertiliser distribution within the country remains largely stable for now, with supplies already secured for the upcoming rainy season, particularly for paddy crops such as rice.

However, he warned that there may be delays to contracted shipments as a result of the Middle East crisis.

“We have managed fertilisers for the upcoming season, but there could be challenges in timely supply because of the current situation,” he said, pointing to global price increases and logistical disruptions, including those caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Shrestha added that as companies report shortages and rising prices in international markets, the government has asked suppliers to expedite deliveries.

“Authorities are also advising farmers to increase the use of traditional nutrient sources such as farmyard manure, compost, green manuring and azolla [a natural fertiliser] to offset any potential shortfall in chemical fertilisers,” he said.

No immediate new fertiliser subsidies have been announced, he said, though adjustments remain under discussion as the situation evolves.

Rising food prices on the horizon

The implications extend beyond individual farmers.

Across South Asia, fertiliser use has been central to maintaining crop yields – and keeping large populations fed. Any reduction in availability or increase in costs can quickly lower production. That, in turn, pushes up food prices, a sensitive issue in a region where households spend a large proportion of their income on food.

For governments, the challenge is complex.

In the past, subsidies have kept fertilisers affordable for farmers, but this becomes a fragile balancing act if global prices rise, placing additional pressure on public finances.

In India, Ramesh Kumar is already making adjustments – but he is walking a tightrope.

He has decided to use less fertiliser this season, even though he knows it could reduce yields.

“It is a risk,” he says. “But what choice do we have?”

Lower production will mean less income and harder decisions at home.

“School fees have to be paid,” he says. “Household expenses cannot stop.” He looks across his field.

“And the wedding… we will see.”

Ultimately, sacrifices will have to be made in his household.

Across borders, the same uncertainty is unfolding.

In Pakistan, Ahmad is worried about rising costs. In Bangladesh, Ibrahim is mostly concerned about the availability of fertiliser and, in Nepal, Aryal fears delays in supply.

For Ramesh Kumar, the stakes are clear.

“For others, this is about war,” he says. “For us, it is about whether we can take care of our family.”

Farmers in northern India are dressing up in bear costumes to protect their crops from monkeys. The unconventional strategy comes as residents complain of hundreds of monkeys raiding homes and farmlands.