USDA is removing some climate change-related content from its website while officials review whether the information should remain online.

In an email to public affairs directors within the department, the Office of Communications (OC) in Washington, D.C., asked agency website managers to “conduct a review of their websites for any content related to climate change.”

The email, which went out the afternoon of Thursday, asked website managers to “identify and archive or unpublish any landing pages focused on climate change” and then “identify all web content related to climate change and document it in a spreadsheet for OC review.”

“For each piece of content, include the title, link, and your recommendation on how the content should be handled,” the email said. Public affairs officials were asked to submit their spreadsheets to OC by the close of business today.

“OC will review the submitted materials and make determinations on next steps,” the email said.

USDA kept its climate-related information online during the first Trump administration from 2017-2021. USDA’s press office did not respond immediately to an inquiry about the purpose behind the latest move.

One webpage that has been removed is a Natural Resources Conservation Service page on climate-smart mitigation activities 

A dashboard and summaries of projects that received funding from the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities initiative remained available as of late Friday afternoon. However, a more general page on the program and climate solutions was removed. 

Anne Schechinger, Midwest director at the Environmental Working Group, said the investment made to conservation practices through the IRA was the “single most important” step the country has taken to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. By taking down these sites, she said it’s hard to tell if the country will invest enough money in conservation to make a difference in these reductions.

Specifically, Schechinger said it’s worrisome that USDA removed the website with the list of climate-smart practices. She said this is the only list that had a consensus on practices that are actually beneficial for mitigation

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“Taking down that page makes it really hard for farmers to even know what to do on their farms for mitigation and then also for adaptation and resilience, because a lot of the practices on that list were also really good for helping farmers adapt to extreme weather from climate change,” Schechinger said. 

She added that some conservation programs like the Conservation Stewardship Program and Environmental Quality Incentives Program also use this list of practices. 

By removing these pages from official government websites, Schechinger said it demonstrates climate-smart ag and conservation are not a priority for the administration, despite bipartisan popularity for these programs among farmers. 

This latest move, combined with the uncertainty generated by OMB’s now-rescinded memo on funding freezes, should worry farmers, Schechinger said. 

“It’s so hard to know what contracts are going to be funded,” Schechinger said. “It definitely has brought a lot of turmoil to farmers to know what they're going to be able to get funding for this year.”

As of Friday afternoon, the page on USDA Climate Hubs was still available. Schechinger said this is where a lot of important research and information on adaptation is available for farmers dealing with flooding or extreme heat. 

“That would really be catastrophic if the Climate Hub pages were taken down,” Schechinger said. 

Mike Lavendar, the policy director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, said farmers are paying attention to climate change, even if references to it are no longer listed on the USDA website. He said farmers have displayed high demand for Inflation Reduction Act funding for carrying out practices seen as climate-smart, like cover cropping or no-till.

“Climate change is a real thing,” said Mike Lavender, the policy director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. “It’s impacting farmers and ranchers and they know it. They’re trying to build their operations to be successful in spite of it. That’s not going to change whether things are on a website or not.”