I have received several telephone calls in the past 30 days from guys who have been in their local Farm Service Agency office asking about the $700 million Regenerative Pilot Program.
They called me because each one of them were told “we’ve heard nothing about it” from their local officials.
Just as a refresher, this is from the press announcement by Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins:
(Washington, D.C., December 10, 2025) – Today, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins, alongside U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz announced a $700 million Regenerative Pilot Program to help American farmers adopt practices that improve soil health, enhance water quality, and boost long-term productivity, all while strengthening America’s food and fiber supply.
Administered by NRCS, this new Regenerative Pilot Program delivers a streamlined, outcome-based conservation model—empowering producers to plan and implement whole-farm regenerative practices through a single application. The initiative highlights USDA’s commitment to putting Farmers First and advancing the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda by building a healthier, more resilient food system.
Recently I received a call that shed true light on “Farmers First.” Last week, Nutrien, the world’s largest fertilizer company, based in Canada, made this announcement:
In February 2026, Nutrien announced a major collaboration with CIBO Technologies to scale regenerative agriculture by helping farmers access a pool of approximately $300 million in federal funding.
Funding Source: The $300 million represents the value of applications CIBO is submitting for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) for fiscal year 2025. This is part of a larger $700 million USDA Regenerative Pilot Program launched in late 2025.
For the record, I spent a great deal of time over the weekend trying to find what happened to the other half of the $700 million with no luck yet. I am guessing this little bit of information will flush out the rest. In January we got this sound bite from Rollins’ right-hand man:
“Deputy Agriculture Secretary Stephen Vaden accused Nutrien and Mosaic of working to ‘collude’ to limit U.S. fertilizer supply and control prices, suggesting that the administration could take future action to inject more competition into markets, if necessary.”
I am familiar with Nutrien, but I couldn’t tell you who actually owned them until I got to digging. The largest shareholder is Royal Trust Corporation of Canada (and The Royal Trust Company), which is a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Canada. Royal Trust specializes in professional executor, trustee and estate administration services. The next biggest shareholders are BlackRock and Vanguard.
Rollins tells us she wants to put American farmers first and help move them away from being reliant on global input companies, but clearly had this deal in place before the announcement, in my opinion. Those things don’t mesh.
Also, she keeps talking about the U.S. Department of Agriculture stopping LawFare. As of now, thousands are affected and few issues are resolved. To date, she has tried to take credit from saving three families from peril.
I am announcing that I will begin my own data base of farmers who have been wronged by our American first government.
It turns out that I already have six on the list with details that are quite unbelievable. I assure you that there are at least 60,000 of them out there, in my opinion, and I will find them. Email me and together we will get eyes and ears opened to these travesties until there is resolution. [email protected].
Editor’s note: The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not represent the views of High Plains Journal. Trent Loos is a sixth-generation United States farmer, host of the daily radio show “Loos Tales” and founder of Faces of Agriculture, a non-profit organization putting the human element back into the production of food. Get more information at www.LoosTales.com, or email Trent at [email protected].
PHOTO: Corn growing in a field planted with no tillage with cover crop residue between the rows. (Adobe Stock │ #355713182 – Margaret Burlingham)
