News from rural America.

U.S. farmers in limbo due to federal funding freeze worry their projects will go unrealized, mass firings could wreak havoc on tourists visiting public lands this summer, while money to fight wildfires in rural areas is also jeopardized.

TRANSCRIPT

♪♪ For the Daily Yonder and Public News Service, this is the news from rural America.

The number of American farms has fallen 7 percent over five years, and a freeze on National Conservation Service grants could make that worse.

Under court order, the Trump administration released $20 million of the $20 billion it froze.

But Mike Lavender with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition says countless farmers still have been left angry and confused by the indiscriminate funding block.

We're seeing contract terminations, contract modifications, harming rural communities, farm families in the long term.

Dan Latspeech used federal grants to build three greenhouses in rural Nevada, where he grows fruits and vegetables for local farmers' markets.

I genuinely think this business wouldn't exist if it was not for the government, the USDA, filling that investor role where it's kind of missing from the private sector.

But Latspeech says the funding freeze leaves his plans to expand his all-weather farm looking cloudy.

The Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, has fired thousands of probationary forest service workers, citing poor performance, despite positive performance reviews.

Alana Newman has more on the impact for rural communities.

Outdoor recreation adds a trillion dollars to the economy.

But without Forest Service employees to clean bathrooms, maintain trails, and support firefighters, rural communities could lose tourism.

Cyrus Isari was terminated at New Mexico's Gila National Forest.

The Gila National Forest is already severely understaffed.

This has made it even worse.

No wildland firefighters were terminated, but nearly everyone at the Forest Service is specifically authorized to support firefighting.

And Isari says he and the crew were hardly a waste of taxpayer money.

My crew, we are hard workers that are doing so much, and our rural communities depend a lot on us.

I'm Alana Newman.

This loss of Forest Service support is especially critical, as climate change means more wildfires, and rural communities rarely have the money to prepare.

But two years ago, Congress and the Biden administration authorized the U.S.

Forest Service's Community Wildfire Defense Grant Program.

Kelly Pohl leads the nonprofit research group Headwaters Economics.

This program really stands out for successfully getting funding to communities that need the resources and that were really prioritized by Congress.

Since 2022, the program's awarded $420 million to rural communities to reduce fire danger around homes and neighborhoods and implement their own defense projects.

But since President Trump announced a federal funding freeze, the program is in limbo, which Pohl says will hurt as fire season ramps up.

And they need the resources now.

Wildfires won't wait.

For the "Daily Yonder" and Public News Service, I'm Roz Brown.

For more rural stories, visit dailyyonder.com.