Project 2025 Targets ARC, PLC, and Sugar Programs — Cuts That Would Weaken Rural School Funding
Project 2025 calls for eliminating the Secretary of Agriculture's discretionary authority under the Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act and repealing key farm subsidy programs (ARC, PLC, sugar). While these proposals remain on paper, they would strip a critical tool for emergency farm relief and destabilize rural economies—especially farm-dependent communities where agricultural income supports local services.
Project 2025 targets the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC)—the $30 billion funding mechanism that has been used for decades to stabilize farm income during emergencies. The plan calls for the Secretary of Agriculture to stop using Section 5 discretionary authority, and for Congress to repeal it entirely or require prior approval. While the source text frames this as a separation-of-powers fix, the real-world effect would be to eliminate the executive branch's ability to respond quickly to farm crises—whether a trade war, a pandemic, or a climate disaster. Even the Trump administration used this authority for $28 billion in trade aid and $20.5 billion in COVID-19 relief. Rolling it back would leave farmers at the mercy of a slow, gridlocked legislative process that often arrives too late to prevent bankruptcies.
Separately, Project 2025 recommends repealing the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) programs—the core of the farm safety net for corn, cotton, peanuts, rice, soybeans, and wheat—as well as the federal sugar program. The source text correctly notes that 94% of farm program support goes to just six commodities, but it ignores that these subsidies help stabilize farm incomes in rural areas where agriculture is the primary economic driver. The alternative is not simply 'reform'—it is a direct wealth transfer from rural communities to the private interests that benefit from deregulation and consolidated agricultural markets. Instead of weakening the CCC and slashing subsidies, Congress should tighten rules to prevent abuse while preserving the emergency response capacity that farmers and the rural communities that depend on them need to survive the next crisis.
The humanitarian alternative
Maintain a robust farm safety net through reformed ARC/PLC that ties payments directly to conservation practices and beginning farmer access. Keep CCC section 5 authority but require annual reporting to Congress. Pair these with a permanent, large-scale investment in rural public schools through Title I and IDEA, breaking the link between commodity prices and local education funding.
Original source — excerpted
project2025 Project 2025 ch. 11: Department of Education (pp 327-329)"— 294 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise to transforming the food system on its web site and other department-dis - seminated material, and it should expressly and regularly communicate the principles informing the objectives listed above, as well as promote these prin - ciples through legislative efforts. The USDA should also carefully review existing efforts that involve inappropriately imposing its preferred agricultural practices onto farmers. Address the Abuse of CCC Discretionary Authority. With the exception of federal crop insurance, the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) is generally the means by which agricultural-related farm bill programs are funded. The CCC is a funding mechanism, which, in simple terms, has $30 billion a year at its disposal.24 Section 5 of the Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act (Charter Act) 25 gives the Secretary of Agriculture broad discretionary authority to spend “unused” CCC money. However, in general, past Agriculture Secretaries have not used this power to any meaningful extent. This changed dramatically during the Trump Administration, when this discretionary authority was used to fund $28 billion in “trade …"