When DEI Cuts Stall Farming: It Goes Beyond the Ideology and Extends to Economic Risk

With career experience in economic, workforce, and community development and now pivoting to center my professional endeavors around managing organizational risk in corporate environments, I’ve learned that the greatest threats to economic success rarely announce themselves loudly. Instead, they emerge quietly through policy gaps, misaligned incentives, and short-sighted decisions.

Right now, we’re seeing one of those threats unfold in real time.

In the aftermath of executive orders and policies targeting DEI, sectors like agriculture, among others, are absorbing the blow. What many miss in the headlines is this: the fallout is more than mere ideology. It’s a systemic risk to economic stability, workforce resilience, and long-term investment.

A recent article highlighting the impact of DEI policy on black farmers, in particular, noted:

🌱 Planting seasons are being delayed

🚜 Equipment upgrades are on indefinite hold

📉 Long-planned agricultural projects have stalled completely

And while other contributing factors related to federal policy may exist, these impacts to black farmers are also the result of critical funding pipelines, many of which were routed through DEI frameworks, now being frozen or eliminated without a strategic backfill.

DEI Is Doing More Than You Think

In the world of economic development, DEI isn’t just about representation; but rather it is designed as a structural tool to unlock access. It acts as a bridge between underserved communities and the public-private investments they need to compete, modernize, and grow.

In agriculture, DEI-backed funding has historically enabled:

• Access to drought-resistant technologies and modern equipment

• Outreach and support for small, disadvantaged, and next-gen farmers

• Capacity-building partnerships to sustain long-term operations

  
  

These weren’t charity programs. They were risk-reducing infrastructure plays. Now, without them, farmers are facing cash flow interruptions, resource gaps, and strategic standstills, all while trying to feed the country and stay solvent in an economy exposed to volatility on other policy fronts such as tariffs.

From Development to Risk: What We’re Getting Wrong

What’s deeply concerning from a risk management lens is how we’re conflating cultural discomfort with economic irrelevance. We've stripped out investment mechanisms simply because they were labeled “DEI” without asking what functional roles they played in our broader economic ecosystem.

This is not just a problem for rural communities or black farmers. When agriculture output slows, when innovation stalls, when farms can’t modernize, regardless of who owns or operates the farms, that risk spreads up the supply chain, across industries, and ultimately into boardrooms. This is how localized, ill-planned policy decisions become national business risks.

What We’re Really Facing: Policy Risk

From a risk management standpoint, what’s happening now is a textbook case of poor policy transition planning. Funding was withdrawn without a contingency strategy, leaving producers, small businesses, and local economies exposed.

The operational impact includes:

• Delays in production and planting cycles

• Deferred or canceled modernization investments

• Diminished access to resources for next-generation farmers and workers

  
  

When critical infrastructure is removed with no risk mitigation in place, it’s not efficiency. It’s negligence.

Why This Matters for Corporate and Public Leaders Alike

In my current work helping organizations identify and manage systemic risks, one thing is clear: risk doesn’t care about ideology. It cares about gaps, volatility, and breakdowns in systems.

We’re witnessing a widening gap between political decisions and their operational consequences and it's time for decision-makers, especially those in corporate and public leadership, to connect the dots.

This isn’t just about agriculture. It’s about how we think (or fail to think) about the economic function of public policy, and whether we are prepared to absorb the long-term costs of short-sighted decisions.

A Call for a More Strategic, Risk-Aware Policy Lens

You don’t have to agree with the terminology or politics of DEI to acknowledge this: many of the programs being cut were central to workforce readiness, infrastructure investment, and local economic resilience.

Eliminating them without a functional replacement is creating economic risk we’ll be managing for years to come across industries, sectors, and communities.

Let’s stop reducing every policy decision to a cultural or ideological war headline and start treating them with the strategic, risk-informed thinking they require.

Because this isn’t a messaging issue. It’s a material one. And the longer we ignore it, the higher the price for everyone.