Maryland farmers left wondering how to pay for solar projects as federal grants remain frozen

Mike Protas, owner of One Acre Farm, installed a $100,000 solar panel project on his property last year, expecting half of it to be paid for through a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant. Now, with federal funds frozen via recent Department of Government Efficiency actions, Protas doesn’t know if or when he will get the promised grant money.

“And people can say, ‘You should never trust the government,’ but shame on me, I did. I thought you could trust the government, which is maybe wrong,” said Protas, who grows organic vegetables in Dickerson.

Protas had applied for a grant from the USDA’s Rural Energy for America Program in 2017, which helped him install a 10-kilowatt solar panel system that has provided 50% of his farm’s energy since. REAP offers grants to agricultural producers and rural small businesses for installing renewable energy systems or improving energy efficiency. Protas decided to tap into the program again last year, aiming to expand his solar system to 35 kilowatts.

“The government at large wants to see more food grown here, and they do that by incentivizing farmers to do things outside their comfort zone,” he said. “Farmers won’t do things outside their comfort zone if they feel like next time they’ll be screwed when their money doesn’t come in, and they’ve agreed to do something that now is not going to happen.”

The USDA has accepted applications for REAP since 2008 and farmers across Maryland have taken advantage. Dozens who were promised REAP funds in the past year, and committed thousands in their own money, now question whether they will ever see the matching federal funds.

“The last week of January was the first week we could have gotten our funding, and when I saw the funding freeze announcement, I wrote to our USDA contact,” said Laura Beth Resnick, owner of Butterbee Farm in Harford County. Butterbee Farm was promised nearly $40,000 from the USDA to put toward paying for solar panels Resnick already had installed. The farm is one of 12 recipients of REAP grants in Harford County, according to the USDA.

Before her designated USDA agent suddenly retired in late January, Resnick said he told her that the money should be appearing in her bank account, but it never came.

In early February, Resnick was informed by a different USDA agent that her funds had been rejected altogether. Resnick and her husband, Jascha Owens, paid for half of the project’s $72,000 cost, and now must figure out how to pay for the other half that may never be covered by the USDA.

“If [the solar company] turns to us and says, ‘OK, USDA is not doing it, we need the money now,’ then we’ll be in trouble,” Resnick said. “It’s definitely very stressful. We don’t just have that money lying around, and we definitely would not have done this project if we’d known that this would be the situation.”

Resnick wrote to state Rep. Andy Harris to explain her situation and called his office five times. Eventually, she received a letter on Feb. 6 in which Harris denied that farmers were being affected by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget freeze on federal funds.

“As you may know, on January 27th, 2025, the White House OMB released a memo detailing a temporary pause of agency grant, loan and other financial assistance programs,” Harris said. “Unsurprisingly, liberal politicians and pundits rushed to push false narratives about the memo to strike up concerns that it would somehow impact mandatory spending programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP), and other programs, such as funding for small businesses, farmers, Pell grants, Head Start, rental assistance and more.”

On Feb. 25, she received another letter from Harris, a Republican, who expressed his support for the Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts, stating that “a nation that is $36 trillion in debt cannot afford to continue business as usual.”

“I was completely shocked. It was just so unbelievable to me,” Resnick said.

In an address to Congress on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said “I love the farmer,” noting that his administration’s new trade policies, including reciprocal tariffs, are intended to support them. Since his address, national agricultural organizations, such as the American Soybean Association, have urged the president to reconsider his tariffs, arguing that they could lead to higher prices for the consumer and damage relationships with international trade partners.

“I’m not sure I believe anything that comes out of his mouth,” Resnick said, a belief shared by many farmers who have been impacted by the freeze. She said farmers across the state in similar situations have been communicating in text message group chats and sharing respective accounts of their renewable energy projects being put on hold.

Elisa Lane, owner of Two Boots Farm in Hampstead, is one of eight REAP grant recipients in Carroll County, USDA data shows. Lane owns and operates a cut flower farm, and the cost of solar panels she plans to install on her property also totals $72,000. On Feb. 11, Lane attended a House Agricultural Committee hearing on Capitol Hill with other farmers, sharing with reporters the details of her project, which has yet to be installed.

“These issues are affecting farmers across the country, and so I’m hoping that Congress really gets the message that this is affecting American citizens and that they really push the USDA to release the funds to the farmers and let us know as soon as possible when that happens because we have a lot riding on this,” Lane said.

On Wednesday, Lane sent a letter to Brooke Rollins, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, explaining that her investment in solar energy will lower her farm’s production costs, allowing her to increase employee wages and decrease the cost of flowers for her customers.

“Even if you do not see the environmental impacts, I hope you can recognize the financial implications of your actions. Farms across the country were already struggling before this funding freeze. By not honoring your contracts, farmers will need to make difficult decisions to either take on added debt or close their farms,” she wrote. “I am bound to that contract and you are bound to your contract with me.”

Rollins had not replied to Lane as of Friday.

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