Blaming the “reckless policies” of the Trump administration, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is enacting two executive orders this week to mobilize state support for farmers and direct state funding to plug a giant gap left by federal cuts to the SNAP program.
Pritzker on Wednesday visited a farm in downstate Taylorville to sign an executive order that declares an “agricultural trade crisis” in Illinois. The order directs the Illinois Department of Agriculture and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity to take immediate action to enhance domestic markets for agricultural commodities and continue state investment in mental health support for farm families. That includes the 833-FARM SOS helpline and no-cost counseling for farm families.
It’s the latest in a series of executive orders the Democratic governor has signed this year in response to Trump administration policies. Pritzker also plans to sign an executive order Thursday that will direct $20 million in state funding from the Illinois Department of Human Services and the BRIDGE Fund to support food banks across Illinois beginning Nov. 1.
The Trump administration plans to withhold funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known informally as food stamps, if the federal government shutdown is not resolved by the end of October, leaving 1.9 million people across Illinois in peril.
“Today Illinois farmers are under attack, not by drought or by flooding, not by pests or by disease, but by the reckless policies of the Trump administration and the Republican controlled-Congress,” Pritzker said Wednesday. “Now, I want to be clear about what is happening while Donald Trump tweets from his golf course when he feels personally slighted by a foreign leader. Illinois farmers are losing their livelihoods. And while Donald Trump falsely brags about winning trade wars, U.S. farmers are the ones who truly are paying the price.”
The governor’s office said that the state’s $13.7 billion agriculture export industry is feeling the impact of Trump’s tariffs, including soybean prices dropping and leaving farmers with losses of $100 to $200 per acre. Farmers are also paying more for machinery, fertilizer and diesel. And the Trump administration’s plans to purchase tariff-free beef from Argentina is also threatening the state’s beef farms.
Thursday’s executive order will direct the state to work with food banks and food pantries, grocers, universities and other community organizations to try to mitigate cuts. The Illinois Department of Human Services announced Thursday it received notice from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that the federal agency would not fund November benefits for SNAP across the country starting Nov. 1 unless there’s a resolution to the shutdown. For Illinois, that would mean a loss of $350 million the state administers to recipients.
Illinois joined two dozen states in a lawsuit filed Tuesday against the Trump administration’s intention to withhold food stamp funding as the government shutdown continues. They are asking a federal judge to order the Trump administration to use contingency reserve money to continue funding the program so families can still buy food throughout November.
Pritzker has responded to Trump administration actions with lawsuits, executive orders and by speaking out against them. Last month the governor signed an executive order that aims to protect COVID-19 vaccine access in Illinois amid increased barriers to the shots nationwide under federal Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The governor in July signed an executive order directing state agencies to evaluate the economic impact Illinois could face under the latest rounds of sweeping tariffs.
And in May, Pritzker signed an executive order to restrict the mass collection and sharing of autism-related data on Illinois residents, in response to Kennedy’s rhetoric about the cause of autism.