William “Willie” Dellacamera made headlines last year when he drove his tractor from Connecticut to Washington, D.C to advocate for emergency disaster funding for small farms like his. Last week, he went back with a new issue in mind.
WSHU’s Ebong Udoma spoke with CT Mirror’s Lisa Hagen to discuss her article, “With federal funding in flux, a CT farmer went back to Washington,” as part of the collaborative podcast Long Story Short. Read Lisa’s story here.
WSHU: Hello, Lisa, you tell us about Willie Dellacamera — he's a Northwood, Connecticut farmer who first got media attention when he rode his farm tractor all the way to Washington, DC last year. That's a fascinating story. But why did he have to go back again this time?
LH: Yeah. Willie Dellacamera, along with other Connecticut farmers and generally around New England, have been waiting for disaster and ag farm relief for some months now. And so I had written about this federal block grant that got passed in a major, major bill to fund the government at the end of December basically. And so I was just curious to follow up on it. I hadn't seen that the Farm Aid had gone out yet; states like Connecticut are still negotiating it. And so I just kind of happened to reach out to Willie about a week or so ago, and I wanted to come see him on his farm and get a sense of where things stood. Within a matter of days, he was in D.C., and he was coming to watch the Agriculture Secretary and lawmakers talk about this farm relief and just USDA writ large.
WSHU: So what was his experience like?
LH: It was something that I don't think he even quite expected. Basically, there was a pair of hearings that the Agriculture Secretary, Brooke Rollins, was going to testify at. The public can go to any of these hearings. They can sit down; they can listen to her testimony. And so he did that. He was able to go for two days, during which she was testifying, and when she wrapped up, he went over to the door to meet her, and she took the time to hear him out. They talked about the farm aid that still needed to come down. And you know, he was pretty pleasantly surprised. He told me he got phone numbers of the staff, and within two days, I mean, she knew his name, his story, and had invited him to a press conference. And so, you know, he and others are just, again, still waiting for this aid to come out.
WSHU: But he wasn't expecting the reception that he got, considering that the Trump administration has been pushing for cuts to all sorts of federal agencies, and there was no guarantee that this money was going to go out. Even right up to the end, I remember speaking with Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, who was pushing for this, and the money comes directly to the farmers in the Northeast. The small farmers in the Northeast. It is a unique system, and the first time this has ever happened, we had a new administration coming in. The whole feeling at that time was, was this really going to happen? And here we are now, and it seems as if Dellacamera came away feeling a little bit optimistic that it might happen. What exactly is the situation right now?
LH: Exactly. There was really no expectation for him going into this. He didn't know if the block grant was going to come up at the hearings or if Secretary Rollins would stop and talk with him. And so there was a Senate hearing and a House hearing. It had come out that the Senate one, and it was a bit unclear where that funding stood, because they were talking about much larger pots of disaster money. And so that was kind of the focus. But when it was the House hearing, Congresswoman DeLauro, who again helped set up this block grant money, was very specifically talking about that $220 million for New England and small farms. And so basically, she wanted to get Rollins on record as committing to that funding.
So what I came out of those hearings understanding was, there is still a commitment that money will flow. They had given an end-of-May deadline, but it's still a bit vague. It was unclear whether that meant states like Connecticut and their Ag department would finalize agreements about that funding, or if they meant that that money would actually flow at that time. So you know, they're skeptical exactly of what that end of May deadline looks like, but at least they felt like they got that commitment that that money is still intended as Congress appropriated to flow, and farmers will eventually get that. It's just unclear exactly when.
WSHU: In the meantime, Dellacamera and other farmers in his position have all these bills to pay. So what are they being advised to do? And what are they doing?
LH: Well, exactly. And you know, as I was watching Dellacamera tell Secretary Rollins, the first time he met her, he was saying that he was getting creditors calling all the time. She advised him, you know, to tell him that that $220 million was coming. But I imagine for people who are on the hook for all those bills and the people wanting to get paid, you know, just hearing words of federal money will come, is not enough. And so it's definitely a tough position. He owes hundreds of thousands of dollars. He wants to be able to pay these bills off. And again, they don't know when this money is coming. And so I think in the coming months, it's going to put a lot of farmers in Connecticut and the region in a really tough position of how to move forward. And you know, this disaster money will come out at some point. But Dellacamera also told me he relies on this local farm assistance program, where he gets money from the federal government and gives local food to food banks, and that money will actually stop in October. That is money that the Trump administration has terminated.
WSHU: So it's not a good position to be a small farmer in Connecticut right now.
LH: It's hard. And you know, that was a program that was mutually beneficial for everyone. It was for the people receiving that food, being able to eat local, healthy food. It was dedicated income for the farmers and producers. And, you know, ways that the schools and food banks were involved. And so losing that revenue stream is really tough. And on top of it all, these farmers who suffered extreme weather that basically damaged their farms in 2023 and 2024 are still waiting on this disaster relief.
WSHU: So, bottom line, it was worth it for him to go to Washington.
LH: I think so. Again, he was not expecting to get as much face time as he did. Congresswoman DeLauro gave him a lengthy shout-out that's now in the congressional record at these hearings. And so he is hoping that by putting, you know, a face to the story and to that policy, it shows the need for these farmers to have this money.
