Slotkin talks climate with Michigan restaurateurs and farmers

Sen. Elissa Slotkin is raising concerns about how extreme weather and federal funding cuts are pushing up costs for Michigan farmers and ultimately for restaurants and consumers across the state.

Slotkin was in Detroit on Monday for a roundtable hosted by the James Beard Foundation. Chefs, farmers, and small business owners gathered to discuss how climate change is disrupting local food systems and straining both restaurant budgets and household grocery bills.

Slotkin said farmers are feeling the impact of increasingly unpredictable and severe weather, including tornadoes, ice storms, and high winds. Those losses, she said, no longer happen once every decade; they happen annually.

"You used to assume you'd have damage to your hoop houses or crops every ten years," she said. "Now, it's built in every year you're going to lose."

Farmers and restaurant owners at the event said those disruptions to crops and supply chains are forcing them to pay more for ingredients, costs they are often left to absorb or pass on to customers.

Anne McBride, vice president of impact for the James Beard Foundation, said the challenges Michigan farmers and restaurants are facing mirror trends seen across the country.

"The trends we're seeing around the country, when we're hosting these roundtables, it's very much the fact that restaurants and farmers are greatly hit by increased costs," McBride said.

Slotkin also addressed growing challenges for Detroit's urban agriculture community, especially Black‑led farms and nonprofits. She said the current administration has rolled back several programs tied to urban agriculture, equity, and support for BIPOC farming groups.

Slotkin says her office is working to protect those programs in the upcoming farm bill and broaden alliances to ensure urban growers are represented at the federal level.

"We're going to desperately try to hang on to the urban ag sections in the farm bill," Slotkin said. "Most of what we're playing for right now is just to keep hold of what we have."

Slotkin added that her team has been able to restore some frozen or reduced grant funding but urged farmers to contact her office if they experience cuts.