Rebecca Carlson never expected to find herself and her family’s farm at the center of a political firestorm. But between a frozen federal grant, an NBC News story, a deluge of political harassment, and the fast-approaching cherry season, Carlson says she’s gotten a front-row seat to just how divided America really is in 2025.

Rebecca and her husband Andy own and operate Overlook Orchards (pictured), a 1,300-acre cherry farm in Northport. Most years, the Carlsons manage the farm with a skeleton crew.

This year was going to be different. Last January, Overlook Orchards was one of about 140 farms nationwide to score grants from the Farm Labor Stabilization and Protection (FLSP) pilot program. Administered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and funded by $65 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars, that program sought to address ag industry labor shortages.

Overlook Orchards received $400,000 to hire seasonal migrant farm workers through the H-2A visa program. The timeline was too tight to apply those funds in 2024, but last year proved such a dismal one for local cherry farms that the extra help wasn’t needed anyway.

Now, though, the Carlsons are wondering if they’ll ever see a dime from the USDA program. While Overlook Orchards deferred its grant, and technically has until December 31, 2026 to use the money, the program is one of many federal expenditures affected by President Trump’s funding freezes.

“Earlier this year, as I was submitting paperwork for our grant, I emailed our coordinator at the USDA, and I didn't hear anything back,” Carlson tells The Ticker. “I said to my husband, ‘That's kind of weird. Normally, they respond immediately.’ Then, a few days later, we got an email from another grant awardee in Minnesota, and they said, ‘Listen, I just learned that our grant funds are frozen.’ That started the snowball effect of us asking, ‘Who do we call? What do we do? What steps do we need to take now?’”

Ever since, Carlson has been calling everyone she can think of: other grant recipients; local USDA offices; legislators at the state and federal level; Michigan’s governor and attorney general; news media outlets.

Her efforts were successful in getting the word out: On March 22, NBC News published an article about the Carlsons and their farm, calling attention to the frozen grant program and the uncertainty it has caused.

There have been positives and negatives from that exposure. Carlson says she’s been able to bend the ear of a lot of influential officials, all of whom are trying to help get answers.

“We’ve gotten support from [Michigan Attorney General] Dana Nessel and [state legislators] Betsy Coffia and John Damoose. We are getting a lot of support from Senator Gary Peters’ office, and they’re trying to push for some answers. I have not heard back from U.S. Representative Jack Bergman’s office. But I've had a lot of great communication with a lot of people. Have I got any answers? No, I haven't, and that's disappointing. But, at the same time, I get that we're all in uncharted territory.”

But Carlson says her family has been the target of political harassment and threats ever since the NBC News article ran. The headline of that article – “She hoped Trump would revive her farm. Now she worries his policies could bankrupt it.” – painted Carlson as an ardent Trump supporter, a characterization she says is inaccurate.

“I did say ‘I bleed red,’” Carlson says, referring to a quote in the NBC News story where she shared her Republican political standing. “What I didn’t say, and what she reported, was that I am a Trump supporter. My husband and I, we did not participate in the presidential portion of the 2024 election, because we did not like where either party was going.”

“Do I think there's government waste? Absolutely. I think there's government waste on every level of government, local, state, and federal,” Carlson says. “Do I think [the cuts] are being handled appropriately? No, I don't think you can just go in there and dismantle every program known to man that has been part of this country for decades or longer. I think there needs to be a more systematic approach to finding the waste.”

For Carlson, the freezing of FLSP funds is careless. Rather than paying farms their grant money upfront, that program is structured to reimburse farmers for eligible expenditures. By telling businesses to expect funding and then pulling it away, Carlson worries the government could put dozens of American farms out of business.

“There are farms that received this grant that will absolutely face bankruptcy if they don’t get the money,” she says. “I know of one farm out in California that has already had to file for bankruptcy...And I don't care if you're red, I don't care if you're blue, I don't care if you're green. I don't care who you voted for. The fact of the matter is that this affects everyone. Because if you're shutting down the border and raising tariffs, but you’re also freezing grant funds to the American farmer, where’s your food going to come from?”

While Carlson says her farm has already spent about half of its allotted grant funds on upgrades for migrant housing, she’s confident the business can stay afloat even if reimbursements never materialize. The harder question now, she says, is whether to move forward with bringing migrant workers here for this season – a decision she and her husband will need to make soon.

“We wouldn’t be able to afford 10 workers on our own, but we could potentially do 3-5,” Carlson says. Her hope is to make the call by next Monday, but she doesn’t expect to have further clarity on the FLSP funding before then – not when the USDA isn’t returning calls and even elected officials can’t get straight answers.

“In the meantime, I’m going to keep pushing every button I can,” Carlson concludes. “We've all made the plan that, if we don't start hearing back from our representatives and getting some sort of answers or direction soon, we're probably going to end up in Washington, D.C., pounding the pavement.”