The lawsuit says the Agriculture Department is hindering farmers from using the data to make “agricultural decisions” while they also face a recent funding freeze.

Farmers and green groups sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Monday for an “unlawful purge” of climate data from its website.  “This lawsuit challenges the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s

The US Department of Agriculture is facing a legal challenge over its move to wipe out information on climate change from its websites.

A lawsuit accuses the USDA of removing climate change data from its websites, hindering farming decisions and research, and violating transparency laws.

The Department of Agriculture ordered staff shortly after Trump returned to power to rank webpages by how heavily they focused on climate change.

The data, which disappeared from Agriculture Department sites in recent weeks, was useful to farmers for business planning, the lawsuit said.

In a lawsuit filed Monday, groups represented by Earthjustice and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University alleged that the removal of climate-related policies, datasets and other resources violated federal laws requiring advanced notice, reasoned decisionmaking and public access to certain information.

Farmers and environmental groups have sued the Agriculture Department after it removed references to climate change from its websites and froze funding.

Climate defenders and farmers sued the Trump administration in federal court on Monday over "the U.S. Department of Agriculture's unlawful purge of climate-related policies, guides, datasets, and resources from its websites.