Agricultural systems operate within increasingly complex policy environments, yet policy uncertainty is often conceptualized as an episodic disruption rather than an institutional condition that may persist over time. This study examined how farmers respond to policy uncertainty and how those responses influence operational performance and organizational resilience. Guided by institutional theory and resilience theory, a qualitative explanatory single-case study was conducted with agricultural producers in the southeastern United States using interviews, questionnaire responses, and policy document analysis.

Findings revealed that participants experienced policy uncertainty through overlapping legislative, regulatory, administrative, and trade-related developments characterized by evolving institutional signals, implementation delays, communication challenges, and misalignment between policy timing and agricultural production cycles. Farmers navigated these conditions through informal sensemaking networks and defensive, adaptive, and strategic management responses. These responses had differing implications for performance and resilience. Operational performance was affected through planning complexity, investment hesitation, and financial caution, while resilience was expressed predominantly through persistence, absorptive capacity, and incremental adaptation. The findings further identified a potential performance–resilience tension in which strategies that preserve continuity and reduce short-term exposure to risk may also constrain investment, innovation, and longer-term adaptive opportunities.

The study proposes arrested transition as a meso-level institutional condition linking policy ambiguity with organizational responses and outcomes. In doing so, it extends institutional theory and elaborates resilience theory by demonstrating how institutional context shapes adaptive capacity.