A Peach and Apple Farmer's Uphill Quest to Feed Poor Families, and His Own
On a chilly morning in April, Austin Flamm strode through grassy lanes fringed with delicate peach and apple blossoms. Mr. Flamm, 29, and his cousin Parker, 28, are the sixth generation of their family to produce fruit and vegetables on an Illinois farm that in 2024 gave them the best profits they have had since they joined the operation.
The gains were largely because Flamm Orchards had joined a program, IL-EATS, funded by the Biden-era Agriculture Department, that bought and distributed local produce to the poor. Mr. Flamm's skepticism of government programs made him wary of IL-EATS at first. But he changed his mind when he saw the prices he was offered for his cauliflower, broccoli and other vegetables.
'It was a win for us on the farm,' Mr. Flamm said. 'And the food banks that are constantly looking for donations had something to offer.'
Then the new Trump administration froze more than $1 billion for local food programs, including funding for IL-EATS. Flamm Orchards was suddenly at risk. Mr. Flamm, a farmer from a conservative stronghold, became an unlikely activist fighting to save a Biden-era program that had helped him and his neediest neighbors.
'The left is doing what the left does. These were Covid-era programs,'' Brooke Rollins, the agriculture secretary, said on Fox News, adding that 'from what we are viewing, that program was nonessential.'
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