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Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘It's in a chaotic state': Virginia food banks feel the effects of federal funding cuts
Bob Latvis knows there may often be changes in federal funding for food banks with any new administration. This time though, many Virginia food banks are in a state of limbo as they wait for federal support. The first Trump administration provided trade mitigations that increased available food for food banks and the Biden administration provided Commodity Credit Corporation funds to help food banks purchase and distribute resources. However, roughly $500 million in commodity credit funding was cut in March, $200,000 of which was headed for the Virginia Peninsula Food Bank. More than a third of the Peninsula Food Bank's funding comes from federal programs, according to Latvis, who is the food bank's Chief Executive Officer. Roughly 80% of that comes through recently cut commodity credit, with the rest coming through The Emergency Food Assistance Program, a recurring program which is up for renewal in September's farm bill. 'That's the big thing, that there's so much ambiguity and uncertainty that it's in a chaotic state,' Latvis said. That cut resulted in six truckloads containing lean proteins and dairy suddenly being canceled last month, Latvis said. That's in a community where about 20% of children on the Peninsula are unsure where their next meal is coming from, one of the highest food insecurity rates in Virginia. The food bank's first contingency plan would be to buy more food, according to Latvis. However, despite the food bank toting a record $2 million budget for the current fiscal year, it can't afford to buy its way out of federal cuts. Even if it could, Latvis said he could then see the other shoe drop, where new federal programs are created and the food bank is sitting on hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of extra food that would go to waste. While the food bank has historically been adaptive to federal changes and has not yet hit a crisis point, Latvis said if federal funding cuts continue into the foreseeable future without replacements, contingency plans can only stretch so far before people in need will start feeling the effects. 'We want to provide some confidence that we will always be here for you, it just may be less than you're accustomed to,' Latvis said. 'That's the path that we have cut for us. There's no way to sugar coat it. There's no silver bullet.' Other contingency plans include tapping into reserve funds in the short-term, as well as attempting to further prioritize donations from local partners, according to Christopher Tan, President of the Food Bank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore. In the past few weeks, the Southeastern food bank has seen $400,000 federal dollars cut from its current fiscal budget and another $300,000 nixed from next year's. Despite more than 200 local partners and donors, Tan said food banks are a microcosm of other federal policies, and partners may become more cautious with their donations. 'It's not just federal funding that we have to worry about,' Tan said. 'With the ups and downs of the markets, particularly the stock market, that's our donor base. That's where some of our major gifts are coming from.' Tan added the food bank feels the same stress as people in their lines when it comes to purchasing food due to price increases from inflation and tariffs. 'We have to worry about being hit as a double whammy,' Tan said. 'We're losing federal funding, and our donations may go down as well because people are waiting to see how their money is doing.' Virginia Peninsula Foodbank plans expansion to serve growing need 'I'll be stuck': Virginians contemplate life without Medicaid as Congress considers cuts New one-on-one prenatal and postpartum care offered to Hampton Roads military families Local food banks are also watching out for potential cuts to another key resource: the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, previously known as food stamps. Some federal lawmakers have eyed making cuts to the program as part of larger budget cuts. SNAP can provide nine meals for every one provided by a food bank, said Craig Gallaer, Peninsula Food Bank's Chief Development Officer, meaning any cuts to it would create longer lines at food banks at a time when they are already under-resourced. 'Regardless of debates about implementation and allocation and things like that, these programs have exponentially more ability to provide meals,' Gallaer said. 'Even a reduction brings more people, but certainly a heavy reduction would really strain our capacity to be able to make the difference or beat the gap.' Last time SNAP benefits were rolled back, it was supplemental pandemic-era SNAP benefits that were reduced in 2023. Gallaer said the Peninsula Food Bank saw a 30% usage increase for people needing assistance. This coincides with a steady rise in food bank usage since the pandemic. According to Gallaer, participation and attendance at the Peninsula Food Bank is up 15% from 2024, and has continued to grow year over year. Gallaer said part of that continued growth is due to an erosion of stigma surrounding food bank participation. People seek independence and many struggle to ask for help when they need it. But Gallaer said many people are closer than they may think to need some additional support, and the past few years have made food banks a crutch for when they need it. 'The stigma was reduced somewhat because people saw many of their neighbors receiving food support, and they perhaps felt like they could go themselves,' Gallaer said. 'Unfortunately, that stigma is still there, and we do try to alleviate that by presenting an atmosphere that is safe, respectful and demonstrates the respect we have for all of our neighbors.' Whether it's through new federal funding, donor partnerships or some unforeseen third option, Gallaer said people need support and deserve to know where their next meal is coming from. And food banks will continue to fill that gap as best they can. 'The things that we're striking the balance of right now is being aware and cautious, and being realistic,' Gallaer said. 'The cuts that have happened are real and have resulted in lost food, but the food bank is always going to remain adaptable and flexible.' Devlin Epding, 757-510-4037,
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Hunger relief organizations piecing together resources
Niagara County hunger relief organizations are piecing together what's left of funding and resources for putting food on their clients' tables. Last week, FeedMore WNY, which assists many Niagara County agencies, lost access to $3.5 million in food products after the Commodity Credit Corporation program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture was cut. Other organizations are in similar funding limbo. The United Way of Greater Niagara was notified Jan. 27 that funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide food and shelter to families that need assistance was 'paused.' Andrea Gray, United Way president and CEO, said the $82,000 that was allocated could have supported food banks. Eleven agencies applied for support under the grant, but the applications must remain on hold. Brendan Conley, chairman of the advisory board for the Salvation Army of Lockport, said with daily changes at the federal level this month, there has been no time 'to read and react.' Salvation Army of Lockport has yet to quantify the impact that cuts are having on its food pantry operation and the Sister Mary Loretto Memorial Community Soup Kitchen. Conley said the demand for hunger relief in the Lockport area is greater now than ever. The impact on people's lives is real and discernible,' he said. 'When you go about cutting programs, trying to save federal tax dollars, that might seem well intentioned. But when you're not judicious about where the cuts are made, you're damaging the most vulnerable people in our communities.' Conley said that up to 100 people a day come to the Lockport soup kitchen. 'Our vulnerable population and homeless population have been increasing the last several years,' Conley said. 'It places a larger burden on these types of services. Partners like FeedMore are relied upon heavily. There's going to be consequences and fallout from all of this.' Intercommunity Services of Ransomville operates the Care n Share food pantry at the former W.H. Stevenson Elementary School. According to treasurer Claudia Fleckenstein, the program serves 150 to 170 individuals each month from Ransomville, Youngstown, Sanborn, Lewiston, Cambria and the Tuscarora Reservation. On the third Saturday of every month, the Ransomville site hosts a mobile food pantry open to anyone in Niagara County. Fleckenstein said the truck brings five-pound bags of potatoes, yams, apples, and other produce. 'We have recently had eggs, which was unusual, and periodically we get butter,' she said. Hams and other meats have also been available. Fleckenstein said state grants such as Nourish New York seem to remain intact. 'We're kind of feeling our way through this,' Fleckenstein said. 'We have a budget and we'll have to see in three months how we do.' In the meantime, grassroots support has been extremely valuable to the organization. 'There's been four or five different boy scout troops that collected goods for us and donated them to the food pantry,' she said. 'They have really helped us out. Many of the local churches are regular donors. We've been encouraging some groups to buy soaps, body wash, shampoo.'
Bloomberg
09-04-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
US Weighs Farmer Bailout as China Retaliation Threatens Exports
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the administration is considering plans to offer assistance to farmers amid worries that the US-China trade war will have a disastrous effect on American agricultural producers. China announced plans to increase tariffs on all American goods to 84% after President Donald Trump raised duties on Chinese imports to 104%. During a smaller trade fight with Beijing during Trump's first term, his administration used the Commodity Credit Corporation to offer $28 billion to bail out US farmers. The government-owned and operated entity was created to boost farm income and prices.
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
'Crisis on the verge of catastrophe': food assistance cuts are trouble for greater Grand Forks providers and their clients
Apr. 5—GRAND FORKS — Emergency nutrition providers say cuts to federal food assistance programs could prove disastrous for families on both sides of the Red River. Halted and canceled food deliveries to food banks serving North Dakota and northern Minnesota are set to test those agencies and the several hundred food pantries they serve, according to food bank and pantry operators. The hold on deliveries, which could begin affecting North Dakota as soon as May, comes with donations down and demand for pantry services at their highest levels in years amid widespread cost-of-living issues. "We're already at a crisis with the availability of food, but we're looking at a catastrophe," said Susie Novak Boelter, executive director of North Country Food Bank in East Grand Forks. "People just can't afford their lives right now." Millions of dollars worth of food deliveries to North Dakota and Minnesota are expected to be interrupted after a series of U.S. Department of Agriculture cuts to nutrition programs. The latest of those cuts is to the approximately $500 million that USDA allocated this fiscal year from the Commodity Credit Corporation to The Emergency Food Assistance Program. TEFAP supplements low-income Americans' diets with emergency food and nutrition assistance. The CCC is a New Deal program that funds income and price support programs for farmers as well as overseas food programs including those run by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Great Plains Food Bank in Fargo, which serves an estimated 151,000 people through 196 food pantries in North Dakota and Clay County, Minnesota, expects to lose out on around $294,000 worth of TEFAP deliveries, according to communications director Darby Njos. Seven deliveries of USDA commodities to the food bank have been canceled, Njos said, totaling around 300,000 pounds of food. Njos described the commodities as "nutritious, sought-after food" including meat, dairy products, produce and some 11,250 cartons of eggs. Those deliveries were scheduled to begin in May and carry through July. Several of the deliveries were initially placed on an indefinite hold before the food bank was notified that all seven had been canceled. Njos said Great Plains was working to figure out its next steps and talking with its partners about how this would impact them. Novak Boelter says that all of North Country's orders from the USDA paid for by Commodity Credit Corporation funds have been canceled, though TEFAP's other funding sources remain intact. She says the food bank was about halfway through its contract and expects it will not receive the remainder of its scheduled food deliveries — equal to around 120,000 pounds of food. The food bank, based in East Grand Forks, serves 220 food pantries in the state's northeast corner. Novak Boelter said North Country has been advised that TEFAP is receiving another $261 million in funding through another USDA program, Section 32, but said those are national numbers and she is unsure how that funding will reach Minnesota or North Country. In addition to the TEFAP cuts, Great Plains has also been affected by USDA's decision to ax the Local Food Purchase Assistance program, which allowed the food bank to purchase food from local farmers, growers and ranchers. The nonprofit learned last month it would not be receiving a $1 million grant for local food purchases through TEFAP. "We've had to have some really hard conversations with some farmers that we were in agreements with," Njos said. All told, the USDA cuts come out to around $1.3 million in lost revenue, or roughly 12% of Great Plains' 2025 operating budget of $10.8 million. The USDA cuts come as area food banks have seen the highest demand for their services since the COVID-19 pandemic put millions out of work in 2020. Great Plains gave out 15.9 million pounds of food in 2024, according to Njos, up 19% from 2023 and its largest annual distribution since 2020. North Country actually surpassed its 2020 distribution figures back in 2023. Last year, it gave out a record-breaking 7.4 million pounds of food — a 17% increase from 2023. Distribution this year for the Minnesota food bank is already up 13%, Novak Boelter said. Local food pantries' client numbers reflect that growing demand. In Grand Forks, Red River Valley Community Action's food pantry served 71 households in January, compared to 62 households a year before. Its Michigan, North Dakota, food pantry has seen similar increases in client demand this year. Novak Boelter says North Country's pantries have reported a 20% to 30% increase in clients over the last year. The lost USDA funding means that food banks and food pantries will have to lean more on their donations, at a time when several providers are reporting a slump in support. "As funds dry up or are reduced, this will mean less for food banks who will have to rely more on donations. And the fact is that donations are down," Jacqueline Hassett, director of Red River Valley Community Action, wrote in an email. Hassett said the agency has reduced its pantry hours over the last year due to a shortage of available donations. North Country has seen strong donor support for the past several years, but that support has started to soften in the last five to six months, according to Novak Boelter. Njos of Great Plains Food Bank was more optimistic, saying its donation figures remained strong and pointing out some 61% of its food comes via donations, versus the 11% it purchases and the 28% it receives through government programs. "Food banks by nature have always responded to crises and disasters," Njos said. "It's not going to make us jump." Debbie Narum has volunteered at the Michigan, North Dakota, food pantry for six years. As long as she's been there, the pantry has been supplementing the diets of Nelson County's retirees and Social Security recipients. Prices can be high at the largely rural county's three grocery stores, and Grand Forks' retail options are a 45-minute drive east from Michigan. In recent years, she says, the pantry has seen an increasing number of younger clients, mostly new families with kids at home, some unemployed. Those families now make up around a quarter of the pantry's clients, Narum estimated. Narum hadn't been following news of the USDA cuts when the Grand Forks Herald called, but the cuts perturbed her. "That's going to hurt," she said, noting that 60% to 70% of the pantry's food comes from Great Plains Food Bank. (Nelson County also chips in to help the pantry buy groceries.) "It's a scary time for everyone right now, with the cost of stuff," she added. The experts the Herald spoke to agreed it was people like the Michigan pantry's clients — rural, with lower incomes — that would feel the USDA cuts most. Suzy Thorson, a registered dietician and nutritionist with Grand Forks County's NSDU Extension office, said the cuts come at a deeply uncertain time for many of the families she sees at county food pantries, pointing to economic instability and the threat of Medicaid cuts pushed by Republicans in Congress. "These really are our most fragile folks. They're really faced with difficult decisions on how to feed their families and they really rely on food pantries to get by," Thorson said. Novak Boelter also expressed concerns about language in a Republican budget resolution she says would lead to a $230 million reduction in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, also known as food stamps. Minnesota distributed $800 million in SNAP benefits last year. The impact to low-income families will likely be magnified in rural areas like Nelson County, with its already-limited grocery options. "The more rural you are, the more limited access people have to food in the first place," Novak Boelter noted. Thorson, who teaches a class on nutrition and food resource management at Hope Church in Grand Forks' food pantry, said late last month that the USDA cuts had not yet impacted her clients but she expected to see their impact in the "near future." Njos said the effect will likely be felt for Great Plains' pantries in May, when the organization has to shift its supply model to accommodate for the lost TEFAP dollars. Hassett wrote she is "confident" that Red River Valley Community Action and its local partners will do their best to reduce the impact of the lost funding, and pointed to positive local indicators like the establishment of a food insecurity coalition organized by Grand Forks Public Health. However, she also noted, "For some of our families, they may find themselves choosing between nutritious food for their children and paying rent."
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
'Liberation Day' Tariffs Will Liberate People—From Their Income
We're told that "Liberation Day" tariffs on imports from around the world will raise $6 trillion in federal revenue over the next decade, plus another trillion from automobile tariffs. But the only true "liberation" will be us Americans—consumers and taxpayers—being liberated from even more of our hard-earned income. So hold on to your wallet. If you don't believe that Liberation Day is bad news for the overwhelming majority of us, first remember that U.S. consumers are, as always, the ones who pay U.S. tariffs. Whatever the Trump team collects from foreign imports will be shifted back to us in the form of higher prices. Then there is the fact that the administration is already preparing for economic damage control with emergency aid for U.S. farmers. The need for such aid is a tacit admission that the president's trade policy—marketed as a tool to strengthen America—will trigger retaliations from our trading partners that will hurt many American producers, including farmers who export this country's agricultural bounty to help feed the world. And to paper over this destructive policy, the administration will blow another gaping hole in the federal budget with bailout money to compensate the victims. How do I know? We've been here before. During Trump's first term, his trade war with China sparked retaliatory tariffs that cost American farmers an estimated $27 billion in lost agricultural exports. To cushion the blow on farmers, the administration spent $23 billion in bailout payments via the Department of Agriculture's Commodity Credit Corporation. By one estimate, farmers received 92 percent of the tariffs on Chinese goods paid by us via higher prices at the supermarket. Now the administration is gearing up for a rerun with even higher and broader tariffs, including on allies such as Canada, Europe, Mexico, and Japan. As it turns out, American agriculture is one of the most export-dependent sectors of the economy. When trading partners retaliate, they target farm products like soybeans, corn, wheat, cotton, and pork. Why? Because it's politically sensitive and economically effective. Already, groups like the National Corn Growers Association and the American Soybean Association are bracing for impact. As one member of the latter told The New York Times, farmers don't want handouts but rather "access to a free and fair trade market." What they're getting instead is uncertainty, falling commodity prices, and the very real possibility of being shut out of long-cultivated markets as global buyers turn to Brazil, Argentina, and the European Union. Indeed, before the retaliating even starts, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said the U.S. Department of Agriculture will support farmers while tariffs go into place. The rest of us won't be that lucky. The 2018-20 tariffs raised consumer prices for goods like washing machines, cars, and electronics. According to economists at the Federal Reserve and several universities, American consumers bore nearly the full cost, while protected domestic industries captured only modest benefits. With a much broader set of tariffs now on the table, lower-income families who spend the largest shares of their income on goods—and who have been badly hurt from the recent inflation—will likely suffer the most. That's a dangerous proposition in an economy already wrestling with persistent cost-of-living pressures. Here's where things go from damaging to disastrous: If the administration follows through with both expensive new tariffs and more bailouts while simultaneously extending expiring tax cuts and adding new tax breaks without corresponding spending cuts, the result will be a fiscal black hole. It's true that Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency are cutting spending and that the administration is rolling back many of the costly regulations inflicted by the Biden administration. It also wants to free the energy sector and generate more energy abundance. But it will take a long time to realize the benefits of these efforts, if they ever materialize. After all, many of these changes require congressional action, and Congress of late has been missing in action. Trump's tariff strategy is worse than a gamble; it's a sure-fire loser. Experience proves that policies motivated by economic nationalism are all pain and no gain. The details of the long-run damage remain to be revealed. However, in the short term, we know for a fact that Liberation Day will hurt farmers, burden consumers, and further bloat the budget deficit—all oh-so-misleadingly in the name of "America First." What America really needs are open markets, fiscal responsibility, and stable trade relationships—not a rerun and enlargement of the last trade war. COPYRIGHT 2025 The post 'Liberation Day' Tariffs Will Liberate People—From Their Income appeared first on
