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Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Foundations likely to see increased requests from New Mexico nonprofits after federal cuts
Twenty-six trucks were set to deliver groceries to The Food Depot between April and December. Two weeks before the first truck was scheduled to arrive, however, staff at the Santa Fe food bank learned the goods — a mix of expensive and tough-to-source groceries like yogurt, milk, chicken and produce from a U.S. Department of Agriculture program — weren't coming after all, executive director Jill Dixon said. The Emergency Food Assistance Program was hit in March with $500 million in cuts, the latest in a string of federal food-related policy changes. 'Food banking requires planning, so it meant that there was just a gap,' Dixon said. 'For The Food Depot, that gap translated to approximately $200,000.' Such a loss is a common story for New Mexico nonprofits these days. A new report jointly commissioned by the Thornburg Foundation, Anchorum Health Foundation and Santa Fe Community Foundation surveyed more than 200 nonprofits across the state and found 'federal funding cuts may disproportionately affect New Mexico.' About 37% of the state's nonprofits receive some kind of federal support, the sixth highest level in the nation, with one in five getting the majority of their funding from federal grants. Some $1.1 billion has been awarded to those surveyed with only about half paid out so far. The other half of that money can be clawed back — and in some cases already has been terminated by the federal government. Philanthropic funders are likely to see a surge in requests from nonprofits competing for private dollars to offset their losses, the study found, estimating foundations would have to increase their giving by 282% to replace terminated grants. 060525_MS_Food Depot_002.JPG Eloy Almoner receives groceries from The Food Depot last week. Executive director Jill Dixon said previous federal aid cuts were "small potatoes" compared to proposed changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in President Donald Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill," which wants to strip $267 billion in SNAP funding by 2034. Foundations would spend down their savings in short order to fill those gaps, said Allan Oliver, president of the Thornburg Foundation. 'The need is really, really significant,' he said, noting 'not all nonprofits wish to be public about the situation with their federal funding.' Nonprofits — which provide about 8% of the jobs in New Mexico's private-sector workforce, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — 'are making extremely hard decisions right now,' Oliver said. 'These are agreements that the federal government made with these nonprofits — and the nonprofits are holding up their end of the deal,' he added. 'It's really up to the federal government to hold up their end of the deal.' 'Extremely hard decisions' Programs in the state focused on food security have seen a significant toll. The National Center for Frontier Communities, a 30-year-old nonprofit based in Silver City, hasn't been able to draw down about two-thirds of a four-year, nearly $400,000 Community Food Project grant from the Department of Agriculture since January, CEO Ben Rasmussen said. The grant funded a project supporting the local food landscape in the small, remote towns Frontier Communities serves. Among its initiatives are the development of an agricultural training center and assistance in increasing local producers' sales to a self-sustainable level. Rasmussen takes pride in serving communities that are often 'quite literally the last stop on the road,' he said. The center's home base in Silver City means the southwestern corner of New Mexico often serves as a 'testing ground' for new initiatives that could have a nationwide impact on remote communities — many of them Indigenous and agricultural, with low-income populations. 'We are still in compliance with the grant, and we are still moving forward,' Rasmussen said of the federal funding. But, he added, 'What's at risk is this momentum. ... It really forces you to think about what's important to you and your organization.' 060525_MS_Food Depot_001.JPG Volunteers load groceries into a waiting car during a food distribution effort at The Food Depot last week. Executive director Jill Dixon says federal cuts to food stamps will create an untenable demand at The Food Depot and other food banks. 'We are not built to be first line for food-insecure families,' she said. 'The writing on the wall' Ladona Clayton's organization hasn't yet experienced any direct federal funding cuts, but she fears revenue might dry up — and with it, Eastern New Mexico communities. Clayton is executive director of the Ogallala Land & Water Conservancy, a nonprofit working to ensure water security for Clovis, the Cannon Air Force Base and parts of Curry County by compensating landowners for retiring their irrigation wells and putting conservation easements into place to keep water underground. The stakes couldn't be higher, Clayton said: 'If we don't save, preserve, store as much groundwater as we possibly can, we don't survive.' But it takes federal dollars to make that work happen. 'We can see the writing on the wall,' she said, referring to the potential for federal funding cuts. The Ogallala Land & Water Conservancy is primarily funded by the U.S. Department of Defense's Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration Program — thanks to the Air Force base — and the Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service, Clayton said. She's been warned to expect steep competition for the next round of Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration Program dollars. About a year ago, the conservancy contracted with a consulting firm to search for other federal grant options. In the months since, Clayton said, 'Every one of those doors closed on us.' She's also applied for and received approval for seven conservation easements through the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Three have already been funded; money for two more is set to come through. But two remain unfunded. 'That is where we find ourselves, but we're working aggressively to do what we can. If the funding's not out there ... I think my greatest concern is everyone's now turning to foundations,' Clayton said. 'If we're all moving in that direction ... competition's just going to amp up,' she added. Fight for private funding Competition has amped up. Nonprofits are feeling that, said Leah Ricci, interim executive director of the Santa Fe-based Quivira Coalition, an organization focused on implementing holistic farming methods known as regenerative agriculture. The sustainable practice aims to improve land and ecosystems through biodiversity. The Department of Agriculture in April canceled the group's Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program — an initiative Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins criticized as an effort to 'advance the green new scam.' At the time, the Quivira Coalition was about a year into a five-year, $3.9 million grant, Ricci said. The organization had planned to use the money to help livestock producers transform waste products, like woody debris or carcasses, into soil amendments, such as compost or biochar. With the Climate-Smart Commodities funding now gone, Ricci said the Quivira Coalition has pared down its program. It continues to train the 13 producers already recruited. Nevertheless, the coalition still relies heavily on federal funding, with 65% of its 2025 budget coming from five big federal grants, four of which remain in place. 'We are fortunate, even with 65% of our income coming from federal grants, to have fairly diverse income from foundation grants and from donors,' Ricci said. 'We're being really careful and thoughtful about how we use those general operating support dollars so that we have the opportunity to pivot if needed,' she said. Going forward, though, foundation grants may become harder to get. Every grant program the Quivira Coalition has applied for this year has seen an overwhelming number of applications, Ricci said. The local foundations' new report includes a lengthy list of recommendations for private funders as they prepare for the surge in requests, noting philanthropy 'can and should step in' to support nonprofits. 'They want to be as helpful as possible,' Ricci said of philanthropic funders. 'They also have a limited amount of money, and they're having to make tough decisions about who to award their grant funds to.' 060525_MS_Food Depot_004.JPG A line of cars wait for food from The Food Depot last week. The Congressional Budget office estimates more than 4 million Americans would lose SNAP benefits entirely as a result of proposed cuts. Cuts so far: 'Small potatoes' From Dixon's perspective at The Food Depot, there's more to worry about. She described the losses of federal assistance the food bank has already weathered as 'small potatoes' in comparison to proposed congressional cuts to critical food aid known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly called food stamps. 'The proposed cuts to SNAP [are] really what we're focused on now,' Dixon said. President Donald Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill' of spending priorities is expected to strip $267 billion in SNAP funding by 2034, according to analysis by the Congressional Budget Office. The bill has already passed the U.S. House and is now being considered in the Senate; Trump wants the bill on his desk by July 4. The Congressional Budget office estimates more than 4 million Americans would lose SNAP benefits entirely as a result of the cuts, while monthly benefits would be reduced by about $15 by 2034 for all remaining participants. Food stamps are meant to be the 'first and best line of defense' against hunger, Dixon said, while food banks work to fill the gap when SNAP benefits run out. For every meal a food bank provides, SNAP provides nine, according to the nationwide hunger relief organization Feeding America. Slashing SNAP will likely result in untenable demand for The Food Depot and other food banks, Dixon said. 'We are not built to be first line for food-insecure families,' she said, 'and the proposed cut in the bill as it stands today is the largest and deepest cut to the SNAP program in its history.'
Yahoo
17-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Farmers, food banks decry program loss
Raul Rodriguez from S&J Farms in El Guique, is part of New Mexico Grown and participated in the , part of New Mexico Grown, who has participated in he Regional Farm to Food Bank recently canceled by the USDA. (Photo by 4Birds Photography) The executive director of Northern New Mexico's food bank, The Food Depot, says the recent U.S. Department of Agriculture's elimination of a program that connected food banks to local food producers is 'devastating.' The Regional Farm to Food Bank program, created under the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act, is currently funded through the USDA Local Food Purchase Assistance, one of two federal programs the USDA recently canceled. According to a news release from The Food Depot and the New Mexico Farmers Marketing Association, last year, the RF2FB program accounted for 34% of all institutional purchases from small and midsize producers in the New Mexico Grown program. Under the program, officials say, more than 200 farmers, ranchers and other food producers have sold close to 900,000 pounds of locally grown food since January 2023, providing 749,502 healthy meals distributed across all 33 of the state's counties. The USDA announced in October of last year a $500 million extension of the LFPA plan, with $2.8 million designated for New Mexico. Then, on March 7, the USDA informed the New Mexico Department of Agriculture the program that agreement would be terminated, the news release said, and the program will end when the current program ends at the end of June. 'These are relationships for New Mexicans,' The Food Depot Executive Director Jill Dixon told Source. 'We believe in community and food banks helping people access food, and producers who care about beautiful, local, nutritious food being in the hands of their community members. That's who was at the table here: people who all have the same passion for feeding people good food.' And the program worked, she said. 'There were definite gains happening. We saw producers growing. We saw them scaling, buying additional land, buying machinery, buying additional [cattle] head, planting new rows. It's just really devastating.' Make no mistake: The current funding cycle had its challenges, she said, because it had eliminated money for administrative costs. 'We were just working on figuring out how we were going to run a program that didn't have any administrative fund associated with it.' Now that program will simply end. Organizers say 94% of last year's RF2FB purchases came from socially disadvantaged and historically underserved producers. 'Without this support, we risk losing more than income; we risk losing the ability to sustain our land, our families, and our way of life,' Manny Encinias, owner of Trilogy Beef and Buffalo Creek Ranch in Moriarty, New Mexico said in a statement. 'This decision doesn't just impact ranchers. It threatens the entire rural economy, including locally owned businesses like our USDA meat processing facility, which depends on ranching families like us to stay in operation. Perhaps most concerning, it makes it even harder to bring the next generation back to the ranch.' New Mexico Farmers Marketing Association Executive Director Denise Miller told Source her members are 'super disappointed,' and noted that rapid changes hit the agriculture sector particularly hard. 'It's not like turning water on from a sink,' she said. 'It takes time for farmers to put crops in the ground, for ranchers to…get their operations adjusted to new market opportunities. And so when something like this is really an abrupt end to a program, it just puts the brakes on everything that had been building beautifully for the last few years.' U.S. Sen Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), who was scheduled to have a roundtable discussion with local food banks on Monday, called RF2FB 'an essential program that was agreed to in a bipartisan way over the last few years, understanding the need across America when it came to access to food and the problem with hunger. When these programs are severed or eliminated, it just makes it harder for everyone.' Luján told Source the approach Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has taken with these programs has eliminated certain tools typically available to address program losses. 'What I have been trying to do in the area of food programs, this included, is work with Republican colleagues that are also going through something similar in their states with their constituents, saying, 'This is bipartisan, this is nonpartisan. We need to be able to help those that need access to these programs, so how can we work together with you to be able to change the switch on this?'' Dixon said the loss of the program 'really hurts small scale producers, small and mid scale producers in our area. These are people that we've developed relationships with and friendships with, where food banks became a huge part of the market share.' But it's 'also the elimination of a food source for food banks.' While the food banks typically 'procure food at scale in much bigger quantity' than they did within the RF2FB program, 'there's something deeply important about having folks who are accessing food security services seeing fresh local food at those distributions.' The food banks, she said, 'are going to have to get really creative to try to figure out how we can continue to have local food have a presence.' Danielle Prokop contributed reporting to this story.
Yahoo
21-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Hunger advocates push for funding, policy at the Roundhouse
The Food Depot Executive Director Jill Dixon and hundreds of other food-security advocates turned out at the Roundhouse Feb. 21 for Hunger Action Day (Julia Goldberg/Source NM) Hunger advocates were hard to miss Friday morning at the Legislature. They traveled in packs wearing orange shirts that read, 'Act Now/End Hunger,' and were on the move visiting lawmakers to spread the word. Legislative priorities for The Food Dept and Road Runner Food Bank —along with their many supporters and volunteers — include: passing a state budget with $30 million for the state's five food banks; launch a Food is Medicine program through the state Health Care Authority; ensuring New Mexicans receive food and health benefits through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; and reforming the state's anti-donation clause so nonprofits can directly access state funds. We asked The Food Depot Executive Director Jill Dixon a few more questions about hunger advocacy. The following interview has been edited for concision and clarity. What's the goal for Hunger Action Day? The goal is to bring together the food security action community to have a moment of celebration for all that's been accomplished over many, many decades of trying to improve the circumstances for folks experiencing food insecurity, and also an opportunity to connect people with their local legislators who really do want to hear their stories. It's a chance for us to express gratitude for the funding that has come forward in the past, and the funding that we'll hopefully receive in the future. We want to just make those relationships deeper and better. Is there a disconnect with people not understanding how is in New Mexico? It's so easy to live inside our own bubbles, and it's comfortable there. I think for folks who have experienced food insecurity, who have lived experience, it's maybe a heightened awareness for them throughout their entire lives. But for those of us who don't need to calculate exactly what we can put in the cart at the grocery store, there is a disconnect because it is not our lived experience. But there's always an opportunity to look up and look around and realize that one in five children in our community are experiencing food insecurity, statewide. It's a very real threat. At the federal level, programs that help feed people also are now threatened. How is that impacting the hunger advocacy community? The hunger relief network is really dependent on so many different programs and so many different entities to close what we call the meal gap, which is all those meals that people forgo because they don't have the resources. We want everyone to meet their caloric needs, to have those calories be nutritious. And there's a lot of different ways that intervention happens. There are food pantries with the food that comes from food banks; there's school meal programs, There's SNAP funds, most importantly, that help put money in people's pockets so they can buy the food they need. And all of those programs need to be fully funded, and folks who are eligible need to be enrolled at the greatest extent possible to make that meal gap close. When there is a shortfall in one of those areas, you see need go up, quite frankly. You receive a lot of private donations too, but is there still fear about those potential federal cuts? The food banks are thankfully not very dependent on federal funds in terms of money. But what we are dependent on is TEFAP [The Emergency Food Assistance Program through the U.S. Department of Agriculture] commodities. About 30% of The Food Depot's food comes from TFAP. Some of our other food bank partners, as much as 90% of their food comes from that source. There's no current understanding that there's a threat to that program, but it is a huge area of dependence for us. We're very concerned and very emphatic that SNAP benefits must remain in place at the level they are, or even expanded eligibility. For every meal that a food bank provides, SNAP can provide a family with nine meals. So when there is a shortfall in SNAP, when there is cut in SNAP, that deeply affects the charitable food system, which cannot bear the weight of cuts. But I would say for people for whom the world seems scary or unkind right now, this is a moment for action, and the food banks are here to receive you. You can come distribute food, you can repack pinto beans. You can donate financially, of course, but you can be part of our advocacy network too, and doing something is better than being afraid.
