Latest news with #LocalFoodsforSchools
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Illinois food pantries face uncertainty as USDA weighs cuts to COVID-era programs
ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — Food banks across Illinois were left scrambling earlier this month when the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it would cut COVID era programs they have come to rely on. Wendy Eltman has helped manage the Old Stone Church Food Pantry, at 101 E Union Street, in Rockton, for years. Over the last few months, Eltman said the pantry has been stocked with fresh, locally produced items thanks to a USDA grant called the . With federal funding, Illinois created the IL-EATS program, which bought foods from local farmers and distributed them to food pantries. More than 170 farmers have supplied food to 883 locations through the supported Illinois-EATS program. 'We service 65 to 75 people a week, families a week. And we could never go purchase that [ourselves],' Eltman said. The programs were created during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, earlier this month, the USDA halted the grant, saying the program, along with the Local Foods for Schools program, is a legacy of the pandemic and no longer supported the agency's priorities. The cuts are part of the Trump administration's within the federal government. 'The COVID era is over — USDA's approach to nutrition programs will reflect that reality moving forward,' a USDA spokesperson said in a statement. The decision was later reversed, but Eltman said the food pantry is unsure of for how long. 'It's going to be week to week. We know we're going to get deliveries in May, and the farmers will get paid, and then after June: no idea,' she said. Constance Sturdivant, who organizes the food pantry at Christian Union Church in Rockford, said grants like the IL-EATS grant are crucial for the community. 'With the disruption of the grant. What we are able to give would be decreased significantly, if not cut out altogether because of the pantries that are here. We are in the same boat,' she said. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
USDA cuts impact Minnesota schools, child care centers
An agreement expected to provide approximately $13.2 million to Minnesota schools through the Local Food for School Program, also known as farm to school, has been rescinded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, according to state officials. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is ending two pandemic-era programs that provided funding for schools and food banks to purchase food from local farmers and producers, the Associated Press reported. The programs provided more than $1 billion to its recipients nationally, with about $660 million of that going to schools and childcare centers to buy food through the Local Foods for Schools program. A separate program provided funding to food banks. The state Department of Agriculture was informed last month by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that a previous agreement made in January will be terminated. None of the $13.2 million has been awarded so the number of farmers or schools that may be impacted is not available, according to state officials. The state's Local Food for School Program previously was awarded $3.45 million, with 114 awards given to both public and private K-12 school districts throughout the state in 2023. Those schools purchased unprocessed or minimally processed foods from 487 producers. At the state level, the MDA received approximately $2.43 million for its Farm to School program for 2024-2025. Gov. Tim Walz's budget proposal for 2026-2027 calls for $2.59 million to be allocated for Farm to School. Still, the state will not see the federal support it expected, state officials said. 'At a time when more Minnesotans than ever can't afford the food they need and farmers are on the frontline of a trade war, it's beyond frustrating to see these critical farming and nutrition programs being canceled. We will continue to work within our current programs to ensure farmers have markets for their products and Minnesotans are fed,' Minnesota Department of Agriculture officials said in a statement. Some of the east metro schools or districts that received Local Food for Schools Program funds in 2023 were Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan Schools, $173,750; Roseville Public Schools, $149,444; St. Paul Public Schools, $100,000; and White Bear Lake, $85,000.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump spending cuts force Farm Fresh RI to lay off staff, other food programs in danger
PROVIDENCE – Farm Fresh Rhode Island has been forced to reduce its 48-person workforce by eight employees because of the Trump administration's cuts to federal programs that support farmers and fishermen. The Providence-based nonprofit, which connects local food producers to consumers, receives about 40% of its budget from federal funding that pays the organization to help get fresh produce, dairy, meat and seafood to public schools, food pantries and people who use food stamps. But earlier this month the U.S. Department of Agriculture notified recipients of money for the school and food pantry programs that it was terminating funding for them. The grant awardees weren't given prior notice. The programs support some 90 farms and fishing businesses in Rhode Island, said Farm Fresh Executive Director Jesse Rye during a meeting Wednesday with Congressman Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island. 'These programs had a very far reach and supported a lot of small businesses,' Rye said. Magaziner, a Democrat, called the administration's moves illegal. 'The effect on the ground is real,' he said. 'It is impacting farmers, it is impacting fishermen, it is impacting small businesses. And of course, it's impacting kids and seniors and others who need access to fresh food.' Both programs were created by the Biden administration during the coronavirus pandemic in response to concerns about the vulnerability of food supplies. They aimed to not only make people's diets healthier, but also ensure that local food producers stay in business. In Rhode Island, in particular, farming can be difficult because of high costs that include the most expensive farmland in the nation on average. But Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins called the programs 'nonessential' in an interview with Fox News. 'It was an effort by the left to continue spending taxpayer dollars that were not necessary,' Rollins said. Rhode Island had about $2.8 million in remaining funding for the two programs, known as Local Foods for Schools and the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement. Farm Fresh essentially acts as the middle-man for the programs in Rhode Island, fulfilling a critical distribution role that most small food producers aren't capable of. The 19-year-old organization had staffed up to meet the needs of the programs, hiring drivers and warehouse workers to handle the additional amounts of food coming into its Olneyville storage facility that then had to be distributed to some 80 new delivery locations that included schools, food pantries, churches and other hunger relief groups. Rye said that the recent staff cuts at Farm Fresh came through a combination of resignations and layoffs. The Agriculture Department's decision came just a few months after the Biden administration announced that it was renewing the program. 'I think people felt a certain amount of confidence moving forward,' Rye said. 'So to have that taken away pretty quickly, it leaves people in a pretty tough spot.' One of the farms that's benefited from the school program is Steere Orchard in Greenville. John Steere, whose family opened the apple orchard in the 1930s, said his proceeds from the program are 'substantial.' It's helping him mainly by creating more of a market for smaller apples that are generally harder to sell. Those small apples are exactly the kind that schools need for their children. 'The last few years we've seen a big increase in selling school apples,' said Steere. Meeting that demand hasn't meant planting new trees, but it has required him to change how he cares for the trees he has. Steere would usually thin out as many trees as he could to concentrate their energy in growing larger fruit. But smaller apples grow on trees that have been less aggressively pruned. He doesn't know what to do now. The cuts by the Agriculture Department are being challenged in federal court, so there's a chance the school program may continue. If it doesn't, Steere may have to take an older grove with denser trees out of production. And he expects to sell fewer small apples. 'I expect we'll still be able to sell some, but maybe half as many as in recent years,' he said. Narragansett Creamery sells cheese and yogurt through the school program. Owner Mark Federico said his business will see an impact from losing what was a significant market for its products. 'We had made a commitment to allocate a certain amount of our production to service the program,' he said. 'Now we have to go out and fill that production capacity somewhere else.' For schools, Federico said, having local dairy products means they can reduce what gets shipped in from other parts of the country and cut down on their carbon footprint. It also means that the Narragansett Creamery products can be made without preservatives, he said. Federico said the program has broad benefits for dairy farmers, a segment of the local agricultural sector that has experienced steep declines due in part to the incentive to sell farmland. 'The program was a win for local farming because so many of the farmers are mom-and-pop operations,' he said. 'This helps keep the land agriculture-based as opposed to being developed.' The Commercial Fisheries Center of Rhode Island has been using money through the food pantry program to help buy fresh, local seafood to give away for free to those in need. Last year alone, the program donated 203,000 pounds of crabs, scup, mackerel and other fish, said executive director Fred Mattera. Over the course of five years, the donations have totaled 630,000 pounds. 'The beauty of this is it's locally caught,' Mattera said. 'We're not importing anything. This is coming right off the boats in Rhode Island, and we're paying good, fair-market value.' The program makes it easier for fishermen to sell their catch. The foundation has its own refrigerated truck and picks up the fish whole to deliver to Farm Fresh and other stops. Mattera said it saves fishermen the trouble of trucking seafood to fish markets in Boston or New York. Much of the seafood goes to refugee families, said Mattera. The bulk of the program's funding comes from a single anonymous donor, but the cancellation of the food pantry grant will create a $93,000 shortfall in funding over the next two years. 'We're not going away,' Mattera said. 'We'll find a way.' Farm Fresh could be facing further cuts. The organization gets another grant from the Agriculture Department to promote farmers markets in Rhode Island. But it's been frozen out of the federal agency's online portal to seek reimbursements for that work since the day before President Trump's inauguration in January. Farm Fresh is still owed another $150,000 on that grant through September and has heard only that the administration is reevaluating the program. The fate of a larger program that Farm Fresh manages for recipients of the federal Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, is still uncertain. Farm Fresh oversees a regional program funded by a $5 million grant that expires next year that pays for what's known as Bonus Bucks, a dollar-for-dollar match on any SNAP payments made at farmers markets. Magaziner said the national Bonus Bucks program could be eliminated to pay for the Trump administration's proposed tax cuts. He said that he and other Democrats will try and talk to Republicans in farming areas whose constituents would be impacted in an effort to preserve the program. Meanwhile, Farm Fresh is reaching out to private donors and foundations to try and make up for its gap in funding. Things, however, aren't looking good. 'It's just not possible for the private sector to make up for the massive gap in funding from federal sources,' said Delite Primus, director of advancement for Farm Fresh. This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Farm Fresh RI slashes workforce after Trump administration cuts funding
Yahoo
16-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
EDITORIAL: 'Whiplash and worry' continues to plague Maine
Mar. 16—When University of Maine Chancellor Dannel Malloy and President Joan Ferrini-Mundy greeted the news last week that $56 million in previously suspended federal funding had been restored to their organization, they said in a statement that they were "eager to put the whiplash and worry of recent weeks behind us." The statement referred to the United States Department of Agriculture's plan to halt funds — and its subsequent U-turn, however welcome — as "an unnecessary distraction from our essential activities that benefit Maine and well beyond." Amen. This is just the latest worrying, distracting and discombobulating move by a federal government whose babyish motives are not — as we noted in last week's editorial about the same style of about-face recently suffered by the Maine Sea Grant and its many and varied beneficiaries — sufficiently explained to the public. Rather, we're all left to connect these scattershot dots ourselves. Rep. Chellie Pingree did this (again) last week, concluding that the USDA's plan to conduct a "compliance review" into the University of Maine System was "vindictive" and "a total sham in the first place." The interest that the new Trump administration has taken in telling Maine and the nation who's boss, in gratuitous scaremongering and time-wasting, is causing pain and hardship to the people and entities that work to sustain our communities. That this is an exceptionally shoddy way to govern should be undeniable, whatever your politics. On top of that, it's hypocritical for such a meddling approach to be taken by a team of people who profess themselves to be devoted to the elimination of "waste." A knee-jerk reversal of a knee-jerk decision offers no comfort at all. Would that we could feel secure in some knowledge that the federal government won't, in the end, keep its word. We can't. And so the cycle of panic and the anxious calculator work seems doomed to continue. We can't, under these conditions, stop bracing for exactly what we're told is going to happen. The response we might prefer to take, to ignore the announcements and persevere as if they won't be pursued, isn't available to us. It's oppressive to be messed around in this way. Which is why it's very important that Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey joined with the attorneys general of more than 20 other states last week in a lawsuit against the administration (President Donald Trump, the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon), seeking an injunction against the alarming decision to strip the DOE of about half its workforce, and an order that would bar future orders made with the aim of dismantling the department. It's why we can't afford to take the news that broke Thursday, regarding sweeping, damaging cuts to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Local Foods for Schools and Local Food Purchase Assistance programs, lying down. "Sunsetting" was one of the jargon terms selected for use in official communication last week. With Maine farmers, veterans, food banks and school-going children in the line of fire? Indeed. It's dark out there. Copy the Story Link
New York Times
13-03-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Trump Cuts Could Squeeze Small Farmers and Food Banks
At Happy Hollow Farm, a small, 16-acre operation in central Missouri, Liz Graznak grows a variety of vegetables, including organic carrots, Swiss chard, radishes and beets. Some of those vegetables go to local distributors where they are placed in boxes, alongside meat and dairy items also produced in the state, and delivered to low-income people. Other vegetables are sent to school districts that would normally not have the budget to serve students fresh, locally grown produce. For Ms. Graznak, about $240,000, or roughly a quarter of her farm's annual revenue, came from the two federal programs that supported these efforts. This week, she learned that the Agriculture Department had abruptly eliminated the programs. In a Fox News interview on Tuesday, Brooke L. Rollins, the agriculture secretary, called the programs 'nonessential' and 'an effort by the left to continue spending taxpayer dollars that was not necessary.' Now, Ms. Graznak fears that her small farm is at risk. Like many farmers, she relies on loans, and she worries about how to make payments on the $750,000 she owes. 'My farm production has more than doubled in size in the last two and a half to three years because of these programs and this income,' Ms. Graznak said. 'That money was supporting the growth of my farm. I'm leveraged so high, it's scary. I'm struggling with that right now.' The Biden administration created the two programs during the coronavirus pandemic to strengthen local supply chains. They had provided $1 billion in grants to states, which then made money available to school districts, food banks and distribution hubs to buy produce, meat, fish, dairy and other minimally processed foods from over 8,000 local farmers. In December, the Agriculture Department announced another tranche of $1.1 billion in funding for the programs: the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement and the Local Foods for Schools program. But the Trump administration notified recipients last week that it had decided to terminate both. Money for the programs came through the department's Commodity Credit Corporation, a pot of money replenished annually. The agriculture secretary has broad discretion to revoke that funding and use it for purposes aligned with the administration's aims. The first Trump administration used the funds to pay farmers hurt by his trade war with China, while the Biden administration spent it on promoting climate-friendly farming practices and local food systems. A spokesperson for the agency said in a statement that the sunsetting of the programs marked 'a return to long-term, fiscally responsible initiatives' and that 'the Covid era is over.' Some participants, however, expressed surprise that the programs were suddenly scrapped, saying they seemed to intersect with many of the Trump administration's priorities. The administration has vowed to support farmers and to encourage Americans to eat healthier foods, and to empower states to oversee and distribute the funds. 'These were programs that had Republican support in many states,' said Katie Nixon, board president for the Kansas City Food Hub, an organization that connected local farmers like Ms. Graznak with community programs and schools. Last week, the group set up outside a diner in Stockton, Mo., and distributed free boxes of fresh food and produce. About half of the recipients were elderly, and would most likely find it difficult to trek to a larger city for access to a food bank, according to the food hub. Representative GT Thompson, Republican of Pennsylvania and chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, said in a statement: 'The administration is acting within its authority to revisit these programs, which were created as part of the previous administration using temporary American Rescue Plan funds. These were never meant to be permanent, especially when longstanding farm bill programs already provide food assistance that supports farmers, families, and rural communities.' The Kansas City Food Hub estimates Missouri will lose nearly $20 million from the two programs. 'To get notice on a Friday afternoon, with no forewarning,' Ms. Nixon said. 'It's already late in the season. Farmers have already started preparing for those sales.' Tom McDougall, the founder and chief executive of 4P Foods, a food distributor and delivery company in Virginia, noted that the local food programs were not unlike the Farmers to Families boxes created by the first Trump administration. That program delivered 170 million boxes of free fresh food to Americans in need from farmers whose markets were disrupted by the pandemic. 'These programs are not handouts,' he said. 'These are investments in the future of an America First food system, right? And it's a system where family-owned farms can thrive once again.' Had the local food programs not been canceled, they would have provided $3 million for 4P Foods to buy produce, meat, dairy and other products from 200 farmers and producers in the mid-Atlantic region to distribute to food banks and schools. Without the funding, Mr. McDougall anticipates having to scale back orders at some farms and stop working with others altogether. For organizations that provide food directly to children and families, the elimination of the programs could lead to less healthy meals and fewer purchases from local farmers. The Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina would have received $2 million in 2025 to buy fresh fruits, vegetables, beef, pork and eggs from two dozen local growers and producers, including two that grow exclusively for the food bank. 'We have heard some of our farmers say that this program has allowed their family farm to stay open,' said Amy Beros, the food bank's president. Need in the community remains high — 100,000 more people used the food bank last year than in 2023, Ms. Beros said — and a volatile economy means revenue from fund-raising is drying up. The local food program's elimination may force charities like the food bank to limit purchases of local produce. At the Capistrano Unified School District in Southern California, the local food program was set to cover $239,000 in purchases from local farmers, said Kristin Hilleman, the district's school nutrition supervisor. Ms. Hilleman used previous funding to buy hydroponic lettuce for sandwiches, beef for burger patties, and magenta dragon fruit and organic apples to replace cookies and other processed desserts. 'It's the whole MAHA thing!' she said, referring to the 'Make America Healthy Again' mantra of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary, who has made replacing ultraprocessed foods in the American diet a top priority. Without the funding, Ms. Hilleman said, she will have to reassess her plan for the coming school year and may forgo those purchases or cut elsewhere. The Great Valley School District in Malvern, Pa., was set to receive between $3,000 and $5,000 for the school year, estimated the district's food service supervisor, Nichole Taylor. That amount, seemingly paltry in comparison with its general food budget, was enough to provide seven schools with locally grown apples and pears for half a year, allowing her to 'buy American,' Ms. Taylor said. Mr. McDougall of the Virginia food hub acknowledged that it was the Trump administration's prerogative to cancel the programs. But 'the government has a choice to make now,' he said. 'What do we want our children and families to eat? Where do we want that food to come from? And as a result, what type of agricultural economy are they going to support?'
