Farmers who have benefited from programs providing locally grown foods to food pantries and schools are struggling with USDA’s termination of the programs, a decision that has prompted protests from Democratic lawmakers.

The decision to end the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program and the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program – and the resulting cut of $1 billion – is being widely criticized because the programs did what many advocates have sought for years: provide fresh, locally grown food.

“It's meant to be a win-win. The win is adding nutrient-rich foods to food assistance opportunities, as well as making sure that that food is coming from local agriculture, and it's not being brought out of, [for example], Mexico and shipped in,” said Josh Harris, executive director of Well Fed Community Development Corp. in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Harris’s organization delivers food and recipes monthly to about 800 low-income families, working with about 30 mostly Arkansas farmers.

“Every month it goes to the same families, which means it gives us an opportunity to really develop the nutritional pieces of their health in their household,” he said. The offerings include local fruits and vegetables, Harris says, as well as Arkansas rice. “Then we give them recipes every month as well, so they're getting the opportunity to really improve the nutritional health of their household.”

House and Senate Democrats protested the cuts. Thirty-one senators, including Independents Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, wrote to Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins March 24 demanding answers about the status of reimbursements under the programs.

LFPA and LFS helped producers and consumers in all 50 states, four territories and 84 tribal governments, they said. The two programs prioritized "healthy, nutritious, domestic food" and took "an important step towards igniting rural prosperity by expanding and strengthening markets among farmers and rural economies." USDA bought food from 8,000 producers through December 2024. 

USDA points to other nutrition programs

A USDA spokesperson said the department on March 7 released more than $500 million “in previously obligated funds for LFPA and LFS to fulfill existing commitments and support ongoing local food purchases.”

The spokesperson said USDA has 16 other “robust nutrition programs in place” and the department “remains focused on its core mission: strengthening food security, supporting agricultural markets and ensuring access to nutritious food.”

Rollins told Fox News a few days after the programs were cut that they were “nonessential” and "COVID-era," but she also asserted they were “an effort by the left to continue spending taxpayer dollars that were not necessary.”

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition’s Hannah Quigley said the terminated programs include $471.5 million for LFPA and $660.1 million for food in schools and childcare settings. 

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She said USDA’s claim of “restoring” or “releasing” funds that were previously obligated “is a bit of a misnomer,” as it refers to a separate pot of $900 million in older agreements frozen “for any expenses incurred after Jan. 19 until March 7.” 

“So on that day, they confirmed they would honor the original agreements and begin reimbursing states for submitted invoices, and also terminated the LFPA 2025 contracts,” she explained.

In addition, she said some states, tribes and territories were slower to start implementing the programs, which were announced in 2022; as a result, they asked for no-cost extensions beyond the original June 30, 2025, program period.

"Others are expected to spend all of their funding ahead of that date," Quigley said. "Since performance periods vary, farmers will inconsistently feel the real impact of the funding terminations across states."

The unpredictable nature of what’s happening in Washington can be confusing.

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Illinois farmer Becky Stark of Midnight Sun Farm heard about the termination March 1 but later found out that funding would be provided through June 30. 

“I had been planning on growing a lot of potatoes, melons, sweet corn and fruits and vegetables, but obviously I don't have time to turn around a crop of sweet corn or potatoes in 90 days,” she said. “So I'm just gonna pivot and plant a lot of cabbage and broccoli."

Thomas Eich with radishes (Kankakee Valley Homestead photo) 

Both Stark and Indiana farmer Thomas Eich of Kankakee Valley Homestead thought the funding would be available through Sept. 30. Eich said he was told March 11 that the programs would be terminated in 60 days.

That will make it difficult to sell the potatoes he is growing for the program. He expanded his potato crop this year to fulfill his LFPA and LFS commitments; instead of 12,000 pounds, he expects to harvest 70,000, with nearly a third going to LFS and another 10% going to LFPA.

He said he’s looking at what to do with that crop now. “We have some options for being able to sell the surplus, but it's not going to be at necessarily the same price point,” he said.

“If you want to argue the politics of putting local food in schools, that's one thing,” Eich said. “But when the government says, Hey, we need you to grow this for us this year, and we already buy the inputs and plant, we just need them to at least honor that contract and not put us in this difficult financial spot,” he said.

End of LFS 'has killed us,' Arkansas farmer says

Shawn Peebles, a sweet potato and fruit and vegetable grower in Arkansas, got hit with a double whammy. First, he found out he wouldn’t be getting high tunnels under a Natural Resources Conservation Service grant that would have enabled him to produce a crop faster. Then he learned the LFS program was being cut.

He had been hoping to leverage his LFS grant to persuade lenders to give him the money to build a sweet potato fry plant. “We wanted to cut our sweet potatoes up into frozen french fries and bag them into 25-pound bags and put them in the schools. That was the goal,” he said.

Ending the LFS program “killed us,” he said. “I mean, we're dead in the water.”

He said he’s starting from scratch. He’s scheduled a tour of the farm on April 7 that will include lenders and nonprofits “to see if they have anything low-interest, because it's going to be really hard to pull off with inputs as high as they are.”

Derrik Hoffman of Hoffman Farms, a fruit and vegetable grower and partner with Feeding Colorado, called the terminations disappointing.

“We have a unique perspective in that we saw the LFPA funding generate an additional revenue stream for ourselves as well as other small farming operations,” Hoffman told Agri-Pulse. “The potential impact of this funding coming in 2025 would have created additional cash flows for local producers, not just in fruits and vegetables, but in the cattle and dairy industries as well, as it would have incentivized spending money locally.”

Dan Gorman, food service director for Montague Area Public Schools and North Muskegon Public Schools in Michigan, said, “The support that we've gotten for local foods has really allowed us to start building those relationships with our local farmers.”

“The fact that we're getting farmers to change their business to plug into the school market – that's the big payoff that is going to last beyond this money," Gorman said. "And so when that gets taken away, then we all have to reevaluate.”

Rebekah Alvey contributed to this story.

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