OMAHA (DTN) -- The Trump administration says it is committed to "Make America Healthy Again," but one of USDA's latest major decisions is to eliminate funding that helps support healthy local food options.

The cancellation of $1 billion from the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program (LFPA) and the Local Foods for Schools Program (LFS), will leave local food banks and schools with less access to local foods. At the same time, more than 10,000 farmers could see their selling options suddenly dry up after making plans for 2025.

"It's just a terrible time to pull the rug out from underneath this," Ryan Marquardt, vice president of the Iowa Farmers Union, pointed to apple producers with supplies they expected to sell and livestock producers locking in orders of poultry or dates to deliver to local meat lockers. "It's disruptive for us and I'm sure it is for others that it's going to be more disruptive for ... That's just kind of a ludicrous way to run a business or try to grow your local food system."

Iowa Farmers Union led a "call to action" to press USDA to reinstate the LFPA and LFS and other groups such as National Farm to School Network also called USDA's decision "disastrous" for farmers and child nutrition programs.

PROGRAMS RESPONDED TO PANDEMIC SUPPLY CHAINS

The LFPA and LFS programs were started in 2021 with funds from the American Rescue Plan, mainly in response to some of the supply chain challenges that hit the food industry during the pandemic. LFPA funds food purchases by pantries, food banks and other food programs from farms within a 400-mile radius.

In 2023, USDA data shows LFPA and LFPA Plus award combined for $837 million in payments to help buy products from more than 10,900 farmers. The lion's share of purchases were fruits and vegetables, followed by local meat and poultry products. LFS awards were $177 million to specifically to schools.

"There are whole food hubs who have gone from insolvency to being able to thrive and make future investments. There are farms out there that would have faced considerable struggles establishing themselves or getting their feet underneath them," Marquardt said. He added, "There are a lot of newer producers this program helped get started. It created a degree of certainty and stability in the marketplace that we have never seen before. No other program has really provided that kind of stability in the local-food marketplace before."

California, Texas, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois Ohio, Georgia and Michigan were the states with the highest LFPA funding.

The states with the largest number of farmers participating were North Carolina, Michigan, Massachusetts and Iowa.

USDA under the Biden administration announced in October they were extending the programs for three more years, but the Biden USDA did not announce the $1.13 billion in funding announcements for FY 2025 until Dec. 10 last year.

The Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) then sent out notices to states and tribes that USDA was terminating both programs.

STATES LEFT TO RESPOND TO CUTS

Jerry Costello, director of the Illinois Department of Agriculture, told state lawmakers last week Illinois had expected to receive $147 million under LFPA. "LFPA was designed to support both ends of the food chain -- farmers and those they feed. Cutting the funding leaves farmers on the hook for expenses they incurred believing they would be reimbursed and leaves our most vulnerable, food-insecure communities without meat, fresh produce and other nutritious donations they were promised," Costello said at a hearing in the Illinois General Assembly. "The federal government broke its promise, and the people of Illinois are paying the price."

Sid Miller, the agricultural commissioner of Texas, said in a statement that the funding cut actually gives states the chance to develop their own programs. He noted his department had spent nearly $258 million on local foods for school before the LFS grants and would continue to do so.

"I support a fair and consistent approach, which is precisely what the Trump administration is implementing," Miller said. "This is not a final decision -- it's a reassessment. There's always room for refinement, and we may see a revised version of the policy down the road that is even better for agriculture producers."

ROLLINS CALLS PROGRAMS "NON-ESSENTIAL"

In an interview Wednesday on Fox News, Rollins called the LFPA and LFS programs "non-essential" even as President Trump has also said American farmers will have to "sell locally" to prosper during the trade war. Rollins said the LFPA and LFS were pandemic-era programs, but the Biden administration kept pushing billions of dollars out the door that wasn't needed.

"Right now, from what we are viewing, that was a new program, it was non-essential, and it was an effort by the left to continue spending taxpayer dollars that were not necessary," Rollins said.

In separate interview that day with Fox Business News, Rollins was talking about the price of eggs, but also raised concerns about Americans' health, such as "a major obesity epidemic in this country, especially amongst those at the bottom of the economic ladder," and too much use of sugary drinks and snacks.

Rollins added, "We also have to make sure that nutritious food is available for all Americans."

Rollins also participated that day in the inaugural Make America Healthy Again Commission in which she touted efforts to "create and implement policies that promote healthy choices, healthy families and healthy outcomes."

Rollins also has said since being sworn in that USDA will reverse decisions if they made a mistake canceling a program or a contract.

STATE AG DIRECTORS ADVOCATED FOR PERMANENT FUNDING

USDA canceled the program just weeks after the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) voted to support permanent funding for the LFPA "or any successor program administered by the USDA," the group stated. State ag directors like the local sourcing of food and want to build on that so schools could more easily buy from local farms.

"By connecting our farmers with school nutrition programs, we create meaningful economic incentives that strengthen local food systems, supports producers, and stabilizes our communities nationwide," said Wes Ward, the Arkansas secretary for Agriculture and NASDA's current president. "Securing continuity of these programs and reducing unnecessary regulatory requirements is crucial to ensuring children have access to a variety of nutritious meals while at school."

DEMOCRATIC SENATOR CALL TO REINSTATE FUNDS

House and Senate Democrats are pushing back against the program cuts. On Monday, 80 House Democrats sent a letter to Rollins expressing their dismay over losing the programs. "This decision will impact farmers across the country and strip food away from people, including children, who need it," the House members wrote.

Thirty-one Democratic senators released a similar letter they wrote on Friday calling on Rollins to reverse the program cancellations. The senators noted the funding supports farmers and consumers in all 50 states, 84 tribes and four territories.

"At a time when food insecurity remains high, providing affordable, fresh food to food banks and families while supporting American farmers is critical," the senators wrote.

Both the House and Senate Democrats also asked Rollins to explain what assessments were done before USDA chose to cancel the programs.

FARMER'S PERSPECTIVE: PROGRAMS CREATED STABILITY

Marquardt, a fifth-generation farmer in Madison County, Iowa, raises chickens, eggs, turkeys and grass-fed beef and direct markets in central Iowa. Marquardt was part of the LFPA and used it to contract selling certain meat products before going into production to know a certain amount of it was pre-sold.

"So that would give us a degree of certainty in the marketplace," he said.

In other instances, Marquardt said he might agree to fill an order on a certain volume of meat such as beef that he might already have frozen. "That would help kind of clear out inventory that hadn't sold or met customer demands," he said.

That sold inventory would end up in a food bank or other entities that help with underserved populations. "That would let us focus our time, our limited time, on new product, new sales and new business ventures," Marquardt said. "And that was great because we were able to grow considerably with that kind of a framework."

In Iowa, the Local Food Purchasing Assistance Program (LFPA) and Local Food for Schools (LFS) impacted 300 farms and sent food to 135 Iowa school districts and 951 food distribution locations in 98 of the state's 99 counties. That was all based on $7.8 million in spending.

USDA last October had committed to expanding the LFPA and LFS programs for three more years.

Farmers now are left with commitments they had made in the fall, Marquardt said. Orchards, for instance, had signed agreements to provide 50,000 pounds of apples to schools. Marquardt said he had pre-sold turkeys through the LFPA and was preparing to lock in dates for chicks that wouldn't arrive until July.

Marquardt makes the point that the programs were started during the pandemic partially because consumers saw the choke points and ripple effects of the food supply chains during that time.

"This program recognized there is an important role and aspect of food security and food stability, and between the boom-and-bust cycles, it's good to have a program like this to provide a floor and a degree of ability to plan," he said. "That's why this program is valuable in the stability it provides in a marketplace that is kind of subject to pretty wild swings."

FARMERS NATIONALLY RAISE CONCERNS

Similar stories are being highlighted across the country. The Kansas Department of Education's director of child nutrition and wellness told a local TV station that the lack of funding would stop his effort to buy local food products. An organic farmer in Missouri told a public radio station she sold one-quarter of produce to agencies under the program, and it had helped her farm double in size. A farmer in South Carolina said the programs guaranteed a market for his crops such as sweet potatoes.

Marquardt also noted there's a growing need to buy local and cook from scratch, but that takes commitments from both farmers and schools. The Local Food for Schools program helped make that happen.

"These schools are not going to be able to purchase these products otherwise," Marquardt said. "They just do not have the funding in their budgets to normally buy local products that are probably not as massed produced. That's the same too for our local food banks and food pantries. A lot of this food went in those directions as well."

Also see, "USDA Contract Freezes Continue to Threaten Local Food Programs and Conservation Efforts," https://www.dtnpf.com/…

Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com

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