It was reported Wednesday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is cutting two programs that combined provide almost $1 billion in funding to pay for communities to supply schools and food banks with food from local producers. In reporting from CBS a USDA spokesperson described the programs as “short-term” with “no plan for longevity.”
The Local Food for Schools program will reportedly lose $660 million in funding nationwide.
$420 million was also cut with the USDA’s Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Program.
Cuts to that program will be felt in the Ozarks. Local Food Purchase funds have been used to pay local growers for meat, poultry, dairy, eggs and produce for distribution to those in need across 22 counties in Southern Missouri through partnerships between local farmers, Springfield Community Gardens, the Community Partnership of the Ozarks, the Joplin Alliance and The Rolla Community Partnership.
Springfield Community Gardens Executive Director Maile Auterson said they estimate they will lose nearly $2.2 million in funding. She said the program was successful and the grant had just been renewed for three years.
The funds allowed her team to pay for and pick up food directly from farmers and deliver directly to distribution sites like area pantries, churches, community fridges, senior centers and schools in Springfield, Rolla and Joplin. She described the cuts as causing “confusion and moral injury,” to her organization and its partners, and said the cuts take away an opportunity to build a resilient local food economy.
Auterson described the program as win-win, helping to support small farmers, and providing those with the least means easy access to healthy and fresh local food. Auterson said growing up in Clever she saw the impact of farm consolidation in the 80s, she has also seen the health consequences of an over reliance on ultra-processed foods, and she saw the fragility of supply networks during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. She said this program was working to address the consequences of all of these issues and more.
Auterson also said that at a time when so much of our social and political life is focused on a rural and urban divide, she believes this program provided a much-needed connection through the power of good food.
She said her greatest hope is that the Federal government will “see this is a nonpartisan issue and that it’s benefiting the most vulnerable,” and that they’ll reverse course. She said in the year ahead the Community Gardens plans to produce more of its own food on the gardens and farms it owns, but the loss in funding will make maintaining their current levels of food purchasing and distribution an insurmountable challenge.