Cnn
–
Federal financing cuts have launched local food systems in Wisconsin – and through the United States – in chaos.
This month, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that it ended the funding of 2025 for two initiatives from the Pandemic Age: Local Aid Programs for the purchase of food (LFPA) and local food for schools (LFS). Initiatives have provided more than a billion dollars to farmers in 40 states, providing fresh food to food banks, pantry and schools.
The USDA had previously signed a contract in January to undertake to finance the LFPA program of Wisconsin for 2025, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, the Trade and Consumer Protection of the State. However, a USDA spokesperson told CNN that the decision was part of a broader effort to move away from temporary pandemic era programs and focus on “long-term and financial initiatives”.
“This is not a brutal change-last week, the USDA published more than half a billion funds before for LFPA and LFS to comply with existing commitments and support local food purchases in progress,” said the spokesperson.
Throughout the country, farmers say they were blind by financing cuts. In Wisconsin, 300 farmers participated in the LFPA program, funding $ 4.2 million in food at 254 pantry, according to the Wisconsin LFPA website. Many had already taken out loans and bought equipment in preparation for the continuation of the program, said Tara Roberts-Turner, director general of the Wisconsin Food Hub Cooperative (WFHC), a distribution network led by farmers serving more than 400 farmers and the largest state food center.
Without funding, it warned, small and farmers could lose financial stability, local food infrastructure could disentangle and poorly served communities may have trouble accessing fresh food.
“The people who have formed the food center and participate in these programs are very difficult, but at the same time, it is only a hard blow,” Roberts-Turner told CNN.
For two years, the farmer of the Wisconsin Tracy Vinz, 50, provided fresh products to food banks thanks to the LFPA program. Each week, she delivered vegetables from her medium -sized farm, Oldden Organics, to the community pantry in the Oshkosh region.
A moment, in particular, remained with her.
In the pantry, an elderly woman, tightening a bag of musk squash in cubes, grabbed her arm, remembers Vinz. “Thank you,” said the woman. “It makes me feel human.”
Vinz said that the pantry generally receive unhealthy foods, but that the squash in the woman’s hand had been harvested a few hours earlier. In Wisconsin, more than 600,000 people face food insecurity, including more than 200,000 children, according to Feeding America.
Vinz received a subsidy as part of the LFS program to provide schools with products such as vegetable, broccoli and cauliflower sticks. Its transformation installation on the farm was cleaned, Pela and prepared products for schools that did not have staff or equipment.
“We saved them time and have obtained local food in schools. It was phenomenal, “she said.
Now Vinz is looking for new buyers, potentially from caterers or restaurants. Although it was not its main source of income, LFPA and LFS represented more than 25% of its sales in 2024. Before the USDA decision, it had invested $ 250,000 in processing equipment to meet growing demand.
But finding new markets is particularly difficult in the spring, when farms are stretched. “We lack staff, and it is difficult to take time to find new customers,” she said. “But we have to save our farm.”
Dawn Thilmany, agricultural economist at the Colorado State University, said that the cuts will be particularly difficult for medium -sized producers, which are too large to rely solely in producer markets but too small to participate in large -scale raw materials.
Without programs like LFPA, warns Thilmany, many farmers may be forced to sell in less well -paid national markets – or risk their cultures that are not heard.
Roberts-Turner said it was a real possibility for some of the farmers who work with WFHC.
“I suppose that some of the smallest farmers we are likely to work – unless they get other markets – will not be able to continue,” she said.
In the rural regions of Wisconsin, obtaining fresh foods for families is not as simple as loading a truck and taking the road, said Roberts-Turner.
In urban areas, large grocery stores and food banks can place bulk orders. But rural communities are often distributed, with smaller orders dispersed through miles of winding roads, according to a trip, a non -profit organization for national transport research.
The LFPA program helped Food Hubs create transport networks, which involved mapping the routes and investing in different truck sizes to make deliveries more efficient and affordable. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he helped fill the vacuum of food deliveries when large distributors like Reinhart and Sysco stopped going to rural communities.
Thilmany said that food centers are essential for rural areas, not only keeping farmers afloat, but also strengthening regional food networks. The LFPA has enabled many food centers to invest in refrigerated trucks and expand their operations. The WFHC was two years in a plan of five to seven years to develop its infrastructure – progress which is now in a standstill.
“It is therefore a kind of history hidden here – in addition to helping farmers and breeders, we have seen this redevelopment of a more regional food infrastructure,” Thilmany told CNN.
Funding reductions have also aroused the indignation of Wisconsin officials. Four days after the USDA announcement, Governor Tony Evers urged the Trump administration to restore the funding that Congress had already approved.
“Here, in American Dairyland, we defend our farmers, our families of farmers and our producers,” said Evers in a statement. “And we are going to fight to make sure that our farmers have the resources and support the promised Wisconsin.”
On Monday, the American senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin urged the USDA to cancel his decision in a letter co-signed by 30 colleagues from the Senate.
“At a time of uncertainty in agricultural countries, farmers need all opportunities to be able to extend access to the market for their products,” said Baldwin, noting that more than half of the farmers who participated in the LFPA program were new.
For Roberts-Turner, USDA’s decision is a “poor commercial decision”.
“Investments have been made,” she said. “What we do is achieved the cost of food. We lower the cost of transport. We feed our communities. ”