2 weeks Ago
Keena Tracy, owner of Little Ridge Farm, cuts spinach March 26 in one of her Lisbon Falls greenhouses. The farm supplies Lisbon schools with fresh produce through a federal program that was recently canceled by the Trump administration, putting the relationship between schools and local farms at risk. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal LISBON — When Little Ridge Farm started supplying local schools with fresh vegetables, owner Keena Tracy thought it was the beginning of a good thing for both her business and the schools themselves.
The Lisbon Falls farm, which already supplied some food to schools in Lewiston, Falmouth and Georgetown, was able to build a strong relationship during the pandemic with Lisbon schools through the federal Local Foods for Schools program, which provides funding to districts to buy local produce. “I feel like we were building momentum and building a relationship,” Tracy said. “With this program they felt more comfortable buying.
. . .
They have bought from us in the past, but money has been a hindrance. And so it was really exciting to remove that hurdle.” That’s all in peril now.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced last month the program has been canceled along with $2.
78 million in federal funding that would have come to Maine over the next three years. As school districts recalibrate how much they can afford to purchase from local producers, the farms, many of them already struggling financially, are bracing for the loss of income they had planned on. The USDA’s announcement represents quite a reversal.
Though the program was always meant to be temporary, last December, under the Biden administration, the department announced it would invest $1.13 billion in local and regional food systems, which included the Local Food for Schools program. Five months later, under President Trump, the program is being ended abruptly, which according to a USDA spokesman, is a move away from pandemic-era programs, “marking a return to long-term, fiscally responsible initiatives.
” Local farms are now preparing for the end of the program, which to them represented a good market and a steady stream of dependable income in a struggling industry. Having such a strong relationship with Lisbon public schools allowed Little Ridge Farm to start growing cherry tomatoes and sweet peppers specifically for the school system, crops that would not have otherwise been grown at the farm, Tracy said. The farm supplies Lisbon schools with produce to use for lunchtime salad bars and other food offerings, she said.
Tracy was hoping that the farm could expand the types of crops it grows specifically for Lisbon schools, but now she is unsure how much the school will be able to buy. “I’m definitely bummed about this,” she said. Last year, Lisbon schools received $8,342.
78 through the Local Food for Schools program and spent it within a four-month period, Nutrition Director Allison Leavitt said. After the announcement in December, Lisbon expected its allocation to increase to about $10,000 a year, she said. Though losing those federal funds does not prevent the school department from buying local produce, it likely means that the purchases will be reduced, Leavitt said.
The loss of funds also complicates the situation with a four-year grant received by Lisbon, along with Auburn and Lewiston, that reimburses for food, labor and equipment purchases with the stipulation that the school department buys local produce, Leavitt said. Lisbon was using federal and state funds to meet that grant requirement. “When we wrote the grant, it was with the understanding that we would be able to utilize both the federal and state funds for local foods,” she said.
“The loss of the federal funds definitely throws a curve ball at our plans.” Auburn public school officials intend to fold local produce costs into the nutrition budget, though the loss of funds will probably impact how often it can buy local produce, Nutrition Director Chris Piercey said. He estimates the school department would have received around $50,000 over three years from the Local Foods for Schools program, which would have been used to buy higher-cost local products, such as beef, chicken, seafood, pasta and pizza dough.
Caldwell Farm in Turner is one of their vendors. Deidra “Dee” Caldwell, a third-generation farmer , said the farm has shrunk over the last few decades as local farming has become increasingly difficult. Dee Caldwell, left, and Shelby Varney dump ground beef into the patty-making machine March 26 at Caldwell Farm in Turner.
Andree Kehn/Sun Journal Caldwell has raised prices and sold off farm equity to pay bills. But raising cattle ethically and feeding them well is not cheap, she said: It costs $2 a day to “bed” an animal, and all of her cows have somewhere shaded and dry to stay no matter the weather, whereas corporate farms often keep them in a feed lot, providing them with little space and shelter. Auburn schools was a welcome new customer, bringing in much-needed revenue, she said.
“The school systems need the things that I can do in volume, which is hamburger and stew meat, things of that nature, which makes it even that much better, because I can actually come up with what they need in a timeframe,” she said. “We are very, very blessed.” Caldwell said the future of her farm is bleak, and that many other farms are also experiencing the same struggles to stay operational.
If all schools in Maine bought all of their produce locally, it could have a big impact on those local farms, she said. If Auburn schools stopped buying beef from Caldwell completely she thinks it would have a negative impact financially. “It’s one of those things that if just the population of Maine could reach out and .
. . buy a couple packages a week from a farmer’s market or going directly to a local farm, or whatever the case is, the population of Maine could save small farming in Maine,” she said.
“But because of the lack of education about the cost of what we’re doing, it is just something that doesn’t happen. More and more people all the time care about how animals are treated and the humaneness of it, but it still is a lot more expensive.” The end of the program also risks severing a valuable educational link between students and local farms, farmers said.
There is a long history of local farming that many kids are not taught, said Matt Thurston of Jade’s Homegrown Goods in Rumford. They often do not know that farming is a career option. “Kids around this area, they don’t know what 4H or (Future Farmers of America) is and they just, they’re so disconnected,” he said.
“And it’s too bad, because agriculture is strong in the state of Maine and is strong in Oxford County, and it’s just a big part of life here.” Regional School Unit 10 in Rumford has purchased some of Thurston’s beef using Local Food for Schools funds. But it might have to buy less now that the funding is gone, Food Service Director Jeanne Lapointe said.
Tobie Bubier cuts up ribeye steaks March 26 at Caldwell Farm in Turner. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal The school district was slated to receive roughly $11,000 a year over a three-year period, she said. Though apple and yogurt purchasing is not expected to change, the school district might have to further limit the amount of local protein it buys each month.
Thurston feels confident that he can make up any revenue loss from the school system in local sales, he said. The real benefit he saw in this program was the opportunity to offer students locally grown foods. “And we were really excited when we first started that relationship, and not for the fact of the sales part of it, but just for .
.. the better, better beef, really, for the kids,” he said.
When kids grow up eating local foods, they are more likely to eat local food when they become customers as adults and some of them are even likely to see it as a viable way to make a living, Thurston said. “Unfortunately, if we don’t get some of these kids interested and have some knowledge about it in the East Coast, it’s going to disappear and die off,” he said. Growing local produce is not cheap, but it often results in using fewer pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics and less processing – making for a better product for kids in the end, Caldwell said “If we want our children to be healthy we need to really stop buying conventionally raised proteins and vegetables,” she said.
When kids visit Tracy’s farm and then see the food grown at her farm in their school, it reminds them that they can choose to eat local, she said. “(Kids are) seeing that ..
. the farm isn’t just the standalone entity, like the farm actually reaches out further into the community, into their schools,” Tracy said. Kids will also often encourage their peers to try foods if they know it is good, she said.
Local produce is perceived as healthier because it is picked when ripe and gets to customers faster. Keena Tracy, owner of Little Ridge Farm in Lisbon Falls, kneels as she harvests spinach March 26 in one of her Lisbon Falls greenhouses. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal Produce that is grown elsewhere and trucked into the state tends to be picked before it is completely ripe to extend its shelf life because of the long distance and time traveled to people’s grocery stores or homes, she said.
It is a difference she thinks kids notice in the way the food tastes. The federal funding cuts are a big deal not just for local farms but also in how much healthy food is offered to children in schools and how much they learn about healthy eating, she said. “It is in the end, ultimately affecting not only local businesses but the health of kids and their education about their health, and where their food comes from,” she said.
Schools will still be able to buy local produce through a state program that reimburses them for a certain amount of local produce purchased. Maine’s Local Foods Fund, started in 2019 to help districts buy local foods, reimburses districts $1 for every $3 they spend on local produce, but it has a $5,000 per-school-year cap, said Chloe Teboe, Maine Department of Education director of communications. “This program has proven to be highly effective; so far this school year, 63 (school administrative units) have been reimbursed $131,328.
85 through this fund — meaning they invested $393,986.55 with local farmers and producers,” Teboe said. Many school districts have seen this as a cushion under the loss of federal funds, still allowing them to buy local foods and get some of those costs offset.
But many farmers are still not sure how to absorb what they think will inevitably be a blow to their revenue. Tracy is increasing advertising to Community Supported Agriculture customers, a payment system in which farmers and customers share risks and rewards. If she cannot offset possible losses from schools buying less of her produce, then she may have to grow less food or hire fewer people, she said.
“Right now, we’re really trying to focus on advertising for our CSA,” Tracy said. “So we’re trying to get as many CSA customers as we can in hopes to increase our shares and then . .
. it would take some of the pressure off if we are going to lose money in wholesale sales.” We believe it’s important to offer commenting on certain stories as a benefit to our readers.
At its best, our comments sections can be a productive platform for readers to engage with our journalism, offer thoughts on coverage and issues, and drive conversation in a respectful, solutions-based way. It’s a form of open discourse that can be useful to our community, public officials, journalists and others. Read more.
.. We do not enable comments on everything — exceptions include most crime stories, and coverage involving personal tragedy or sensitive issues that invite personal attacks instead of thoughtful discussion.
For those stories that we do enable discussion, our system may hold up comments pending the approval of a moderator for several reasons, including possible violation of our guidelines. As the Maine Trust’s digital team reviews these comments, we ask for patience. Comments are managed by our staff during regular business hours Monday through Friday and limited hours on Saturday and Sunday.
Comments held for moderation outside of those hours may take longer to approve. By joining the conversation, you are agreeing to our commenting policy and terms of use . More information is found on our FAQs .
You can modify your screen name here . Show less Please sign into your Sun Journal account to participate in conversations below. If you do not have an account, you can register or subscribe .
Questions? Please see our FAQs . Your commenting screen name has been updated. Send questions/comments to the editors.
.
