21 hours Ago
I am writing today about the severe and dramatic cuts to several programs administered through the United States Department of Agriculture. These cuts have been extreme and sudden and will unfortunately affect a large community. The USDA has canceled the Local Purchasing Assistance program that would have provided Maine with $1.
25 million in funding over the next three years. Johanna Davis works as an organic farmer in Waldo County. Currently in Maine, 1 in 5 school-age children is facing hunger.
Good Shepherd Food Bank , a nonprofit that works with 600 different food access partners throughout the state, projects that this loss in funding equals about 500,000- 600,000 pounds of local fruits and vegetables it would have been able to distribute through its partners to families and individuals experiencing food insecurity. This is a huge amount of food that comes from over 100 different farms from around the state. Not only is this a significant loss in food but also a significant loss in markets for local farms.
The Local Food for Schools program has also been cut . Maine was supposed to receive $2.8 million over the next three years from this program as well.
This funding would have gone to local schools to enable them to buy food directly from local farmers for the school cafeterias. These funding cuts hurt in so many ways. The effect will be huge and completely uncalled for.
I have been involved in organic agriculture for the past 20 years, mostly in here my home state of Maine. I ran a successful farm business for 12 years and am currently employed as a greenhouse and field manager at a 20-year-old organic farm in Maine. Farming is hard and yet we all need food.
Currently the way small farms like mine can be viable is selling to the local community. However, at this point in time that market slice is only so big. Instead of all competing with each other over the high dollar sales of a farmers market, selling to food access partners such as food pantries and schools has become an increasingly large piece of many people’s businesses.
It’s a win all around. For example, when a farm has a strong, dependable market it is able to grow that business and hire more people to help. Children and people experiencing food insecurity have a chance to have access to locally grown, nutritionally dense, healthy fruits and vegetables, in turn providing many health benefits.
Without these federal funding programs these food access partners will be forced to drop contracts with local growers. Schoolchildren will not have access to locally grown, fresh fruits and vegetables, and people facing food insecurity will yet again have fewer options and resources. In turn, rural communities will lose jobs, farms will lose markets and farmers will go out of business.
Is this really what we want for rural America? Is this really what we want for folks struggling to make ends meet? And for small farmers who are trying so hard to bring change to a broken food system? I ask that you reach out to Sens. Collins and King and Reps. Pingree and Golden and urge them to do everything they can to reinstate the funding for the Local Food Purchase Assistance and the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program.
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