KSHB 41 reporter Ryan Gamboa covers Miami County in Kansas and Cass County in Missouri. He also covers agricultural topics. Share your story idea with Ryan.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced $1 billion in cuts to COVID-era food programs supporting locally sourced food to charitable food banks and schools.
Harvesters Community Food Network is one of many organizations impacted by the cuts.
"In our case, it was about $1 million we received in each round of funding," CEO and President Stephen Davis said. "Over a period of two years, it gave us about $1.5 million in produce."
Harvesters Community Food Network serves 27 counties in and around the Kansas City metro area on both sides of the state line.
According to Davis, the organization only received funding for its services in Kansas, a partnership it created with the Kansas Department of Agriculture.
"This was a Kansas-based program and we were working with Kansas farmers to procure that food," said Davis.
Out of the $1 billion slashed, $660 million funded the Local Food for Schools program (LFS) and the remaining $420 million funded the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement (LFPA).
Harvesters was in the LFPA program that provided funding that was paid directly to Kansas farmers for prodsuce, dairy, and protein.
"In many cases they were startups, they were small scale farmers, they were diverse farmers," David said. "They were disadvantaged in some sort of way. This was really a lifeline program today to help give them a distant source of funding."
Harvesters takes in nearly 30 millions pounds of food each year.
It's relying on current donors to make up the deficit, while the organization remains concerned about the impact cuts have on local food growers.
"Our hope would have been that this would've been continued," Davis said. "It's been proven it works and the foundation was laid to continue to show the success of that program.”
Government spending cuts across numerous sectors has the Missouri Farm Bureau reading between the lines.
"The new administration is taking a whole government look at spending," said Missouri Farm Bureau President Garrett Hawkins. "Given that the interest on the debt exceeds the national defense budget, I think it behooves us that we take a look at government spending; I think including the US Department of Agriculture," Hawkins said.
He's and other Farm Bureau members are meeting with Missouri's Congressional delegration on Capitol Hill this week to push for new legislation.
"I think it’s important for viewers to know we are two years past the Food and Farm Bill," Hawkins said. "That’s one of the key issues that our farmers are talking about this week on Capitol Hill, is the need to update and reauthorize the Farm Bill that impacts all Americans.”
The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, also known as The Farm Bill, is passed every five years in Congress.
The bipartisan piece of legislation is a safety net for producers, numerous programs that include crop insurance, conservation, and agriculture research programs.
The 2018 bill is $428 billion in total dollars; $325.8 million or 76%., funds nutrition programs like SNAP.
"What you’re seeing now is a look at pandemic era spending and government officials taking a look and saying, 'Okay, perhaps we should pause and take a look at these programs and figure out how to bring them in line, recognizing that resources are going to be needed to update all programs as part of a Farm Bill,'" added Hawkins. "Truly, for our members, we expect questions to be asked on all programs. We can be patient while advocating for a new, modern Farm Bill.”
The Farm Bill is typically passed every five years and is updated to reflect the current economy. The 2018 legislation expired in 2023. The same funding has been extended through orders of Congress to maintain 2018 funding.
"The world has changed since 2018," Hawkins said. "We have lived through a pandemic, we saw supply chains upended in the pandemic, we saw the most rapid rise in inflation that we have seen in decades. "Everything we touch in agriculture costs much more, prices that we see at the farm gate are dramatically lower for the last couple of years. We have to update a farm safety net that reflects modern times."
Hawkins says navigating the USDA cuts could push forward new legislation that could impact all Americans.
Both Harvesters and the Farm Bureau understand a new Farm Bill is an important issue.
For Davis, the question is, at what cost must that be achieved and it shouldn't come at the consequence of pulling back programs like LFPA or other programs.
Kansas Farmers Union President Donn Teske provided KSHB 41 with a statement regarding the recent USDA funding cuts:
Kansas Farmers Union is disappointed in the recent cuts to USDA’s Local Food Purchasing Assistance (LFPA) and Local Food for Schools (LFS) programs. The abrupt cancellation now threatens to upend all of the progress that farms, food hubs, schools, and food banks had built through relationships, infrastructure, and increased production around these programs. We strongly urge the administration to refocus and promote farm policy that promotes local and regional markets for the well being of all producers and consumers."
The Farm Bill will continue to make news and KSHB 41 will monitor any changes.
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