Since taking office in January, the Trump Administration has placed a premium on limiting government spending it categorizes as “waste, fraud, and abuse” and “frivolous expenditures.” Among those, it seems, are two programs through the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) totaling more than $1 billion for school lunches and community food banks.
In a statement to The Hill, a spokesperson for the USDA announced that the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program (LFS) and the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA) “no longer effectuate the goals of the agency.”
WhyHunger, a non-profit committed to community food systems and security, described the move as “a devastating blow to our efforts to combat hunger and nourish our nation’s children.” The programs, expanded under the Biden Administration, sought to strengthen food systems while supporting local farmers and food processors.
LFS, with a budget of $660 million, was a federal grant program to provide schools in 42 participating states with funds to buy food from local producers and processors. LFPA ($500 million) enabled food pantries and other feeding programs to purchase foods produced within their state or within 400 miles of the delivery destination. Not only did this give children and community members access to local, fresh food but it supported local farmers and ranchers and strengthened supply chains by diversifying suppliers rather than relying exclusively on large food corporations — a looming concern in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
These changes come amid other proposals that would decrease access to food — at school and home — for millions of Americans. House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-TX) has gathered a number of proposals to cut school meals funding. The Community Eligibility Provision, for example, currently allows the nation’s highest-poverty schools to serve breakfast and lunch at no cost to all enrolled students if 40% of students participate in these programs. The proposal recommends raising that to 60%, a move the Food Research and Action Center calculates could affect nearly 12.5 million students in 24,559 schools across the US.
Another of the proposals is income verification for those applying for free and reduced-price school meal applications. While they claim this will “increase program integrity,” others claim this creates stigma and creates an unnecessary barrier to nutrition for families who might be unaware of the program.
Moreover, while House Agriculture Chair G.T. Thompson has said there will be no immediate cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which supports approximately 42 million low-and-no-income people a month (or 12.6% of the U.S. population), it remains unclear how the administration can enact its proposed $230 billion in cuts to the USDA without diminishing the program. It’s a point raised not only by opposition Democrats but a number of House Republicans as well.
But irrespective of any future cuts, the dissolution of LFS and LFPA in and of itself strikes a considerable blow to schools and feeding centers’ ability to support children, community members, and local food producers throughout the country.
