{"id":134288,"date":"2025-03-15T02:42:59","date_gmt":"2025-03-15T02:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/alabama\/alabama-schools-will-lose-access-to-fresh-local-produce-as-trump-administration-guts-usda\/"},"modified":"2025-03-15T02:42:59","modified_gmt":"2025-03-15T02:42:59","slug":"alabama-schools-will-lose-access-to-fresh-local-produce-as-trump-administration-guts-usda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=134288","title":{"rendered":"Alabama schools will lose access to fresh local produce as Trump administration guts USDA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>As the Trump administration continues to slash federal spending under the supervision of Elon Musk\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced that it will be canceling the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program. The program, which began during the COVID-19 pandemic, provides $660 million to schools and child care facilities for purchasing fresh produce from nearby farms.<\/p>\n<p>More than 40 states, including Alabama, were signed on to participate in the program which \u201clooked to build a more resilient food supply chain that didn\u2019t just rely on major food companies,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/03\/10\/usda-cancels-local-food-purchasing-for-schools-food-banks-00222796\">according to Politico<\/a>. Now, Alabama schools will lose out on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.al.com\/educationlab\/2025\/03\/alabama-schools-lose-16-million-for-fresh-produce-due-to-usda-cuts.html\">$16 million<\/a> in federal funding to provide good quality food for children across the state, according to state Department of Education Superintendent Eric Mackey.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt will be hard to replicate the program without federal funds because it\u2019s a pretty expensive program,\u201d Mackey said.<\/p>\n<p>Mackey added that Alabama is one of the leading states when it comes to \u201cfarm-to-table or farm-to-school\u201d collaborations. He hopes to work with the agriculture commission to find an alternative path forward now that federal funding has been pulled.<\/p>\n<p>The cuts will also hurt the Deep South Food Alliance, New North Florida Cooperative, Durbin Farms and other small farmers who collaborated with the state to provide schools with fresh produce through the LFS program.<\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration\u2019s decision to gut the program comes as school nutrition officials express concerns about the decreasing affordability of healthy food. During his 2024 campaign, Trump vowed to lower grocery prices on his first day in office, but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/california\/story\/2025-03-06\/trump-promised-lower-food-prices-immediately-but-i-gave-him-six-weeks-heres-my-grocery-bill\">food costs remain high<\/a> \u2014 not in small part due to the president\u2019s on-again-off-again trade war with U.S. allies Canada and Mexico.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The LFS program is not the only USDA program being impacted by Trump and Musk\u2019s indiscriminate attacks on federal spending. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alreporter.com\/2025\/02\/24\/farmers-in-alabama-and-across-the-u-s-hurt-by-usda-funding-freeze\/\">USDA grant monies<\/a> continue to be frozen under Trump, leaving farmers in Alabama and across the country in financial limbo. The administration also recently announced the cancellation of the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program which supports food banks and other feeding organizations with federal funding.<\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-6\" style=\"margin: 8px auto; text-align: center; display: block; clear: both;\">\n<div class=\"zox-post-ad-wrap\"><span class=\"zox-ad-label\">Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Reuters reports that these cuts, among other actions, have \u201cdisrupted some agricultural markets and caused stress and confusion in farm country,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/us\/farmers-put-plans-investments-hold-under-trump-usda-spending-freeze-2025-03-10\/\">potentially harming Trump\u2019s political appeal in the U.S. Farm Belt<\/a> where he previously saw widespread support in the 2024 election.<\/p>\n<p><!-- CONTENT END 1 -->\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the Trump administration continues to slash federal spending under the supervision of Elon Musk\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced that it will be canceling the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program. The program, which began during the COVID-19 pandemic, provides $660 million to schools and child care [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":134289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11763],"tags":[1846,13820,12750,57956,11337,8842,57957,2074,1864,30653,13747,15985,22088,16576,13732,1175,49174,14852],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-134288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alabama","tag-access","tag-administration","tag-alabama","tag-alabama-department-of-education","tag-doge","tag-farming","tag-federal-spending","tag-food","tag-fresh","tag-guts","tag-local","tag-lose","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-produce","tag-schools","tag-trump","tag-u-s-department-of-agriculture","tag-usda"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Alabama schools will lose access to fresh local produce as Trump administration guts USDA - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=134288\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Alabama schools will lose access to fresh local produce as Trump administration guts USDA - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As the Trump administration continues to slash federal spending under the supervision of Elon Musk\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced that it will be canceling the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program. 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