Western NC farms, schools and food bank take hit from Trump administration funding cuts

ASHEVILLE – The Trump administration is cutting millions of dollars in funding for programs that help schools, childcare facilities and food banks in North Carolina to purchase food from local farmers.

On March 7, the U.S. Department of Agriculture notified the state that it was canceling an agreement for its Local Food for Schools and Child Care Cooperative program, effective 60 days from the March 7 date. The agreement, made with North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, would have provided the state nearly $19 million in federal funding over three years to help school systems and childcare facilities purchase unprocessed, or minimally processed, food from local farmers and small businesses.

“We are always striving to create opportunities for North Carolina products to be served in local schools,” the state’s Republican Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler said in a March 19 statement. “We are disappointed with this decision, and we will be discussing it with the appropriate people to see if there is a way to continue providing opportunities to connect students and children with local foods served in schools and support farmers.”

Congressman Chuck Edwards, a Republican representing North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District, which covers much of Western North Carolina, said in a March 19 email that he supports cutting out “waste, fraud, and abuse in our federal spending budget” and “right-sizing our government to ensure the responsible use of Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars.”

According to Edwards, the state still has nearly $7 million in unused USDA program funding, and that he’ll “continue to advocate for WNC’s hard-working farmers to receive the federal support they need.”

The cuts, which amount to $1 billion nationally, come amid President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s efforts to slash the size of the federal government through employee layoffs and reduced spending. So far, Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency claims it has saved taxpayers an estimated $115 billion by eliminating what it has described as wasteful spending across federal agencies.

Win-win-win-lose

The state was also set to receive more than $11 million in USDA funding through a Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement. The funding helps food banks buy food produced in North Carolina, or within 400 miles of the delivery destination to strengthen supply chain resiliency.

In a March 18 statement, MANNA FoodBank CEO Claire Neal said the nonprofit received $1.3 million last fiscal cycle from the USDA’s Local Food Purchase Assistance Plus program, which it used to purchase produce, eggs, dairy items, grains and meat from 66 local and regional farms.

Neal described the federal program as a “win-win-win,” one that keeps “local farmers thriving through direct sales, invests in our regional economy by purchasing goods close to home, and ensures our neighbors have fresh, nutritious food on the table.”

The funding cuts also come as many local farms are recovering from Tropical Storm Helene, which pummeled Western North Carolina in September, destroying MANNA’s warehouse and causing nearly $4 billion in estimated damage to the state’s agricultural sector. So far, federal and state funding assistance has been slow to trickle in.

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“Losing this support is devastating, not merely because of the financial setback, but because it directly affects an essential lifeline connecting agriculture, regional economic well-being, and the health of WNC families,” Neal said.

Area school systems will also feel the effect of the funding cuts to the USDA’s Local Food for Schools program. Launched during the pandemic in 2021, with funding from the American Rescue Plan Act, the program was set to renew this year for another three-year cycle with additional funding so childcare centers could participate.

Asheville City Schools said it used program funding to purchase nearly $19,000 of ground beef from local farms for its school nutrition program since 2023.

“We had anticipated participating in round two this year, so this will be an additional loss for our program, students and local farmers, in a local economy struggling to recover from the recent hurricane,” said Heidi Kerns, ACS’s chief financial officer.

Buncombe County Schools also said it received funding through the program — more than $90,000 since 2023 to purchase food from local farms like TendWell Farm in Old Fort, Brasstown Beef in Franklin, and KT’s Orchard and Apiary in Canton.

Jamie Ager, CEO and co-founder of Hickory Nut Gap Farm in Fairview, lauded the USDA’s local food programs for not only strengthening local agriculture but also the community.

“I think it’s such a win on so many levels, because you’re helping local farmers and getting product from local folks into the schools,” Ager said. “A bad habit of the school system is to buy cheap meat and feed it to our kids who are the most important resource for the future.”

The cuts came as a surprise, Ager said, since the programming appears to be in line with federal policy initiatives of the Trump administration, specifically U.S. Department and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again initiative.

In a Feb. 13 executive order, Trump established a Make America Healthy Again commission, in part to work with farmers to ensure the country’s food is the healthiest in the world and to study how food production techniques might contribute to chronic childhood disease.

“All these initiatives really line up with this whole Make America Healthy Again side of the story,” Ager said of the USDA’s local food programs.

Hickory Nut Gap has been providing ground beef to schools since the program started, Ager said. And while the cuts won’t put them out of business, he did say the program made him feel hopeful that local schools would have more access to healthier food.

“There’s nobody that should be against helping local farmers feed local kids,” Ager said.

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Jacob Biba is the Helene recovery reporter at the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. Email him at jbiba@citizentimes.com.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Western NC farms, schools, food bank take hit from federal cuts