'Farmers Warn: Losing More Than Income in Clash With Trump Administration'

The head of Northern New Mexico’s food bank, The Food Depot , says the recent U.S. Department of Agriculture’s elimination of a program that connected food banks to local food producers is “devastating.”

The Regional Farm to Food Bank initiative, established as part of the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act, receives funding via the USDA’s Local Food Purchase Assistance program. One out of two government initiatives the USDA recently canceled.

As stated in a press release from The Food Depot and the New Mexico Farmers Marketing Association, the RF2FB initiative made up 34% of total institutional buys from smaller and medium-sized producers throughout last year. New Mexico Grown program.

Through this initiative, authorities report that over 200 farmers, ranchers, and various food producers have sold nearly 900,000 pounds of locally sourced produce since January 2023, resulting in 749,502 nutritious meals being dispersed throughout all 33 counties within the state.

In October of last year, the USDA revealed an expansion of the LFPA initiative worth $500 million, allocating $2.8 million specifically for New Mexico. However, according to the news release, on March 7th, the USDA notified the New Mexico Department of Agriculture that this agreement was being canceled. The program is set to conclude once the present phase wraps up at the month’s end in June.

These are connections for New Mexicans," said Jill Dixon, executive director of The Food Depot, to Source. "We believe in communities supporting each other through food banks ensuring individuals can get meals, along with farmers dedicated to providing high-quality, local, healthy produce to their fellow residents. Those present were folks united by a shared commitment to nourishing people with great food.

And the program worked, she said. “There were definite gains happening. We saw producers growing. We saw them scaling, buying additional land, buying machinery, buying additional [cattle] head, planting new rows. It’s just really devastating.”

Make no mistake: The current funding cycle had its challenges, she said, because it had eliminated money for administrative costs. “We were just working on figuring out how we were going to run a program that didn’t have any administrative fund associated with it.”

Now that program will simply end.

Organizers say 94% of last year’s RF2FB purchases came from socially disadvantaged and historically underserved producers.

“Without this support, we risk losing more than income; we risk losing the ability to sustain our land, our families, and our way of life,” Manny Encinias, owner of Trilogy Beef and Buffalo Creek Ranch in Moriarty, New Mexico said in a statement. “This decision doesn’t just impact ranchers. It threatens the entire rural economy, including locally owned businesses like our USDA meat processing facility, which depends on ranching families like us to stay in operation. Perhaps most concerning, it makes it even harder to bring the next generation back to the ranch.”

Denise Miller, the Executive Director of the New Mexico Farmers Marketing Association, informed Source that her members were "extremely disappointed," highlighting that the agricultural sector was disproportionately affected by the swift alterations.

It's not as simple as turning on a faucet," she explained. "Farmers require time to plant their crops, and ranchers must adjust their businesses to take advantage of new market openings. So, abruptly ending such programs halts all the progress that has been steadily developing over recent years.

U.S. Senator Ben Ray Luján from New Mexico, who had planned to participate in a roundtable meeting with local food banks on Monday, described RF2FB as "a vital initiative that has been approved through bipartisanship during recent years, recognizing the necessity nationwide concerning food accessibility and addressing issues related to hunger. If such programs face cuts or get terminated altogether, it only complicates matters for everybody."

Luján informed Source that the strategy employed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency regarding these initiatives has resulted in the removal of some conventional tools used to tackle program deficits.

What I've aimed to achieve in terms of food assistance initiatives includes collaborating with Republican counterparts who face comparable challenges within their own states when dealing with their constituents. The message has been: 'This effort transcends party lines; it’s about working across political affiliations. Our focus should be on providing support for individuals needing access to these essential services. So, what steps can we take collaboratively to shift gears on this issue?'

Dixon mentioned that losing the program "is really hard for small-scale farmers and medium-sized producers in our region. Many of these individuals are those with whom we have built strong relationships and even friendships; as a result, food banks ended up constituting a significant portion of their sales."

However, it also means "the removal of a key food supply for food banks." Although food banks generally "acquire food in larger quantities" compared to what was provided through the RF2FB program, "it holds significant value for people relying on food security services to see locally sourced, fresh produce during these distribution events."

She mentioned, "Food banks will need to become very innovative in order to find ways for locally sourced foods to remain prominent."

Danielle Prokop provided additional reporting for this article.

Source New Mexico Is part of States Newsroom, a non-profit news organization funded by grants and contributions from a group of supporters as a 501(c)(3) public charity. Source New Mexico upholds its editorial integrity. For inquiries, reach out to Editor Julia Goldberg. info@sourcenm.com .

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