Bansley’s Berkshire Ridge Farm in Harrison, Arkansas, raises pigs and participated in a federal program that helped food banks obtain locally produced foods. Cuts to U.S. Department of Agriculture fundings have effectively ended the program. (Photo courtesy of Carol Bansley)
A $1 billion cut to the U.S. Department of Agriculture is expected to remove dependable protein sources for food banks in Arkansas, where one in five people lacked access to adequate food in 2023 – the nation’s highest rate.
The cuts are also expected to slash significant earnings for local farmers who participated in the USDA’s Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA) and the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program (LFS). The programs became effective in Arkansas in the fall of 2022 upon established USDA contracts.
Former Arkansas Department of Human Services Secretary Cindy Gillespie and current Agriculture Secretary Wes Ward both commended the program contracts at the time they were signed in USDA-issued press releases. Gillespie praised the LFPA program for its goal to bring nutritious food to Arkansas families and Ward said LFS would help strengthen the state’s multibillion- dollar agriculture industry.
When asked for a statement about the federal cuts, Ward’s chief of staff referred questions to the USDA or the Arkansas Department of Education, which distributes the funds.
During the approximate two years the programs were active, the ADE distributed nearly $9.3 million combined, which helped stock 91 schools and eight food banks or distributors with locally grown products. Four dozen farmers participated in the programs, according to the ADE.
Education Department spokesperson Kimberly Mundell said the state had about $1.8 million in LFPA funds remaining as of April 2, and “We have not been informed of any funding cuts.”
The Northeast Arkansas Food Bank received two cycles of funding from the LFPA program, Chief Executive Officer Christie Jordan said. What remains of its latest $500,000 allocation is expected to be spent within the next few months, in line with the state’s fiscal year, she said.
that’s the largest impact that losing this particular stream of funding will have on our organization,” she said.
Charitable food organizations largely rely on donations, and protein is a nutritional category that often comes up short. Jordan said the NEA Food Bank sources foods it lacks in donations, which is often fresh meats, fruits and vegetables.
The NEA Food Bank serves 12 counties, but it reaches residents in all 75 through partnerships.
“This loss will be felt statewide,” Jordan said. “There are farm partnerships that will feel this impact, and the food banks will be looking to source food differently because of the loss of this.”
Jordan said the funding loss will change the composition of the food the organization can provide, but she’s still figuring out how to offset the financial loss. Despite losing the federal assistance, Jordan said she is grateful funding wasn’t cut immediately and she has a few months to plan for the next fiscal year.
“I have every confidence that we will be able to continue to provide the same volume of food, but that composition of what is offered will change,” she said.
Similarly, Northwest Arkansas Food Bank President and CEO Kent Eikenberry said he’s in somewhat of a limbo stage where he’s brainstorming what alternative funding sources he can use to cover the gap.
in a position where we are not dependent upon the federal government in order to distribute food to those people who need help,” he said.
Eikenberry didn’t provide the exact figure the NWA Food Bank received through the LFPA program. It “wasn’t a huge amount, but it’s something that we’ll just roll into our operational expenses,” he said.
With the “bonus” federal assistance, Eikenberry said he purchased ground beef to offer a new protein option in a poultry-heavy area. Moving forward, he said he expects to continue his commitment to do whatever is necessary to serve the region.
“If I didn’t think I could come up with a solution, I wouldn’t need to be in this chair,” he said.
Farmers lose financial deals, future opportunities
The crux of the USDA programs is that local farmers would benefit from selling their product to food banks and school districts. Nearly 50 Arkansas farmers participated, from small-scale family operations to regionally known businesses.
For Bansley’s Berkshire Ridge Farm, a family operation in Harrison, losing the LFPA funding means missing out on more than $25,000 a month, Carol Bansley said.
Native Iowans, the Bansleys moved to Arkansas in 2013 and established their farm two years later, primarily raising pigs on their 250 acres.
Since participating in the LFPA program, Bansley said she has organized monthly sales with the Northeast Arkansas Food Bank in Jonesboro and a food shelter in Conway. Combined, Bansley estimated her farm was providing 3,000 pounds of protein to the organizations, which typically would have been stored away.
was very nice because it took the product that we might have had excess of,” she said. “ We just have to figure out something so we don’t get that stockpile again, which will be a true bummer. Good meats were going to a good cause. It’s unfortunate.”
Bansley’s farm also sells to restaurants in Northwest Arkansas, she said. The customers they’ve already established will keep business afloat, but the additional funds made it easier to improve farm infrastructure, Bansley said.
“We got new feed bins, we added fences and we got some more housing,” Bansley said, noting that normally only one improvement is made each year.
Bansley said the loss of funding will have a significant impact on the farm’s annual earnings, but operations will return to how they ran before the programs were established.
More than 70 miles west in Pea Ridge, Shimizu Farms operator David Welch said the loss of the opportunity to participate in the federal programs feels “terrible.”
Shimizu Farms’ hydroponic lettuce and basil farm started three years ago, and Welch said he was considering expanding to a second greenhouse, but has put those plans on pause given the news of the federal cuts.
Shimizu Farms in Pea Ridge produces an average of 825 heads of lettuce every week. The hydroponic enterprise operates year-round.
Because the operation is set indoors, Welch can grow and provide fresh produce year-round. Currently, he averages 825 heads a lettuce weekly, which he sells to nearby food distributors. Welch didn’t sell directly to food banks that received federal funding through LFPA because of his small volume, but he was considering contracting with schools under the LFS program.
Now, he doesn’t expect to have the opportunity to do either.
“I think as a farmer, obviously, we love when our product can be out into the community, especially for some of our underrepresented groups,” Welch said. “And when we’re losing that opportunity, it definitely hurts morale. It hurts us as farmers. It hurts the underrepresented groups.”
Trickle-down effect
Organizers of food banks that don’t receive federal funds also feel pressure from the federal cuts, presuming their dependable regional funding sources will now become more competitive.
Project HOPE Food Bank in Hot Springs doesn’t receive federal grants to purchase the food it supplies to its 70 nonprofit partners, but assistant director Becky Chote said she expects the USDA cuts will still result in less food available to hungry families.
Project HOPE is privately funded, and Chote said state and regional grants will likely become more competitive without available federal options. With residents’ pocketbooks also bearing the impact of higher prices at the grocery store, the food bank could face fewer community donations, Chote said.
“It looks like it’s going to be a tough situation,” she said. “I hope I’m wrong, but it looks pretty tough out here.”
Without a clear sense of the implications of the federal slashing, Chote said she is left guessing what will really happen.
Becky Chote, assistant director of the Project HOPE Food Bank in Hot Springs. (Courtesy photo)
She said she’s unsure what will become of the existing produce giveaway at local subsidized senior housing, where short shelf-life foods like salads are distributed before they spoil. Chote doesn’t know how much of a subsidy the food bank will be able to provide to its partners if the cost of food rises. Once Project HOPE has to shell out more money for its wholesale product, the cost to distributors would likely rise as well, she said.
“That’s the really scary part about all this, is we don’t really know which way it’s going to go,” she said.
One thing Chote is pretty confident in is that she believes children and seniors will be most impacted by the changes at the federal level.
Children in Arkansas experience hunger at a higher rate than children in all but one other state. In 2022, one in four kids faced food insecurity, according to a report from Feeding America, a national nonprofit that collaborates with food banks and other meal assistance programs.
Chote also said she’s fearful of the negative impacts of introducing tariffs, generally.
“For kids to have the opportunity to have fresh foods is just amazing, and this is really kind of greedy,” she said. “We have about 101 different products in our food bank. You would be astonished to know how few are made here in the U.S. Any kind of tariffs are going to cause more hunger, as far as we can see.”
On April 2, Trump announced he would impose a 10% base tariff on international goods, with some countries facing higher levies. The universal tariff becomes effective on April 5.
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