Crushing Blow for Local Regenerative Farmers and Food Is Medicine

When the right hand doesn't seem to know what the left is doing...

“The Right Hand”- Reversing Chronic Disease

During the confirmation testimony for RFK Jr, he stated the following.

American democracy is rooted in tens of thousands of independent freeholds owned by farmers.

We are losing farmers today and we can't afford to lose a single farmer. And on my watch, I do not want to lose a single farmer. We have to offer farmers an off-ramp from chemically intensive agriculture, which they don't want to do, which even the chemical industry is ready to change, so that they can grow crops that they can sell in Europe, they can grow crops.

I learned that human health and environmental health are intertwined and inseparable.

We will not succeed without the cooperation and partnership of agricultural producers, of farmers and ranchers across this country

Meanwhile the “left hand” terminated a program this week that was cause for Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, to state

“Donald Trump and Elon Musk have declared that feeding children and supporting local farmers are no longer ‘priorities’ - Gov. Healy

“The Left Hand” - Crippling Local Regenerative Farmers & Food Is Medicine Programs Distributing Their Food

The USDA effectively terminated both the Local Food Purchase Assistance 2025 Cooperative Agreement and the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement 2025. With a suggestion of a better replacement or any replacement.

Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) 2025 Cooperative Agreement participants received termination notices sent on March 7th by the USDA notifying them that the agreement would be terminated in 60 days.

In the letter, the USDA Agriculture Marketing Service (AMS) stated:

AMS has determined this agreement no longer effectuates agency priorities and that termination of the award is appropriate. - USDA 3/25

The same termination was made to the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program. Roughly $660 million that schools and child care facilities were counting on to purchase food from nearby farms through the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program in 2025 has been canceled, according to the School Nutrition Association.

On December 10, 2024 the USDA stated the following about these programs.

“These programs…assure local farmers, families, and communities that they will continue to get the help they need…reaffirms our commitment to bolstering local economies, ensuring food security, and fostering resilient agricultural communities nationwide.” -USDA 12/24

Remember that “off ramp from chemically intensive agriculture” RFK Jr. mentioned above? Well the left hand just closed it. Almost 6,000 unique producers relied on that funding to provide affordable nutrition, which was a major contributor in supporting the transition to regenerative farming practices, a critical component to chronic disease reversal aka human health, not to mention soil health.

Background

Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) and Local Food for Schools (LFS) Cooperative Agreement Program are foundational for schools, food banks, and other local food programs (Food Is Medicine) in purchasing food from local farms.

More than 40 states had signed agreements to participate in previous years in LFPA, according to SNA and several state agencies.

The Biden administration expanded the spending for both programs to build a more resilient food supply chain that didn’t just rely on major food companies. Last year, USDA announced more than $1 billion in additional funding for the programs through the Commodity Credit Corporation, a New Deal-era USDA fund for buying agricultural commodities (over 3 years).

While we focus on scaling affordable nutrition and focusing on chronic disease in children & youth, this termination makes it less feasible as school nutrition officials are already struggling to afford healthy food with the current federal reimbursement rate for meals. Doing this well can ultimately reduce the cost of affordable food but it takes a bit of time to develop the new practices. The entrepreneurs innovating are left a bit rudderless without a replacement.

The Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program uses non-competitive cooperative agreements to provide funding for state, tribal and territorial governments to purchase foods produced within the state or within 400 miles of the delivery destination to help support local, regional and underserved producers. The purpose of this program is to maintain and improve food and agricultural supply chain resiliency.

The cooperative agreements allow the states, tribes and territories to procure and distribute local and regional foods and beverages that are healthy, nutritious, unique to their geographic areas and that meet the needs of the population. The food will serve feeding programs, including food banks and organizations that reach underserved communities. In addition to increasing local food consumption, the funds will help build and expand economic opportunity for local and underserved producers.

In practicality in Oklahoma for example “Farmers selected for the clearinghouse will identify their products, quantities and service areas allowing the food banks and their local partners to select the items and the quantities amount that can best serve the community. The goal of this project is to expand economic development and create partnerships between local farmers and communities long after the project is complete.”

Some of the requirements:

• Foods must be unprocessed or minimally processed

• Must be grown, raised, caught, or processed in the local or regional area

• Schools (when part of the LFS are encouraged to partner with small, socially disadvantaged, or beginning farmers and ranchers

Examples of Crippling Impact

Nate Powell-Palm, an organic farmer outside Belgrade, Montana, was relying on a $648,000 grant from USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service to help build a feed mill for 150 area organic grain farmers. Construction is now on hold following the recent Administration's freezes. Now, about 500 tons of baled alfalfa sits in stacks in his fields and bills are past due.

Dave Walton, a row crop farmer in Muscatine County, Iowa, said he's waiting on $6,000 from a USDA-funded program for climate-friendly farming.

Grain farmer Steve Tucker was awarded a $400,000 grant through the USDA (AMS) the same organization terminating the programs above. He was to build a mill in southwest Nebraska. He had planned to grind this year's sorghum crop into flour and sell it to U.S. snack manufacturers, but now it’s on hold.

Intricacies, Inevitability & Nuances

Programs that fund socially disadvantaged populations and cohorts continue to be a source of political discord and partisanship. Quite frankly, this is not new. What is new is the current administration’s approach to determining funding these types of programs going forward.

But it’s the underlying fabric that has always left me flummoxed. The intricacies of funding source, social responsibility and downstream impact. This most recent funding termination exposes just how intertwined/intermingled economic disparity, economic development and even private innovation really are. When you step outside of the land of venture capital and private equity, the primary source of funding becomes personal loans, private donors and grants just to name a few. Add to this the complexities and intricacies of farm subsidies, commodity crops and the food distribution system and it becomes clear why funding for programs such as LFPA and LFS become foundational

Food is Medicine is a prime example of not only the downstream impact of these program terminations, but also exposes the larger concern we raise. Are we focusing on outcomes?

To date, Food Is Medicine is heavily skewed towards food insecurity, economic disparities and social determinants of health. It has led to a fixation of $/pound and not outcomes/pound. This in turn has led to less adoption of Food Is Medicine within the broader healthcare landscape due to the lack of knowledge that Food Is Health focused on outcomes can lead to a very favorable ROI, one that when paired with lifestyle modification programs can go head to head an many times crush pricey well-known programs such as Omada.

A great example is of Food Is Health (that is also FIM) is

Erin Martin

and FreshRX Oklahoma - for her farmers / supply chain, this is funding termination cataclysmic. Yet as I coincidentally pointed out this morning before news of this had hit most radars, she was a poster child for this movement, testifying to the Senate year.

The nuances of how Food Is Medicine programs are being funded as the sector works to develop into something sustainable, it is a case study on funding sources. For many of these programs, this funding blow is akin to telling your kid during their Senior year of college that they lost their scholarship and there is no funding alternative. For those that are equity backed (aka don’t rely on the scholarship), there is no storm to be weathered. And this is the downstream impact, consider the farmer… And also the supply chain resilience that is lost.

Does Nutrient Dense Food Is Health Get Quashed?

If this funding doesn’t get reinstated or at least reviewed and reinstated for those that meet the agenda of reversing chronic disease, the question is will this be a deathblow for REGENERATIVELY & LOCALLY grown Food Is Medicine, Food Is Health (including CSAs) and the like? If we don’t invest in the growth of these programs, what are we left with? More cheap calories. Which can come not just in the form of UPFs, but also in the form of nutrient void, pesticide laden produce that gets boxed and distributed as Food Is Medicine.

The risk is that we create a future where we continue to focus on $/pounds instead of FINALLY shifting to $/outcome. THAT is the ONLY way to reverse chronic disease and not just keep kicking the disease can down the road. I hope our the new leadership at HHS is reading carefully about the downstream impacts of these program terminations. We are transmitting loud and clear.