‘It’s nerve-wracking’: South Georgia farmers and food banks react to losing USDA funding

ALBANY, Ga. (WALB) – Tens of thousands of dollars… That’s how much one South Georgia food bank is expecting to lose out on after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced funding cuts on Wednesday.

The USDA cutting two programs will suspend $1 billion in federal spending. Those programs provided money to schools and food banks to buy food from local farmers.

Frank Sheppard, president and CEO of Feeding the Valley Food Bank in Albany, said while they don’t expect a significant reduction in food commodities, he estimates that they will miss out on tens of thousands of dollars for the entire coverage area.

“That is compared to food donations for an entire year at our food bank being valued at over $30 million,” he said. While a reduction in funding is always regretful, it will not stop us from distributing food products and meals at a high level throughout our coverage area.”

The local food bank is the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, which was first issued two years ago. The contract is $500 million for all food banks across the country.

Eliza McCall, a spokesperson for Second Harvest Food Bank in Valdosta, says the funding cuts are concerning.

“We don’t know yet exactly how this will affect Second Harvest’s operations, but reductions in any USDA nutrition programs are obviously concerning,” she said. We hope this is not an indication of future cuts to other key programs like the Emergency Food Assistance Program.”

But who’s bearing the brunt of the cuts more than food banks are Local Farmers.

“It’s nerve-wracking because these programs provide us an opportunity to help grow the next generation of small, socially disadvantaged farmers by connecting us to institutions to buy our products, said Fredando ‘Farmer Fredo’ Jackson, executive director of Flint River Fresh. “It allowed us to sell our products to a bigger market than ever before,” he said.

A USDA spokesperson released this statement:

USDA has a solemn responsibility to be good stewards of the American people’s hard-earned taxpayer dollars and to ensure that every dollar spent goes to serve the people, not the bureaucracy. As part of this effort, Secretary Rollins is carefully reviewing this funding and will provide updates as soon as they are made available. On February 20, Secretary Rollins instructed the Natural Resources Conservation Service to resume issuing payments to farmers and ranchers for three programs funded in part by the Inflation Reduction Act: the Environmental Quality Incentive Program, the Conservation Stewardship Program, and the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program. Portions of these programs funded by the Farm Bill had not been paused. That action released not only the approximately $20 million in reimbursement requests received prior to January 20, but also those requests received after January 20 for existing, approved contracts. Secretary Rollins continues to evaluate other paused funding as she ensures that programs are focused on directly supporting America’s farmers and ranchers.

In later newscasts, WALB News 10′s Lenah Allen will dig deeper into the ripple effect that local food banks and farmers say they’ll experience.

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‘It’s nerve-wracking’: South Georgia farmers and food banks react to losing USDA funding

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‘It’s nerve-wracking’: South Georgia farmers and food banks react to losing USDA funding

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