Latest USDA Cuts Will Harm Hawaiʻi’s Food Security, From Farmers To Kids

Hawaiʻi farmers and hunger advocates are calling on the Legislature to plug new holes in food security as the Trump administration culls federal initiatives that help feed children and bolster the local food supply.

The $1 billion halt in federal food spending includes about $660 million for two key U.S. Department of Agriculture programs that give schools and food banks money to buy produce from local farmers.

The nixed federal program drains a pot of about $3 million to Hawaiʻi schools, emergency feeding organizations and the local food system this year, money advocates had hoped would continue to benefit a state where 1 in 10 households often go entire days without food and residents already feel the pressures of increasing living and food costs.

Without that money, and with millions more in cuts anticipated, advocates are pleading for state lawmakers to set aside funding and establish similar programs at the state level.

“For what it’s worth, this is not the first nor will it be the last,” Hawai‘i Agriculture Director Sharon Hurd said of the cuts. “It’s just an ‘I don’t know what’s next’ kind of atmosphere.”

The USDA last week announced it would halt the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement and Local Food for Schools programs. In Hawaiʻi, those programs were particularly useful because they purchased locally grown food from farmers and ranchers to feed families struggling with food insecurity.

Current contracts, including one for $3.2 million to distribute produce boxes across 45 food insecure communities in Hawaiʻi through July, will be honored. The contract — spread across 15 food hubs that often supply food bank operations — was up for renewal, said Saleh Azizi of Hawaiʻi Food Hub Hui. The loss of that funding moving forward is “very, very tragic.”

Among the canceled funding lines — part of the Trump administration’s sustained cost-slashing spree — was a request for $1.1 million to supply poi to food banks. Also canceled was $1.8 million for school meals, which the Biden administration included in its budget in October, when it announced the programs would continue through 2028.

“It was not that there was not a need,” said U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda, adding that the state will need to take on more responsibility for addressing food insecurity through proposed policies such as free school meals. “It was that you had what was just an inhumane cut to programs that are lifelines to communities.”

In an emailed statement, the USDA said the previous administration’s initiatives were pandemic-era programs “with no plan for longevity.” The USDA is instead, “prioritizing stable, proven solutions that deliver lasting impact.”

But many in Hawaiʻi argue the recently cut programs were having a lasting impact, not just on household food security but also on the state’s struggling food system and food producers.

“These are exactly the kinds of programs that we need to lift up our food hubs and our food system,” Azizi said.

Getting Hungrier

The cross-section of Hawaiʻi society in need of help from social service organizations is growing, as the number of ALICE – Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed — families appears to be on the upswing.

Those households account for a third of those who frequent Hawaiʻi Foodbank.

Advocates are calling on the state’s lawmakers to step up to help, asking them to pass a farm-to-families bill that mirrors the USDA’s canceled programs by moving food from local farms to feeding institutions.

So Hawaiʻi Foodbank is facing pressure from both ends: More demand and, potentially, less money.

The local food purchase assistance program also targets “socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers,” which include many Hawaiʻi food producers.

“The decisions being made in local and state government now carry even more weight than they did before,” Heaivilin said.

Local School Meals: Too Little, Too Late

The USDA allocated the Hawaiʻi Department of Education nearly $650,000 in 2023 to purchase local ingredients for school meals under the Local Food for Schools program, which advocates hoped would help the department fulfill its legislative mandate to spend 30% of its food budget on local ingredients by the end of the decade.  

But the department has struggled to use the money to purchase local food for its 258 schools. DOE said last summer it was developing a plan on how to use the grant but didn’t provide any additional details. 

The department did not respond to requests for comment.

USDA data shows the education department has spent just over $300 of Hawai‘i’s grant, less than 1% of the total award from the federal government. The rest of the money needs to be spent by June, when the grant expires.

David Gibson, executive director of the Ho’okāko’o Corporation, said the three charter schools he oversees received roughly $42,000 from the USDA this year. The money makes up a small portion of the $2 million needed to serve students at the three schools, but it’s been helpful for purchasing local ingredients for Kualapu’u School on Molokaʻi, where food costs are particularly high, Gibson added.   

The schools haven’t received any guidance from the Hawaiʻi Child Nutrition Programs about the grant’s future, Gibson said, and are continuing to purchase ingredients from local vendors.  

This ongoing series delves deep into what it would take for Hawai‘i to decrease its dependence on imported food and be better positioned to grow its own.

The larger loss may come from the federal government’s decision to terminate agreements with states that would have extended the Local Food for Schools grant past 2025.

The education department could have received up to $1.8 million from the grant this year, according to a page on USDA’s website, which was taken down around March 11.

Jesse Cooke, vice president of investments and analytics at the Ulupono Initiative, said it’s difficult to quantify the impact of the eliminated funding on Hawaiʻi schools, especially because the education department struggled to spend the money it received in 2023.

Nevertheless, the $1.8 million could have been helpful in training more cafeteria workers to incorporate local ingredients into school meals, Cooke said, possibly bringing DOE closer to reaching its sustainability goals by the end of the decade.

The USDA has already canceled seven shipments of food to Hawaiʻi this year under The Emergency Food Assistance Program, funded by the Commodity Credit Corporation, reflecting a trend felt by food banks nationally.

For Hawaiʻi this year, losing that funding would be equivalent to $2.3 million, a significant chunk of its total annual food bill, which was $30.6 million last year. That is worth about five times as much as if beneficiaries purchased the items off the shelf, said Miller of the food bank.

That fund is often used at administrations’ discretion but “my assumption is that there will be no more food coming through CCC,” Miller said.

The only certainty for USDA program beneficiaries is that nothing is certain given the administration’s aggressive funding freezes, cuts and reinstatements.

It also removes a bucket of funding that Hawaiʻi has often lacked the wherewithal to draw from, which groups like Ulupono Initiative have said the state should do better at. But that window appears to be closing.

Among them are the USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service programs, which Mālama Kauaʻi receives for some of its work to promote agricultural production. The nonprofit distributes food boxes under the $3.2 million contract.

“It’s a situation that’s really bad right now,” Cooke said. “And, long term, it could get even worse with a lot of what’s going on.”

“Hawai‘i Grown” is funded in part by grants from the Stupski Foundation, Ulupono Fund at the Hawai‘i Community Foundation and the Frost Family Foundation.