‘We will have less access to food’: anti-hunger organizations speak about federal funding cuts

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Food banks and anti-hunger organizations are speaking out about what federal funding cuts to the Local Food Purchasing Assistance Program (LFPA) mean for their communities.

In Fairbanks, the Bread Line has been serving the community since 1984.

The federal funding drop has come as President Donald Trump continues to work with his administration to find ways to cut what they call excessive spending. Since taking office in January, the Trump administration — working with the Department of Government Efficiency, headed up by Elon Musk — tens of thousands of federal jobs have been slashed, along with government funding for multiple agencies.

Over the decades, the group has expanded the programs it can offer; a weekday soup kitchen, a community garden, and a culinary job training program, to highlight a few.

All these programs are supported using local ingredients grown in the region, all while seeing an increasing need year-to-year.

“We have been experiencing an incredible increase in need in our programs here; in the last two years alone, we’ve seen something like a 40% increase in service just at the soup kitchen,” executive director of the Bread Line Hannah Hill explained.

The increase in need came around the same time the LFPA was put in place, which helped them subsidize the amount of food they required; now these cuts are impacting the future of the organization.

“This comes at the same time when there’s been a lot of tightening of resources access, and now this rolling federal cuts,” Hill said. “So, it’s coming at one of the worst times that I’ve seen in my nine years here at the Bread Line.”

The organization typically relies on donated food from the community, but the need outpaced the growth. The funding helped them scale the organization by partnering with a few local Fairbanks-based farms, like Goosefoot Farm, which grows vegetables that the Bread Line asks for in the form of Community Shared Agriculture (CSA).

“For the 16 weeks of summer, we’re getting 10 CSA shares worth of vegetables,” Hill said. “They come and ask us what we need in particular that week to make sure that we’re not like duplicating, having too much kale or whatever it is, they really tailor the vegetables they bring to us specifically.”

Without funding, the Bread Line won’t be able to invest directly in their local farmers, Hill said, which means they won’t have the same share of the CSA as they once had.

For them, that means they won’t have the same amount of food to offer as they expect the need to increase due to economic instability.

“We will have less access to food here at the soup kitchen at a time of heightened need,” Hill emphasized. “It’s really unfortunate timing, both because need is up and because there was a lot of good faith put into this program that was great for the economy, great for locals, great for everybody, and now it’s just gone without notice.”

In Anchorage, the Food Bank of Alaska held its annual food giveaway for Good Friday. During an interview with Alaska’s News Source, they said the federal cuts were a big concern among residents of Alaska and want everyone to know they are stable, but reinforced that these cuts are detrimental to the small organizations around the state.

“Over 150 agencies around the state that we work with are running on pretty thin margins. Communities, it’s time to rally around your local food pantry. It’s time to donate food, donate time, donate dollars,” Chief Advocacy Officer with the Food Bank of Alaska Rachael Miller emphasized.

In a letter to the states and tribal leaders, the Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, defended the need for cuts.

“We have a historic opportunity to improve nutrition programs to better serve individuals who need additional support,” Rollins said in the letter. ”Our shared goal should be to lift millions of Americans out of dependency and into hopeful future and unimagined possibilities. It will require tireless energy and new and innovative approaches to long-ignored problems. But you have always been the greatest ‘laboratories of democracy,’ and I am confident that the best ideas will come from you.”

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