Many local food pantry organizers and farmers attending the Chicago Food Justice Summit Friday said there’s a sense of panic amid cuts to federal funding that is a “lifeline” for their ability to provide access to healthy food.
Melanie Carter, known to most as “Miss Mel,” is an urban farmer in Back of the Yards, and sad food security is one of her biggest concerns.
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“What we’re missing is investment in the community,” she said. “We need groceries like anyone else. We need reliable food sources, and we need access to healthy food like everybody else.”
The three-day summit brings together urban farmers with community garden and pantry organizers, local artists and vendors, as well as students and elected leaders.
So far, the Trump administration has cut $30 million in federal funding in Illinois. That money supported 175 farmers who provided food to nearly 900 community sites.
“Really starting to talk through what people would want to envision and see how they could collaboratively work together for transforming and moving the Chicago food system in the area to be a lot more just and fair, humane, healthy and sustainable,” said Roger Cooley, executive director of the Chicago Food Policy Action Council.
Carter said her community’s plan to weather the latest cuts is to lean on each other.
“Although it’s going to impact a lot of people in negative ways, I think we’ll make it,” she said. “Community is going to hold us up.”
Carter said she’ll be part of a big group of local farmers that plan to march in Springfield in April and May in hopes of stopping federal cuts and advocating for more local funding.
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