USDA Cuts More Than $1 Billion in Assistance, Hitting Food Banks Across the US

“I always tell people, ‘It’s gonna get worse before it gets better,’ and people look at me like, ‘What do you mean? It can’t get any worse.’ Well, yeah, it can get worse, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Mike Robinson is at his office computer, assessing his inventory for the next three months at the food pantry he runs in Brazil, Indiana. The Clay County Emergency Food Pantry fed 33,000 families with 54,000 pounds of food last year, Robinson said.

He’s worried about the next six months, however, due to U.S. Department of Agriculture cuts to food banks and food pantries around the country.

“A lot of these pantries are not going to survive. We’re financially in good shape so far. But many of them survive week by week,” he told Capital & Main. Robinson is also concerned that the cuts are “going to affect farmers and meat producers and so many others in the community.”

So far, the USDA has cut more than $1 billion in assistance by ending two pandemic-era programs — $421 million for the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program, which enabled states to buy food from farmers and distribute it to groups that help communities in need, and $660 million for Local Food for Schools, which allowed states to buy food for schools and child care facilities. In addition, it halted $500 million in deliveries to food banks via the USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation pending a review, the agency told CNN.

The impact is being felt across the country, challenging food banks already struggling to meet higher demand, with hunger rates increasing in recent years amid inflation and the end of pandemic-era assistance programs. In 2023, 13.5% of Americans said they struggled with food insecurity — the highest rate in nearly a decade.

“That’s $3 million of food that we won’t have on our shelves,” said Eric Cooper, president and CEO of the San Antonio Food Bank, noting the amount of the annual grant the food bank had been receiving from a USDA program that was just discontinued. His operation serves food to 105,000 people a week across 29 counties in Texas.

“We’ve got less food through these efforts to gain efficiencies,” Cooper said, noting that the need has grown dramatically in recent years. “We’re feeding seniors, we’re feeding working families, we’re feeding a lot of veterans.”

Cooper says that these cost-cutting efforts will have harmful consequences across Texas.

“The mission of DOGE is to make a more efficient government. We align with those values. But when you take support away from a highly efficient operation, you actually create inefficiencies with a more magnified effect. We represent a lot of rural Texas, and these are small communities that struggle with a lot of things, but they shouldn’t have to struggle with hunger because of a policy choice or a prioritization choice.”

Chad Morrison, head of Mountaineer Food Bank in West Virginia, told Reuters that about 40% of the organization’s expected April delivery of cheese, eggs and milk would be cancelled. And the Community Food Bank of Central Alabama’s marketing manager, David McGarr, told WBRC that cuts to the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program will eliminate about 3 million pounds of food that would have been available through the food bank.

“Our racks are empty,” he said.

Robinson is worried about the ripple effect of the USDA cuts since the funding goes through a chain of organizations. In his case, the agency funded Feeding America, a nationwide network of more than 200 food banks that feed more than 46 million people and often partners with Catholic Charities to assist local families facing food insecurity.

Already, Catholic Charities is reeling from the impact of federal funding cuts, as well as political attacks due to its refugee resettlement programs. In recent weeks, at least a dozen of the umbrella group’s local agencies from Florida to California have laid off hundreds of employees, according to the National Catholic Reporter.

In Congress, lawmakers such as Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene have accused Catholic Charities of abetting human smuggling and enabling an “invasion of our country.”

The “adverse effects have spilled over into the rest of our charitable projects, crippling our ability to provide much-needed services to many different at-risk populations,” wrote Jason Brown, CEO of Commonwealth Catholic Charities in Virginia, in a recent court filing as part of a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops against the Trump administration.

Meanwhile, Robinson is relying on donations from neighbors in his community. “The need is out there — and it’s only going to grow.”