rhode island local food cuts
Federal Funding Cuts Impact RI Students, Businesses, and Schools
The cancellation of the Local Food for Schools and Child Care (LFSCC) program by the federal government is davastating. This program directed $660 million in funding nationwide for schools to purchase and serve local foods.
Rhode Island was set to receive $1.7 million in funding:
$1,354,670 was allocated to RI K-12 Schools operating the National School Lunch Program
$375,634 was allocated to RI child care facilities operating the Child and Adult Care Food Program
These funds were to be used to purchase and serve food from local farmers to RI students during the 2025 – 2028 school years through a partnership with local food hub Farm Fresh Rhode Island. The impact of the loss of these funds on local farmers, food businesses, school nutrition programs, and students will be significant.
In 2022, Rhode Island was awarded $560,189 through a USDA Local Food for Schools (LFS) Cooperative Agreement and $1,025,342 of a comparable fund, the Supply Chain Assistance HUB Funds (SCA), with the RI Department of Education.
This initial round of funding was used to help our state develop the infrastructure, supply chains, and relationships needed to help schools throughout RI purchase and serve more local foods through Farm Fresh RI’s Market Mobile platform.
As a result, Rhode Island farms have been enjoyed and celebrated across the state – on school lunch menus, in cafeteria taste tests and in local food celebrations. Due to this funding, between 2022 and 2024, local food purchases by schools increased 167%.
IN THE NEWS:
The Local &
National Impact
“It’s Going to Hurt’: RI Farmers, Schools Brace for Impact of USDA Funding Cuts
WPRI-TV
Trump’s Cancellation of USDA Local Food Purchasing Programs Hurts Hungry Students & Families, Local Farmers, & the Economy
Senator Jack Reed
New England Schools and Food Programs Take a ‘Devastating’ Hit After USDA Funding Cuts
Boston Globe
Cuts that Bite: Navigating the Changing Federal Landscape for School Meals and Farm to School
National Farm to School Network Slide Presentation
Click here for more coverage on this issue
Click here to read the official notice from the RI Farm & Sea to School Network.
Federal grant programs that fund local food purchasing and farm-to-school activities play an important role in helping schools serve students fresher, healthier, and more flavorful foods. The USDA’s most recent farm-to-school census showed that during the 2022-23 school year more than 74,000 schools offered local foods on their menus, and spent $1.8 billion on purchasing local foods. This is money that flows back into local economies and farms (Chef Ann Foundation).
USDA Farm to School Grant program
On March 24th, we were notified that the USDA Farm to School Grant program was cancelled for the 2025 year.
The RI Farm & Sea to School Network had submitted a request for $500,000 for the next two years to strengthen the systems and relationships developed through the LFS and SCA programs.
The Patrick Leahey Farm to School Grant has been an invaluable building block for RI Farm & Sea to School over the years. We were awarded $240,000 in 2022 to fund the expansion and support of the Network in all areas from network staff, resource development, our strategic planning process, our newsletter, and Institute program.
Multiple other projects were submitted by schools, farms, and organizations throughout Rhode Island to pursue their Farm to School dreams. These included expanding or starting school gardens, creating student agriculture internships and student-run farms, and hosting community farmers markets at schools.
These projects are integral to helping Rhode Island move into the next phase of Farm & Sea to School, which will now have to be delayed.
What is the Network doing?
The RI Farm & Sea to School Network and our many partners remain fully committed to strengthening our local food systems to protect against future disruptions and to foster meaningful connections between schools and farms across Rhode Island. Regardless of funding sources, our strategic Network priorities and our commitment to bringing the benefits of farm to school programs to all Rhode Island students remain unchanged.
- We are meeting with farmers and school food buyers to continue to coordinate as much local food purchasing as possible, given shrinking budgets for schools.
- With our partners, we are pursuing funding opportunities to maintain the innovative supply chain supports that have been developed.
- We are communicating and collaborating with local, regional, and national groups to educate on the impacts of the loss of funding.
- We are exploring opportunities to bring funding back to schools and farms through new local purchasing incentive programs.
What Can You Do?
- Send us your stories if you are a farmer, food business, student, or foodservice professional of how this funding has impacted you. We will be collecting these stories as much as possible. Send them to hello@rifarmtoschool.org
- Stay up to date on federal actions that affect local food, schools, and nutrition by following Civil Eats Policy Tracker.
- If you are part of a school community (parent/caregiver, teacher, staff, admin) find out how the LFS termination will affect your school by reaching out to foodservice or emailing hello@rifarmtoschool.org
