“If you happened to smell hickory smoke in the city this week, we were probably to blame,” the North Little Rock school district’s child nutrition program shared in a 30 January Facebook post featuring a picture of the day’s lunch.The locally sourced menu included school-smoked chopped beef, pulled pork, fresh apples and coleslaw. This isn’t standard cafeteria fare, but funds from the US government helped kids in this Arkansas town get fresh, nourishing foods produced by farmers and ranchers in their own community.Menus like this might be a thing of the past come next school year. On 7 March, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) notified states of the withdrawal of $1bn in taxpayer dollars that states used to contract with local producers, effectively ending these and other innovative programs. School districts like that of North Little Rock were counting on these funds to plan menus for the next school year. Now, with just five months to go, the funding has been abruptly rescinded.As someone who has spent my entire career working in school food and now serves as the senior director of programs and policy for the National Farm to School Network, I know the best way to ensure that American children receive a nourishing school lunch every day is to expand federal support for community-based food producers.I know first-hand the impact of investing in local food for schools. Living in Arkansas with my two little girls – who attend public school and participate in the school meal program – I see how vital these programs are for the health and wellbeing of our kids, economy and communities. Thanks to the growth of the farm-to-school movement, the North Little Rock lunch-tray experience is becoming more and more common across the country.While I faced empty shelves at my local Kroger early in the pandemic, supply-chain shortages affected school cafeterias in unimaginable ways. Meeting nutrition regulations became nearly impossible as basic staples like fresh produce and milk suddenly became unavailable, leaving school nutrition professionals scrambling to provide balanced meals. Food insecurity surged as communities relied more heavily on school meals, yet the systems in place to meet that need were breaking down. In response to these unprecedented challenges, schools across the country began to turn to local sources for food like never before – partnering directly with farmers to keep meals coming and meet community needs.The food supply chain has still not fully recovered from the disruptive effects of the pandemic, and growing challenges such as bird flu and labor uncertainties exacerbate the problem. Schools and the communities they serve want to serve good, locally grown and prepared food, but taking the programs from activities like an occasional taste-test of apples from a nearby orchard to a full transformation of menus away from ultra-processed foods and big food manufacturers is going to require more support. It’s going to require investments like the Local Food for Schools Program.In 2021, an incredibly effective solution arose to both feed schoolchildren well and support (mostly rural) American farmers: the Commodity Credit Corporation’s Local Food for Schools Program. That initial $200m investment went directly through states and into local farms across the country specifically for school meals. The next round of $660m was intended to expand to include early childcare programs.The program was successful, an investment of our tax dollars right back into our communities. US farmers typically earn 15.9 cents for every dollar spent on food. But when schools purchase directly from farmers, 100% of every dollar goes to farmers. And now a program that provided critical support has been canceled in the name of government efficiency.John Wahrmund, a friend of mine and third-generation beef farmer in rural Arkansas, benefited from the Local Food for Schools Program. Selling to schools became a new and vital market for his farm. To meet demand, Wahrmund invested tens of thousands of dollars in processing and refrigeration equipment to ensure his high-quality, grass-fed beef fit the strict regulations for selling to schools.View image in fullscreenNow those sales will end. Without the kickstart these funds provide, cash-strapped schools are forced to go back to the cheapest products because local farmers are easily undercut by multinational food companies. When I called Wahrmund to ask how he was holding up, he told me: “[The Local Food for Schools Program] is everything for my sales. Without this, it will literally shut me down. I have focused solely on schools.”He has been driving across Arkansas, not just the North Little Rock school district but from Fayetteville to Hope, to get his beef into school cafeterias. “It will be over – not just with me, but with all the farmers trying to serve the school lunch program. Not just beef [producers], rice, vegetables, all of it.”The National School Lunch Program has always been tied to the fate of farmers in our country. Of the National School Lunch Act of 1946, which created the program, then president Harry Truman said: “In the long view, no nation is any healthier than its children or more prosperous than its farmers; and in the National School Lunch Act, the Congress has contributed immeasurably both to the welfare of our farmers and the health of our children.”At a 23 January nomination hearing to Congress, Brooke Rollins, who is now the secretary of the Department of Agriculture, stated that she aimed to support rural communities, bolster domestic markets and ensure that nutrition programs are efficient. Just last week, she and the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F Kennedy Jr, moved forward with “Make America healthy again” (Maha) commitments to “create and implement policies that promote healthy choices, healthy families and healthy outcomes”.The Local Food for Schools program was exactly that kind of policy. It was more than just fresh thinking. It was a proven, common-sense investment that gave farmers and school nutrition programs a vital boost.March is when farmers plan their next growing season, and when school food professionals set their menus. Now, without this funding, farmers like Wahrmund may go out of business, and school food programs – already operating on razor-thin margins of an average of $1.40 per tray – will struggle to provide nourishing meals to students who rely on them every day. Arkansas, the most food-insecure state in the nation, stood to receive over $8m of the funds. With working families already struggling with rising food costs, eliminating this support is not just shortsighted – it’s harmful.This funding wasn’t government inefficiency or a liberal scheme; it was an investment in our children’s health, our farmers’ livelihoods and the resilience of our communities. Rolling back this support isn’t just a mistake; it betrays every principle of public health and supporting farmers, America’s first entrepreneurs and essential workers. As Rollins said to Fox News this week: “If we are making mistakes, we will own those mistakes and we will reconfigure.” Rollins herself has identified “creat[ing] new opportunities to connect America’s farmers to nutrition assistance programs” in her vision for the agriculture department.The USDA continues to assess its programs and funding. It must correct course and reinstate this vital funding, but it must do so immediately. Speaking on behalf of 20,000-plus National Farm to School Network members from across the US, I ask Rollins to restore this robust local foods market program and transform school food so that meals like that North Little Rock lunch can become the norm. More
