USDA cuts Local Food for Schools and Child Care funding; Vermont agency pauses CSA grant and weighs options

USDA termination removed $1.2 million Vermont had planned to use to buy locally produced food for schools and early childhood programs, agency staff and local food-hub managers told the House Agriculture Committee on March 20.

The loss comes after Vermont was awarded $1,222,000 through a USDA cooperative agreement for the program commonly called LFSCC — $944,000 designated for schools and $277,000 allocated for early childhood programs, Kayla Strom, Farm to School program manager at the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont (NOFA-VT), told the committee.

The funding mattered because it had been designed to subsidize purchases of local, unprocessed or minimally processed food for distribution to schools and child care sites participating in federal meal programs. "This is a huge loss," Strom said, describing how the first round of the program had helped 147 farms access school markets and enabled 66 farms to make their first-ever sale to schools.

Why it matters: Nutritious local food in schools and early childhood programs creates direct markets for small farms and expands food access for children. Testimony from food-hub staff and early childhood coordinators described both immediate revenue losses for producers and the longer-term risk to nascent distribution arrangements and educational partnerships that connect families to local producers.

What happened and what the state has done so far

- USDA action: On March 7, 2025, the USDA announced it would terminate the LFSCC cooperative agreement that had provided Vermont with roughly $1.2 million for local purchasing, Strom and others said. Committee witnesses said they had not received a clear public explanation for the termination.

- State response: Gina Cicero, farm institution program manager at the Vermont Agency of Agriculture,…