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Local food purchase and school food programs cut amid budget rewriting, farmers and food banks report cancelled contracts
Summary
Committee debate highlighted abrupt USDA cancellations of two COVID-era programs — Local Food Purchase Assistance and the Local Food for Schools cooperative agreement — and members from both parties described lost contracts, emptied warehouse orders and food banks and farmers suddenly unpaid.
Lawmakers on the House Agriculture Committee pressed USDA on abrupt cancellations of local food programs that had been created or expanded during the pandemic and that funneled federal purchases to local farmers and food banks.
Representatives Riley (NY), Takuda (HI), Thanedar (MI) and others described contracts that had been signed and work that local farmers and food banks had undertaken in reliance on federal purchases. Representative Riley told the committee he had already visited food banks and farmers in upstate New York and urged colleagues to restore the Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) and Local Food for Schools programs that the USDA had…
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