The federal program sent fresh produce from farmers to the food bank. It’s been cut.

Miami – Stew – a big pot of it – served with onions, potatoes and peppers. Maybe if you’re lucky, Jackie Brown tweeted, chewing on a potential dinner idea for her family when she looked into the fridge of feeding produce at the South Florida Food Bank in Pembroke Park on a recent afternoon. She had planned a week’s meal for herself and the five grandchildren she was raising.

Brown, 59, is one of the 1.2 million South Florida people last year relied on feeding South Florida, the region’s largest food bank, to supplement their groceries. As more locals become more financially unstable due to rising costs of living and getting closer to hunger, the organization reported last year that nearly two in 10 South Florida people turned to it in search of food.

However, recent federal funding means South Florida’s budget is about to shrink by more than 30%.

As part of a push to reduce federal spending, the Trump administration has shut down the Local Food Purchase Support Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA). This is a $900 million initiative that began in 2021 to help food banks buy produce from local farmers. By doing so, they lost $13.5 million (almost all of the food bank’s federal funds) since supplying the South Florida budget.

That means fewer vegetables on the table for families like Brown and fewer orders from farmers who grow them.

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Especially towards the end of the month, Brown has relied on food banks to put meals on the table in South Florida.

“That’s what I use a food bank,” she said.

Many people across the country, especially in South Florida, have felt the pressure of rising prices. USDA data shows that food prices have risen by about 30% since 2020.

Over the same period, the percentage of food insecurity in Miami-Dade (people who are not enough to eat) has skyrocketed by 50%. At any time, around 400,000 Miamians, 15% of the county’s population, have no idea where their next meal will come from.

The proposed vulnerability suggests significantly reducing federal spending on food assistance programs, such as the Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program, known as the Food Stamp, which roughly 3 million Floridians, including Brown and her five grandchildren, rely on.

For Brown’s family and other families close to it, food banks have become particularly important to ensure access to fresh fruits and vegetables.

Local produce purchasing programs are primarily to thank you. Feeding South Florida estimates that almost half of its produce is purchased with money from the program. Without funding, Food Bank told the Miami Herald it expects the food bank to “have a significant impact on both the amount of fresh food available and diversity” and its “ability to provide nutritious foods.”

Robin Safley, CEO of Feeding Florida, a South Florida umbrella organisation, highlighted the economic importance of ensuring access to healthy, fresh foods.

Those served by her organization’s affiliate food bank are disproportionately dealing with chronic health issues, including diabetes, Safley said. “Many of them have Medicaid on board,” she said. Healthy eating plays an important role in reducing these costs, she added.

But beyond these health effects, Safley noted that the programme has increased opportunities for local farmers to sell produce in their home-based communities.

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On his farm in Palm Beach County, JD Pool cried out about the sound of freshly picked corn cooling boxes below, raining water from pipes stuck to the ceiling.

Poole is a Belgrade third-generation farmer who co-founded Scotlynn’s sweet pack producer in 2012. It is based annually on Belgrade, the company’s plants, thousands of acres of sweet corn, pumpkin, cabbage, watermelon and asparagus.

South Florida feeding was a major buyer of the pool thanks to the federal food purchase initiative that Florida received more than $20 million in food banks last year. He estimates that his farm sends more than 1 million pounds of produce to the food bank each year. Pool said the arrangement accounts for around 10% of sweet pack producers’ annual revenue.

The program was particularly helpful in selling perfectly good produce that grocery stores don’t buy due to slight aesthetic defects, he added. “Instead of walking away and taking away a great economic loss,” the program helped bring back investments to plant his business that would otherwise have been lost. Without the program, the produce would have been thrown away.

That’s likely to happen now. He was grateful for providing those in need, but Poole says he can’t afford to harvest, process, package and ship produce on his farm.

He hopes the president will reconsider the end of the program. Poole, a Trump voter, is generally happy with his administration. He then insisted on efforts to eliminate “fluff” from Trump and the government’s Department of Efficiency expenditure. But he said the initiative is not fluff. “It’s a very necessary program.”

Poole is not alone in the farming community in his assessment. Aaron Shier, director of government relations at the National Farmers Union, a DC-based advocacy group, said the program is important for many community farmers, strengthening local food supply chains and strengthening local food supply chains while everything is in trouble.

US Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat who sits on the House Budget Committee’s Agricultural Subcommittee, described the program as “a victory for local farmers and families in need.” The cancellation was a “gut punch,” she told the Herald.

People like Brown. The benefits and snap assistance of a grandmother’s disability alone are not enough to provide to grandchildren whose mother dies and whose father is not photographed.

However, Brown turned to her friend Latoya Bennett and said she was lucky. “A lot of people, a lot of homeless people, can’t even come here (this food). We really need this more.”

Bennett nodded as he looked at the pile of carrots and onions. “This is a truly blessing.”