Earlier this year, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it was cutting a pair of major nutrition funding programs: the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program (LFS) and the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA). Recipient organizations were notified of the cuts in March of this year, and many food banks and schools expecting funding had to scramble when the cuts were announced. Locally, the Southside Community Center said that these federal cuts were “threatening [their] ability to provide fresh, local food for families struggling with food insecurity.”
The LFS would have distributed about 660 million dollars for schools and childcare locations in 2025, had it not been cut. The LFPA was a partnership between the USDA and more than forty states, and would have provided money for food banks and organizations to source local agricultural products. Both programs were key in getting fresh, local foods to the people that need them most, but also giving smaller, local farms a steady stream of income—a win-win.
The programs were introduced by the Biden Aadministration to increase the health of local supply chains. The money for the programs came from the Commodity Credit Corporation, a funding source that can be redirected at the discretion of the Secretary of Agriculture
One of the programs impacted locally is the Food Bank of the Southern Tier, which provides free, healthy food items through programs like Mobile Food Pantries, Kids’ Farmers Markets, and School Food Centers. Thanks to the Food Bank of the Southern Tier, the IHS Community Market is able to distribute take-home groceries twice a week at no cost for anyone who needs it. Chief Operating Officer Dave Patterson explained that although the Food Bank is not directly affected by federal funding cuts, it anticipates much greater demand for its services in the wake of upcoming federal cuts to programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Patterson said the Food Bank is “well-poised and ready to make sure we have what it takes to meet the demand across our network.”
ICSD’s Child Nutrition department provides free breakfast and lunch for all students in the district. The free meals were made available to every student through the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) of the School Breakfast Program and the National School Lunch Program, both from the USDA. District-wide free meals started on December 1, 2023, when the USDA expanded access to the program under the Biden administration. ICSD’s term for the CEP is slated to expire in December of 2026 and is at risk of not being renewed under the Trump administration. ICSD Director of Child Nutrition Beth Krause said she is hopeful that if the current USDA program fell through, the state government would step in. This year, Governor Kathy Hochul required every school receiving federal nutrition funding in the state to provide free meals, with the state covering the difference. New York State’s 2026 budget came with 340 million dollars for school nutrition programs—160 million dollars more than last year’s.
The aforementioned LFS would have given ICSD forty thousand dollars this year to spend on local foods, but Krause assures students that local food will continue to be served.
In what might appear to contradict the previous developments, ICSD has been awarded a 617 thousand dollar grant from the FDA to support healthy meals and reduce heavily processed foods. According to an ICSD press release, “breakfast and lunch items will be collected and analyzed to identify opportunities to transition from ultra-processed foods to whole, scratch-prepared meals.”
Amid these uncertainties surrounding funding for nutrition programs, community organizations like food banks and child nutrition programs continue to adapt in order to do the hard work of feeding hungry citizens, no matter the circumstances.