Carrots from Colombia, bananas from Honduras, grapes from Peru–open your fridge and you see the global food system. Walking into a grocery store, we are bombarded by choices: organic, locally grown, locally sourced, etc. The freedom to choose where our food comes from is a luxury that many of us take for granted. In the U.S., locally grown food is often more expensive and reserved for those who can afford it.
For those that may not have the time or financial ability to shop local, federal programs implemented in 2021 made it easier for organizations around the state to distribute local produce to children and those experiencing food-insecurity. The Local Food for Schools (LFS) and Local Food Purchase Agreement (LFPA) were federally funded programs have been vital in ensuring that Maine schools and food banks could purchase produce from local farms and thereby provide our students and food-insecure residents with the same high-quality food that the grocery store offers. On March 7, 2025, the state of Maine along with 40 other states received notice from the Trump administration that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) terminated the funding that allowed states to procure contracts needed to supply local produce to schools and food banks in an effort to reduce government spending. These major funding cuts implemented by the Trump administration have already severely impacted food systems and access to produce across the country.
Maine is the most rural state in the nation and holds the unfortunate ranking of having the highest rate of child food-insecurity in New England and second overall most food-insecure state in the region. The USDA cuts have already had drastic implications for how much affordable, locally grown produce food banks and schools will be able to offer. Following the March 2025 cuts, Good Shepherd Food Bank (GSFB), Maine’s only Feeding America affiliate, notified partner agencies that they “anticipate a 20% decrease in available produce each month” starting in April 2025 and that this change will be indefinite. This includes produce purchased with funding from Mainers Feeding Mainers (MFM), LFPA, and Good Shepherd itself.
Those of us working at food banks and pantries understand that available produce varies week to week. The quantity ebbs and flows depending on where we are in the growing season. Donations from farms and gleaned produce help to bolster what we’re able to offer households experiencing food insecurity. Programs often have to collaborate and coordinate to make sure that we can offer as much food as we can to people utilizing our services. Weekly deliveries from GSFB supplemented by rescue food pick-ups means that we operate within a short window to distribute produce before it needs to be composted.
In my current role at the Locker Project, a non-profit focused on youth hunger in Greater Portland, I connect hundreds of kids at schools and other agencies with fresh food and staples to take home. Cuts to an already limited supply of affordable produce means less nutritious food for those kids and their families. My organization and countless other food security agencies across the state are bracing for the worst. The Locker Project has already increased rescued food pick-ups with some of our retail partners to five days a week instead of two or three. While it’s too soon to know the full extent to which the federal cuts will impact our produce supply, we are prepared to do more with less.
Federal Cuts Creating Local Food Shortages
Before its termination, LFPA supported thousands of households experiencing food insecurity across the state; the program was particularly effective in supporting historically underserved farmers by covering their distribution costs of thousands of pounds of produce to low-income communities and schools. Cuts to programs like LFPA and LFS mean that low-income and immigrant communities alike will have a harder time accessing local, organic, culturally appropriate produce. While the overall food insecurity rate in Maine is 13%, the rate for immigrants of color is over 50%. Farms and agencies like Cultivating Community, The New Roots Cooperative Farm, and Somali Bantu Community Association had been working together to provide immigrant and refugee communities with sufficient and culturally appropriate food at little to no cost for the household.
Given the scale of the cuts, some BIPOC and immigrant-led farms across the state may not make it through the season. The losses go beyond the state’s immediate food needs. Many of these farms incorporate traditional agricultural practices and crops from their native countries that are sustainable and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Sustainable farming practices and adaptations to climate change promote food resiliency, ensuring that crops are able to thrive regardless of environmental shifts and extreme weather like droughts, heavy rain, and flooding. Maine summers last two weeks longer than a century ago and intense downpours (rain over two inches) are on the rise. The climate of Maine has never been more extreme nor inconsistent, from hourly and daily weather to monthly and seasonal trends: the 2020 Maine growing season was the driest on record and 2023 was the wettest. There is no pattern in the trends and while a longer growing season may seem like a positive, unpredictable weather leaves Maine’s food and agricultural systems holding their breath.
There are many groups in the state taking a localized approach to national trends related to food security, three of which have lost more than $225,000 in funding from cuts to USDA programs that were helping over 50 immigrant and refugee farmers build livelihoods and establish food sovereignty across Maine. Cultivating Community, a Portland-based food justice organization, predicts that because of the recent federal funding cuts over 140,000 lbs of local, fresh vegetables won’t be delivered directly to low-income neighbors, and thousands of immigrant families won’t have access to culturally familiar crops like amaranth greens, flint corn, and moroho.
Somali Bantu Community Association, another Maine-based organization working in immigrant food justice through their Liberation Farms program, provides marginalized communities the opportunity to organize and lead themselves. The organization provides new American families struggling with food insecurity with the tools and resources to grow healthy, culturally appropriate foods for themselves and their community.
The New Roots Cooperative Farm based in Lewiston, Maine also provides new immigrants a chance to combine traditional farming activities from Somalia with farming practices in Maine. Creating channels for those historically excluded from cultivating land, such as refugees and immigrants, enables them to settle down, become socially integrated, make a living and share their knowledge and culture. Broadening land access allows for a more inclusive, unified effort to address climate change in our state and allow more community members to take ownership of their food.
Funding Food Systems: An Investment in the Future
Food sustains us and brings people together; it is not political or ideological. It is intrinsically human to grow, prepare, and share meals with those around us. When stress is put on food systems, it impacts everyone. Less available produce means that Americans across the country will have to stretch their grocery budgets further due to increased food prices.
The key to achieving food and climate justice is bringing everyone to the table, especially communities that have been historically marginalized, underserved, or excluded from the current system. Funds need to be increased, not cut. Investing in a sustainable food system instead benefits everyone, increasing high-quality food available in the short-term and protecting critical resources for the future.
When people are hungry and our planet is under threat, the solution shouldn’t be to cut the table in half, but to add more chairs.
Meghan Del Nero-Moore is a Maine-based advocate committed to building a more accessible, resilient, and sustainable society.
