The San Antonio Food Bank expects to lose $3 million due to federal funding cuts, leaving officials at the nonprofit saying they’re not sure how they’ll make up for that shortfall and that they are worried they won’t be able to meet local demand.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture this week ended two pandemic-era programs that provided more than $1 billion nationally for schools and food banks to purchase food from local farms, ranches and other producers.
Those cuts coupled with recent layoffs of federal workers by the Trump administration has San Antonio Food Bank president and CEO Eric Cooper bracing for an increase in demand and feeling “incredibly anxious.”
“This is where you feel the squeeze at both ends, that pressure of resources diminishing and also the demand increasing,” Cooper said. “That’s not where you want to be. It’s going to be a difficult year for us.”
About $660 million of the $1 billion went to schools and childcare centers to buy food for meals through the Local Foods for Schools Program.
The Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, which helped fund food banks and other relief organizations to aid the food insecure, was also eliminated. The San Antonio Food Bank was in line to receive $3 million in funding from that program, Cooper said.
The $3 million is about 20% of the Food Bank’s annual food purchase budget of $14.5 million. The Food Bank’s total annual budget is $43 million.
Celia Cole, CEO of Feeding Texas, the state association of food banks, said funding for the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program expires in May and that the third round of funding, which was eliminated, was expected to bring $34 million to Texas.
“We’re hopeful the decision to cut the funding didn’t have anything to do with concerns about the program itself,” Cole said. “This has been a program that’s always had really strong bipartisan support at the federal level, so we’re hopeful we can continue to work with the White House and (Agriculture) Secretary (Brooke) Rollins to continue, whether it’s through this program or some other program, to strengthen the connection between local agriculture and food security.”
Cooper also expressed optimism in Rollins. In addition to schools and food banks, more than 120 food producers statewide will be affected by the elimination of the programs, according to Cooper.
“She’s a Texan,” he said. “She understands agriculture. She knows rural communities need support and strengthening.”
Kevin Elstner and his wife Sadie, who own Elstner Meat Processing in Weimar, said the elimination of the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program is a blow to their company because 70% of their annual income – “hundreds of thousands of dollars” – is generated by doing business with food banks, including San Antonio’s.
“It affects everybody, it’s a big trickle effect,” Kevin Elstner said. “We’ve got to cut down our staff and we have a lot of cattle we have on feed we’ve been holding for these different programs. It really affects us.”
Sadie Elstner described their food bank contracts as “basically the only income we could count on.” She said the company recently bought “a lot of expensive equipment” to fill its orders.
“We are really, really in a bind with that right now,” she said.
But Rollins and USDA officials signaled the two programs won’t be resurrected.
“The COVID era is over – USDA’s approach to nutrition programs will reflect that reality moving forward,” a USDA spokesperson said in a statement, per the Associated Press.
Just a reminder that Brooke Rollins has spent her career as a wingnut think tank apparatchik. “Real world experience” is not something she has. I understand needing to appeal to her, I’m just saying to guard your optimism. Also, San Antonio is really getting kicked around by Trump and Musk and DOGE. Not that anyone is doing well by them, but it really does suck for San Antonio.
Far as I can tell from Google, this Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program does not appear to have been a program that the Houston Food Bank depended on. But there are plenty of other food banks around the country that are feeling the effects of this cut. And not just them – as noted, the food being purchased came from local farmers, so this is a blow to them and to Texas farmers.
Texas farmers are taking yet another hit from President Donald Trump’s administration during the early weeks of his second term in the White House.
The administration has already cut foreign aid programs that have left farm exports stalled at ports like in Houston, and tariffs have rattled farmers already struggling through drought and diseases like the bird flu outbreak.
Now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has eliminated a pair of programs with about $2 billion that helped community food banks and schools buy fresh food from farms and ranches. In a Fox News interview, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins called the programs “nonessential” and “an effort by the left to continue spending taxpayer dollars that was not necessary.”
However, the cut will have real impacts in Texas, according to reporter Tom Orsborn. The nonprofit San Antonio Food Bank stands to lose about $3 million just because of the cuts to one program called the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement program.
Cuts to that program and the Local Food for Schools program, combined, will cost Texas about $200 million used to buy locally grown food, according to research from Reuters.
Texas Agriculture Commission Sid Miller, a Republican and big Trump advocate, is a big supporter of farm-to-school and farm-to-food-bank programs but said he understands why the Trump administration is re-evaluating the federal programs.
“I support a fair and consistent approach, which is precisely what the Trump Administration is implementing,” Miller said. “This is not a final decision—it’s a reassessment. There’s always room for refinement, and we may see a revised version of the policy down the road that is even better for agriculture producers.”
Sure, Sid. I’m sure the best and the brightest within the Trump administration are hard at work at coming up with a refined and revised version of this program as we speak. This is what you farmers voted for. Hope you’re happy.