The DOGE Impact Tracker

The USDA’s cuts to the Emergency Food Assistance Program [TFAP] is hurting food banks such as Harvesters in Kansas, reports KSNT News:

“This comes as Kansas food insecurity is the worst it’s been in a decade.”

Elizabeth Keever, the chief resource officer of Harvesters, told the station:

“This is food that would have otherwise gone directly into the hands of our neighbors and now is completely canceled. And we don’t know the status of it.

Last month, 18,500 neighbors received TFAP products in the region. Those folks this next upcoming month are going to have 30% less food to take home.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s termination of the Local Food Purchase Assistance program, which funded food banks across the country, will impact the Tampa Bay community, reports Fox 13. 

Thomas Mantz, president of Feeding Tampa Bay, which supplies food to 350 community partners, tells the station that the program paid for about 4 million meals a year, a not insignificant share of the 100 million meals they serve annually: 

The idea that there are less resources coming into the community to help those families is going to be difficult for us to manage.

We understand that decisions get made for a variety of reasons, but what we always want to make sure is that folks understand the impact of those decisions.

“I always tell people, ‘It’s gonna get worse before it gets better’ and people look at me like, ‘What do you mean? It can’t get any worse.’ Well, yeah, it can get worse, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Mike Robinson is at his computer, assessing his inventory for the next three months at the food pantry he runs in Brazil, Indiana. The Clay County Emergency Food Pantry fed 33,000 families with 54,000 pounds of food last year, said Robinson.

He’s worried about the next six months due to U.S. Department of Agriculture cuts to food banks and food pantries around the country. “A lot of these pantries are not going to survive. We’re financially in good shape so far. But many of them survive week by week,” he told Capital & Main. Robinson is also concerned that the cuts are “going to affect farmers and meat producers and so many others in the community.”

So far, the USDA has cut more than $1 billion in assistance by ending two pandemic-era programs — $421 million for the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program, which enabled states to buy food from farmers and give it to groups that help communities in need, and $660 million for Local Food for Schools, which allowed states to buy food for schools and child care facilities. In addition, it halted $500 million in deliveries to food banks via the USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation pending a review, the agency told CNN.  

The impact is being felt across the country, challenging food banks already struggling to meet higher demand, with hunger rates increasing in recent years amid inflation and the end of pandemic-era assistance programs. In 2023, 13.5% of Americans said they struggled with food insecurity — the highest rate in nearly a decade. 

Commercial fisherman and seafood processors in Maine say that federal funds they get for converting to more sustainable business models have been unavailable due to budget cuts.

Togue Brawn, owner of Dayboat Blue and who has worked in commercial fishing for over three decades, told the Associated Press that “she received a little more than half of a USDA grant of about $350,000 before learning the rest might not arrive.”

In a blog post, she wrote:

We launched the program in December 2024 and were just starting to promote it when I received some surprising news: After multiple unanswered inquiries into the status of the program, I was told last week that only those costs incurred on or before January 19th 2025 were being processed — never mind the contract that states otherwise. This means roughly $30,000 I’ve already spent and was expecting to be reimbursed for immediately is currently in limbo. I don’t know when or even if I’ll receive it, and I don’t know if I’ll receive any of the contractually-agreed-upon funds I’d counted on to promote Dayboat Blue.

Needless to say, this is a stressful situation. I’ve been able to borrow from my retired school teacher mother and I’m happy to say some of the regular customers from the bar I worked at until recently have also helped me out so I don’t have to lay off my employees (yet). It’s still stressful, but I’m going to turn a negative into a positive.

The Department of Agriculture reportedly informed North Carolina officials that it will no longer fund the state’s Local Food Purchase Assistance Program — which helps fund food banks like the nonprofit Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina.

The food bank’s CEO, Amy Beros, told WUNC that

the $2 million in federal funds the nonprofit would have received would go directly to farmers for the purchase of fresh food that’s then distributed across the 34 counties they serve…

“Please reconsider this program,” she said. “These are our farmers. These are neighbors across our counties that are in need, and this is going to [have] a huge impact economically.”

Moving forward, the organization is looking for possible state funds to help mitigate the loss. In the 34 counties that the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina serves, Beros said hunger has been steadily increasing in recent years.