Gov. Tony Evers says the Trump administration is “betraying” Wisconsin’s farmers by cutting nearly $6 million in funding for a program that helps bolster local food supply chains.
The guv’s office yesterday released a letter from the USDA informing DATCP that funding will be cut for the Local Food Purchase Assistance 2025 program, as the related agreement between the state and federal government will be ended in about two months.
“With President Trump’s 25 percent tariff taxes that are going to cause prices to go up on everything from gas to groceries and his escalating trade wars that could affect our farmers’ and producers’ bottom lines, these reckless cuts to critical federal programs couldn’t come at a worse time,” Evers said in a statement.
In the letter, USDA Deputy Administrator Jack Tuckwiller says the agency’s Agricultural Marketing Service “has determined this agreement no longer effectuates agency priorities and that termination of the award is appropriate.”
The LFPA program provides funding for state, tribal and territorial governments to buy food produced within the state or within 400 miles of its intended destination, with a goal of improving supply chains for food and agricultural goods. The program helps support food banks as well as “underserved” producers, according to an overview from the USDA.
At the end of last year, nearly 300 farmers in Wisconsin had participated in the state’s LFPA program, and 55% of them were “new or beginning” farmers, according to the guv’s office. The program distributed more than $4 million in food and was active in all 72 counties in the state.
Before the termination notice, the program was slated to start its third year in Wisconsin in several weeks.
Evers’ office also notes he “relied upon anticipated federal LFPA funding” in his 2025-27 budget, requesting about $770,000 and one full-time position to leverage the federal dollars in the coming biennium.
In an interview yesterday, Wisconsin Farmers Union Executive Director Julie Keown-Bomar said the program being cancelled is “hugely disappointing” and will impact hundreds of farmers in the state that were contributing meats, vegetables, fruits, honey and more.
“It’s going to hurt those farmers who were growing food and producing food for that program,” she said. “It’s going to devastate many of their bottom lines, because they were very hopeful that the contract would move forward as promised. And secondly, it’s going to really hurt food banks and the people that depend on them.”
The WFU has handled outreach, engagement and communicating with farmers under the projectand had multiple staff members working on it for the past two years. Keown-Bomar says “there was already uncertainty” about the program under the current administration’s cost-cutting approach, but farmers had expected the program would continue in some form this year.
“But now the whole program is cancelled,” she said, adding farmers “loved the program, it was more dependable, they could rely on a pretty steady price for their produce. And there was a distribution system … it helped build up this infrastructure across the state so that supply chains were pretty steady, especially for small producers.”
Meanwhile, Evers is urging Trump to “reverse course” on the funding cut. In his statement yesterday, the Dem guv argued congressional Republicans “cannot continue to allow the Trump Administration to obstruct funding for key programs” that were previously approved by Congress.
“We’re going to fight to make damn sure our farmers have the resources and support Wisconsin was promised,” Evers said.
