PEMBROKE PARK, Fla. – The USDA has suddenly suspended $1 billion in funding, of which millions supported farmers and families in South Florida.
“It is affecting almost two million individuals across this entire region,” said Feeding South Florida President and CEO Paco Velez. “To find out that it is going to go away, it is going to be detrimental, not only to the families we serve but also to the farmers we help support through these funds, farmers who are not able to get their product out to market as easy as some of the bigger farms, those are the farms that we were working with.”
Indirect impact of this is an increased Farm Share demand, explained Stephen Shelley, president and CEO of the Homestead-based Farm Share, a statewide food bank with regional warehouses across Florida.
Shelley was in Tallahassee Wednesday, where he is meeting with state lawmakers to advocate for mitigating against food insecurity.
“Farm Share doesn’t directly participate in the program being cut by the USDA at this time, but it will directly have an effect on us, our products and our services,” he said. “We are known for our healthy fruits and vegetables, so there is going to be a large demand on our services and our food bank to kind of fill the void that is now being created due to the lack of this programming. There will now become a large vacuum of food, a lack of food supply within the system, because of this cut to the program.”
This comes at a time when he says demand is increasing.
“After the pandemic, it went down a little bit, but then the inflationary pressure started to affect people’s wallets, food costs started going up exponentially, actually we are higher than inflationary numbers,” he said. “So that has caused a huge demand, requests, for food from all people, your classic food insecure households, but also your blue-collar workers, so we are seeing that high tick up in demand. So this isn’t a time when you need to be cutting the food supply, you need to be increasing that food supply. The lack of food going into the system could have a big effect.”
Local food pantries are seeing weekly upticks in demand.
“We have seen in the last two months, particularly, in the number of people that are needing food right here in Coconut Grove,” said Coconut Grove Crisis Food Pantry Outreach Director Deb Dolson. “We really have been pretty stable for the past year, the same number of people coming to us for food, but now every single week, we have more and more and we are making more bags, and serving more people. Most of our clients are seniors but I would say across the board, not only seniors, but people of all ages needed extra help.”
Dolson has been bearing witness to the uptick in need.
“Every week we are getting more and more people to come to our pantry and ask for food,” she said. “They say they are really being affected by what is happening in the grocery store, the prices are going up, and the finite resources our clients have can only be stretched so far so they need some supplemental help.”
Added Shelley: “It is the high cost of gas, of housing, of rent, and all that combined, you are making monthly choices on which bills you are going to pay and what you are not going to pay and that also impacts your ability to eat, and without food, people can’t be productive, you can’t be a good worker, you can’t be a good student. So food insecurity and the lack of food affects everything, including the economy.”
HOW YOU CAN HELP?
“There are a lot of ways to get involved to include using our voice, letting our elected officials know that this is very important to our community, to our farmers,” said Velez. “A lot of people don’t know that Palm Beach and Miami-Dade are huge agricultural communities, especially a lot of small family farms, so it is huge for them in order for them to be successful. So using your voice with our elected officials is very important but at the same time, helping with monetary donations, or donating funds to our organization, so we can continue this program, continue serving our small family farms, our children, and our home-bound seniors, it is critical.
Feeding South Florida: Volunteer Opportunities
Coconut Grove Crisis Food Pantry: How to Help
According to the USDA Economic Research Service’s food price outlook, “The food-at-home (grocery store or supermarket food purchases) CPI increased 0.8 percent from December 2024 to January 2025 and was 1.9 percent higher than January 2024. In 2025, overall food prices are anticipated to rise slightly faster than the historical average rate of growth.”
WHY ARE FOOD BANKS CRITICAL?
“I think it is important for people to know that food insecurity affects everybody,” said Shelley. “It is not just your classic person, the homeless, the unemployed, it is the blue-collar worker, the hospitality worker, the small business worker, everyone is struggling to make ends meet and so I think that is an important thing people need to understand and make sure they really focus on providing the resources necessary to address food insecurity holistically.”
Added Velez: “Food banks help get food on the table for those who need it. A lot of things happen when we put food on the table, and a lot of things happen when there is no food on the table.
“You see workers not being healthy enough to go to work, you see crime go up because people are trying to figure out how to keep a roof over their head and food on the table, you see a lot more instances of domestic abuse or domestic violence in the household, there is a lot of things that happen when food is not on the table or people are struggling. When we are getting food on the table you see not only farmers thriving, and businesses thriving but also you see families and students in schools thriving.
“One of our research projects with Aetna, the insurance company, at school, they found that the students’ performance, behavior and attendance all increased and a byproduct of that is that families were more engaged with the students’ education when we were providing food at the schools on a regular basis.
“Food is a basic necessity for all, regardless of where you live, how you pray, where you grow up, it is what you need to survive. We are lucky here in South Florida about whether it is a storm like Hurricane Irma, a government shutdown like we saw in 2018, or the global pandemic that happened in 2020, our community has always supported our mission and the families who make up the fabric of our community.”
A POSSIBLE SHORT-TERM DECREASE IN FOOD SUPPLY?
“The one silver lining is, I did see some quotes from the USDA, where they are hoping to re-invest maybe these monies into traditional programming,” such as the emergency food assistance program said Shelley. “So we are hoping they maybe will find a way to get the food supply increased through traditional means instead of through this particular programming but that has yet to be seen, but we are hopeful that maybe it will be a short blip, short term decrease in the supply of food.”
SENIORS
Both Dolson and Shelley said the rising food and housing costs have been particularly difficult for seniors on fixed incomes.
“As these inflationary costs for both food and living expenses are going up, they can’t adjust,” Shelley said. “They can’t just work more hours, they can’t get a better job, they are stuck with whatever income they have available so it is greatly affecting them. It is a big population that needs to be focused on and a lot of them are homebound too so there needs to be programs in place to make sure they are taken care of.”
SCHOOL DISTRICT STATEMENTS
Broward Schools: “Per our Food and Nutrition Services Department, no impact to the National School Lunch Program. The District was not a part of the specific program mentioned.”
Miami-Dade County Public Schools: “M-DCPS does not participate in the Local Food for Schools Cooperative.”
USDA CUT: REGIONAL IMPACT BY THE NUMBERS
Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA) Contract: $13 million funding cut
Four Food Banks:
Feeding South Florida (Broward)
All Faiths Food Bank (Sarasota)
Harry Chopin Food Bank of Southwest Florida (Naples)
Treasure Coast Food Bank (Fort Pierce)
Individuals Served: 2 million
Farms supported: 49
Farms in South Florida (Miami-Dade/Broward/Palm Beach): 16
Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA): “The purpose of this program is to maintain and improve food and agricultural supply chain resiliency. The cooperative agreements allow the states, tribes and territories to procure and distribute local and regional foods and beverages that are healthy, nutritious, unique to their geographic areas and that meet the needs of the population. The food will serve feeding programs, including food banks and organizations that reach underserved communities. In addition to increasing local food consumption, the funds will help build and expand economic opportunity for local and underserved producers.”
ADDITIONAL LINK
Food Assistance at Risk for Over 2.9 Million Floridians As Congress Considers Deep Cuts to SNAP