Budget cuts starve nonprofits, farmers who feed the hungry

HEARTS & HANDS

Kenya Joseph, president of Hearts & Hands food pantry, prepares vegetables for delivery. Federal budget cuts are impacting food security for low-income people as pantries, schools and farmers struggle to remain viable outlets to feed the hungry.

Feeding Charlotte’s hungry has become more stressful at Hearts & Hands Food Pantry.

Federal budget cuts and a global trade war are threatening food safety and production across the country. The Trump administration ended pandemic-era initiatives at the U.S. Department of Agriculture that benefit farmers, schools and food banks by supplying food to poor people.

At Hearts & Hands, it’s an especially demanding time. Although the nonprofit doesn’t receive federal money directly, co-founder and President Kenya Joseph said the impacts are acute.

“We're not directly dependent on USDA funds,” she said. “...However, we were an indirect beneficiary of the Local Foods Purchasing Act, which was a big fight, and that got canceled, and that was a heavy blow. Initially, when the wind started to change at the beginning of the year, there were so many, and there continue to be but there were so many incredible food and food system advocates around our state around the country who were fighting to try to make sure that was not a thing that was going to be cut and of course, we know how it turned out.”

The program cuts are part of congressional Republicans’ effort craft a budget that extends the 2017 tax breaks – pushed by Trump – for the richest Americans. U.S. Rep. Alma Adams, a Charlotte Democrat, voted last month against the proposal, which is expected to grow the federal deficit by $7 trillion which cratering human services programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly referred to as food stamps.

“At a time when people are struggling to make ends meet, Republicans in Congress chose billionaire tax breaks over the needs of everyday Americans,” Adams said in a statement. “This reckless bill will force people to go hungry. It will cause families to go into debt. It will cost lives by stripping healthcare away from our most vulnerable communities. This budget is reckless and harmful, and anyone who voted for it has abandoned our working- and middle-class families.”

The local food buying program, Joseph said, provided fresh food for communities as well as a direct market for small family-owned farms, which are also under stress to compete against corporate operations as well as Trump-imposed taxes on trade partners that sparked retaliatory measures across the globe, especially China, a prime destination for U.S. agriculture.

According to Joseph, Hearts & Hands has been a part of the program since 2021 and at least 80% of its budget for fruits and vegetables were covered by it.

“The biggest challenge with all these cuts is that the cuts were immediate, as opposed to even a sunsetting period of, like, three months,” she said. Let’s say, ‘OK, three months, we’re going to cut this off.’ So, we have a moment to say, ‘OK, what is the plan? What do we need to do?’ There was none of that. It was just like ‘boom, we’re done,’ and that has created far-reaching effects across organizations, but honestly, the broader nonprofit world.”

Farmers are feeling the effects as well.

Chris Gibbs, president Rural USA PAC, criticized the tariffs, which most economists warn will raise prices for U.S. consumers and food producers. Family farmers – especially in states Trump carried – will face more stress to remain solvent.

“In the middle of a deepening farm economy crisis, this couldn’t come at a worse time. Input costs are already sky-high, and these tariffs will only push them further out of reach,” said Gibbs, owner and operator of a 560-acre farm in Ohio where he grows corn, soybeans, alfalfa, and cattle. “From fertilizer to machinery, everything farmers need to stay afloat will get more expensive. At the same time, we can expect the same kind of retaliation we saw during the last trade war—foreign tariffs aimed squarely at our farmers and ranchers. The end result? More family farms pushed to the brink. Many will simply have to fold.”

The USDA cuts are causing nonprofits to shift their focus from serving clients to personal as well as business survival. 

“This is an extremely difficult time,” Joseph said. “I was hoping so much that we would avoid even 50% of it but I'll be very honest, we are cash strapped right now. The minute that we saw things coming down the pipeline, we activated, collectively as a group, every one of my employees, every one of my volunteers, everybody on the board. How do we bring in funding? How do we have food drives, so we have supplies to give?

“Everybody’s done an amazing job and continues to do so. But the reality of the situation is, I think people don’t understand that when you’re providing food for people who don’t have it; if you’re complaining about food prices going up, we’re paying the same prices. There’s no difference. There’s no world of discounted food. Just because we’re a nonprofit, it’s the same and so that is really hitting us tremendously right now.”
Joseph also emphasized that just because food pantries are nonprofit organizations doesn’t mean they don’t have the same impact as for-profits.

“A nonprofit is no different than a business,” she said. “It’s just that you’re not taking you’re not taking your profits at the end. That’s literally the difference. So this energy around, ‘well, we're not going to support nonprofits,’ and ‘we're only going to feel a little bit of pain for a little while,’ like all of that rhetoric is out the window at this point. We truly are struggling.”

So are farmers.

“We’ve seen this movie before, and we know how it ends,” Gibbs said. “American farmers lose markets they spent decades building. Global buyers turn to South America or elsewhere, and those lost markets don’t come back overnight—if they come back at all. The damage is real, and it’s lasting.”

Joseph is calling for transparency at USDA and an explanation why food is on the chopping block. 

“Right or wrong, we have seen a level of transparency,” she said, “whether we agree or not, from Elon Musk, for example. We have seen some transparency from [Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy] Jr., what does he want to do? I feel like we haven’t seen that same level of transparency from the new head of the USDA, [Brooke] Rollins in addressing these programs we are cutting in this country. … What is the justification for cutting these programs that are foundational to the survival of millions of people in this country?”

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