The Iowa Food System Coalition says the USDA has cancelled contracts worth more than $11-million. The money was to help the state’s food banks, schools and child care centers purchase local food from more than 300 Iowa farmers over three years.
Coalition executive director Chris Schwartz says the USDA has not explained why it’s cancelling the contracts.
“This program has been wildly successful,” Schwartz says, “and people have looked at the way that Iowa implemented it as truly a national model for success.”
He says the money from previous contracts is set to run out at the end of this month. Schwartz says the timing couldn’t be worse, as farmers already have seedlings sprouting in greenhouses, they’ve booked processing times at meat lockers, and planned out the year ahead based on this funding.
“This is the kind of stuff that sends farms into foreclosure. This is the kind of stuff that people lose their homes over,” Schwartz says. “And so, here these are people that have been good faith partners with the effort to provide nutritious food to Iowa’s children, and we’re just going to be hanging them out to dry.”
Iowa has a state program called “Choose Iowa” that will allocate 70-thousand dollars across all schools in Iowa for one year, but it’s not enough to fill in the gaps left by the USDA’s cuts.
Schwartz and the coalition are calling on Iowans to boost local food purchases to support farmers.
(By Rachel Cramer, Iowa Public Radio)