Federal government pulls local food assistance program

NORTHEAST WIS. – Aaron Pape of Peshtigo said Pape Family Pastures has lost a federal customer that helped him grow his pastured protein business.
While the federally funded Local Farm Purchase Assistance (LFPA) program allowed Pape’s business to get to a better place, those it served might not be as fortunate.

The program, offered through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, supports local communities by paying farmers to produce food for pantries, child care centers and schools. The program supported local farms, like Pape Family Pastures, which increased its chicken production by about 50% because of it.
“It helped us increase our ability to produce chickens on a larger scale,” said Pape, who operates the 200-acre farm in Grover Township with his wife.

“We’ve been doing 1,500 birds to 2,000 birds. This allowed us to do another 1,000 birds of production, which then helped us get into different wholesale markets even outside of the LFPA. It was a really nice way to help us take the next step in our chicken production and have a reliable outlet for them.”

With federally funded farm-to-fork programs for schools, child care centers and food pantries being canceled, an estimated $7 million in U.S. Department of Agriculture reimbursements are being pulled from Wisconsin’s economy, experts said.

The Local Food Purchase Assistance Program provided about $4.2 million in food to 254 food pantries in 2023 and 2024, Farmers Union said. A similar federally funded program, the Local Food for Schools program, provided over $2.8 million in local food for early care and education programs, according to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.

“Between LFPA and LFS nationally, the cancellation of future programs is $1 billion,” said Tommy Enright, communications director for Wisconsin Farmers Union. If it wasn’t canceled, the Wisconsin LFPA program would have funded food procurement and distribution from 2025 to 2028 to the tune of about $5.48 million, he added.

The Peshtigo Food Pantry was among the food pantries participating in the LFPA program. When contacted by a reporter on March 18, the pantry said, “We really don’t know what the impact will be for our pantry.” Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin also purchases food for the Peshtigo Food Pantry.

Feeding Wisconsin distributes over 155,000 pounds of Wisconsin food products purchased with LFPA program funds to Wisconsin residents, Executive Director Jackie Anderson said in a statement.

“We are concerned and disheartened by the elimination of the LFPA program. This is an important source of support for our Wisconsin producers and a point of access to fresh, local foods for neighbors. The program provides a solution to one of the biggest challenges for Wisconsin farmers – market access,” Anderson said.

The federally funded program, which guaranteed payment, helped Pape Family Pastures hit a new level by adding orders for $10,000 in chickens the first year and orders for $15,000 the second year, Pape said.

Perhaps best of all, the funding allowed more people to taste the broiler chickens Pape Family Pastures raised.

“People tell us it’s the best chicken they’ve ever had,” Pape said. “The chickens live their entire life outside, eating bugs and grass shoots and clover and stuff. It really makes for a nice product. We’re a premium producer,” he said.

Pape speculated many of the people his broilers fed through the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program probably wouldn’t have tried it if not for the federal dollars involved. “I would imagine without it, food pantries aren’t going out of their way to pay for grass-fed beef and organic pastured chickens,” he said.

“I certainly think it was a good thing to let people have access to higher quality food, especially on the school side. The school lunch program has been controversial for many years about the quality for the meals provided,” Pape said.

Besides the broilers, he sells grass-fed beef and pastured pork directly to customers.

The LFPA program was great “for providing consistent, reliable customers. We knew when they announced these contracts, yes we were going to have this customer and we were going to provide this many birds,” he said. It helped Pape get to a more economical size to be price competitive.

“In the grand scheme of things, it’s a relatively small part of our business now,” he said. “There’s an economy of scale you have to reach in order to make everything work, and it definitely was instrumental in helping us do that.”
Without the federal reimbursement, Pape has found new customers, but the food pantries and schools might not receive chickens of the same quality.

“This program was truly a win-win on multiple fronts. It provided essential support to local farmers and producers while enabling schools and child-care centers to directly connect with these vital partners across the state,” said Chris Bucher, interim communications director at the Department of Public Instruction, referring to the Local Food for Schools program.

The program is set to expire in early May, the Department of Public Instruction said. While it has requested state funds for a similar program, this wasn’t included in Gov. Tony Evers’ budget request, Bucher said. For the entire state, DPI received about $2.8 million from the program, he added.

Farmer groups said it was a waste to cut this program after several years of investment. “Producers have already invested in seeds, inputs and infrastructure to meet anticipated demand for 2025,” said Darin Von Ruden, president of Wisconsin Farmers Union in a statement. “Cutting this funding now not only disrupts their operations but also weakens the entire local food system that serves schools, food pantries and communities in need.”

Tara Turner-Roberts, general manager of the Wisconsin Food Hub Cooperative in Waupaca, said the cooperative has built a robust farmer-to-market infrastructure with the help of federal funding. “LFPA and LFS has really helped strengthen markets for farm products and provided transport and logistics. Without this funding, it will take years for farmers to build a dependable and effective local foods distribution system in Wisconsin.”