Trump Defunds Food Pantry, Local Farm Grant

President Donald Trump’s administration has officially canceled an expected $800,000 in federal funding designated in October to Connecticut Foodshare, the state’s primary food bank.

Trump has ended the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) program, a grant created by former President Joe Biden that allowed food banks to purchase produce from local farms for distribution to residents experiencing food insecurity. A similar grant connecting locally farmed food to schools has also been defunded.

According to Politico, a spokesperson for USDA wrote in a statement that ​“these programs, created under the former Administration via Executive authority, no longer effectuate the goals of the agency.”

Connecticut Foodshare, which provides a majority of the food distributed through at least 80 pantries and soup kitchens in New Haven, has been preparing to lose its LFPA grant for several weeks. 

In a statement on Tuesday, Foodshare spokeserson Ayah Galal wrote that in the grant’s prior two rounds of funding, the LFPA grant funded over one million meals across Connecticut derived from local farmers. 

“The loss of this funding is immense, and it has a direct impact on both the people we serve as well as our local farm partners,” wrote Galal. 

The organization is calling on Governor Ned Lamont and the state legislature to pass H.B. 7021, a bill that would ​“fully fund the Connecticut Nutrition Assistance Program (CT-NAP) at $10 million and it would require that at least 15% of those funds (or $1.5M) be used to purchase fresh food specifically from Connecticut farmers.” 

“At this point, this is the only way that we will be able to continue purchasing in bulk from local Connecticut farmers,” Galal added.

If you are interested in contributing to the food bank, learn more here at ctfoodshare.org.