This story has been updated to include comments from a USDA spokesperson.
A federal program to help schools access fresh food has cancelled their grants without explanation to applicants.
Applicants to the Patrick Leahy Farm to School grant program received an email from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Monday informing them no applications would be reviewed for the 2025 fiscal year.
Sunny Baker is the Senior Director of Programs and Policy at the National Farm to School Network, which connects people doing these projects with one another, with resources, and with policies that could impact their work. They were one of the applicants who received the email from the USDA at the beginning of the week.
The message was brief and devastating, Baker told Little Rock Public Radio on Tuesday.
“We have seen a lot of blows to the program since the start of the school year. And this one is coming as one of the hardest.”
The USDA Farm to School grants have been a game-changer for school nutrition, Baker says. The money supports programs to get local food into school cafeterias, help schools start on-site gardens, and improve food education.
“It's been a really incredible way that communities across the country and across the U.S. territories have been starting farm to school programs, growing farm to school programs, getting that really high quality better food to students, teaching them how to eat, and what’s good for them and how to support their local communities,” Baker said.
Unlike other federal funds that have been pulled in recent months, the Farm to School program is mandated by Congress. It’s supposed to have at least $5 million in dedicated funds each year. Baker says because the program has been so successful, Congress has consistently increased the money dedicated to the program.
This year, the program was supposed to give out $12 million to projects across the country.
“This is a huge disappointment,” Baker said. “It’s also not something that’s under the USDA’s discretion to pull — it’s under our legislators, the people we elected.”
Arkansas has received multiple grants from the Farm to School program over the years. School districts across the state have used the money to start their own gardens and boost nutrition education. Last year, the Fort Smith Boys & Girls Clubs received funding to increase gardening and nutrition programs at their facilities.
Rob Kerby is with the Carroll County Resource Council, which applied for a grant in collaboration with a women’s shelter called the Jeremiah House. The money they received helped start a local food production program where people living at the shelter could work in a greenhouse and learn gardening skills. The council also started an afterschool program that combined sports with nutrition education.
“We got ideas from other Farm to School programs throughout the state, and that’s where we really benefitted,” Kerby told Little Rock Public Radio. He said the program allowed the center to collaborate with other small-scale farmers and teach community members about how to grow their own food with a built-in safety net.
“It was a great hands-on experience for people who are trying to learn life skills,” he said.
Baker said the funding often leads to positive impacts on the community it flows to.
“We have seen a countless number of school districts and programs in the state really use this money to help leverage incredible farm to school programming that has been a game changer for communities here,” Baker said.
Now Baker's organization is looking for facts. She theorizes one reason for the cancellation might be new language guidelines from the Trump administration.
“We’re hoping one scenario could be is that they redo the ask and allow people to adapt their application to the priorities of the new administration.”
Overall, there’s a lot of confusion — Baker says USDA contact aren’t responding to their messages, but admits that could be for a variety of reasons. USDA employees have been affected by dozens of federal staffing cuts. Baker thinks it’s possible the USDA isn’t allowed to give out any additional information about the cancellations.
“We’re not faulting our incredible folks that we work with at the USDA for taking their time and doing what they need to adjust to staffing shortages and changes in priorities.”
“This money, like in the grand scheme of government funding, was small. $5 million dollars is a drop in the bucket for the USDA, but it was making huge impacts in communities, and especially rural communities,” Baker said.
“This is gonna mean not just that kids are not gonna have the same access to school food, to local school food, to school garden work, it’s really gonna have these rippling implications for the future of the local food movement in our country and food security.”
A USDA spokesperson gave this comment to Little Rock Public Radio late Friday: "In alignment with President Trump’s Executive Order entitled, ‘Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preference,’ USDA is pausing the grant program, and making plans for a new funding opportunity in FY26.”
Correction: a previous version of this article contained a misspelling of Rob Kerby's name and misstated the name of the organization he represents.
