Just over a year after the Trump administration cut programs that helped farmers and ranchers sell more of their products to local schools and governments, Oklahoma passed a law to keep one of those programs alive.
Early in President Trump’s second term, the U.S. Department of Agriculture canceled the Local Foods for School (LFS) and Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) cooperative agreements, two programs that provided funds to local governments, tribes, food banks and schools across the country to buy food from local farmers and ranchers.
The programs were developed to increase the availability of fresh produce in school cafeterias and strengthen the local agriculture economy. But the Trump administration said the programs “no longer effectuate the goals of the agency” and described the cuts as part of a shift back to “long-term, fiscally responsible initiatives.”
The roughly $1 billion cut affected more than 10,000 producers nationwide, forcing many to scale back operations and, in some cases, shut down entirely.
In Oklahoma, there are currently 322 school districts and 229 producers enrolled in the Local Foods for Schools program, according to the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.
Last year, state lawmakers appropriated $3.2 million to keep the program running. This month, lawmakers passed Senate Bill 985, which creates a state-level version of the program, although future funding is not secured.
“We’ll have to come back and add to it,” said Sen. Kristen Thompson, an Edmond Republican and the bill’s author, speaking about allocating more money once current state funds run out. “It’s been a success, so I think we can have those conversations again next year.”
When asked whether she hopes to secure future federal support, Thompson said: “I try to not tie anything I’m doing with the federal government, because they’re a mess.”
Both federal food programs were rolled out by former President Biden during the COVID-19 pandemic, using funds from the American Rescue Plan.
The goal was to build a more resilient, localized food system in response to pandemic-driven supply chain disruptions. “One of the lessons from COVID-19 is that the current food system is too rigid, consolidated and fragile,” stated the USDA in 2021.
The programs drew bipartisan support and were widely viewed by state agencies, food banks and producers as effective — not just as emergency relief but as a longer-term investment in local food infrastructure.
For many farmers and ranchers, in Oklahoma and across the country, the abrupt loss of USDA funding hit hard.
“Being a farmer is not a lucrative opportunity. People are not going into it,” said Elisabeth Thao, who runs a 2-acre regenerative farm in Council Hill, Oklahoma. “Because of the LFPA funding, I was able to start doing this work. Without it, I would not have been able to do it.”
Unlike the Local Food for Schools program, there are no bills in Oklahoma intended to continue the Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) program, which gave federal money to states and tribal governments to purchase foods produced within 400 miles. Thao said the funding allowed small, local producers to compete with larger operations that can sell in bulk at lower prices.
In her case, it also helped introduce customers to less conventional produce, such as green mustard, mizuna and bitter melon. “The LFPA funding really provided us farmers with the opportunity to grow at a scale, and then to introduce these new produce to the community,” Thao said.
Because of connections she built with buyers through the program, Thao said she’s been able to stay afloat despite the cuts. But not all of her peers have been able to weather the loss of funding.
Jenna Moore is the director of the OKC Food Hub, a nonprofit founded in 2022 that purchases wholesale produce from dozens of Oklahoma small- and mid-sized farmers, including Thao, and distributes it to restaurants, schools, grocery stores and food banks.
According to Moore, the funding cuts have taken a serious toll on all of the farmers partnered with OKC Food Hub, costing them substantial income.
“We work with about 25 to 45, depending on the time of the season,” Moore said. “We were just starting to get the market up and going in that direction so that the producers can scale and be able to sell in other markets more competitively. But we built it way up and then there was a cliff.”
Despite the loss of LFPA funding, Moore said she is encouraged by Thompson’s bill and the lawmakers who appropriated funding for the program.
She has also worked with Sen. Nikki Nice, an Oklahoma City Democrat, on a separate proposal to create the Oklahoma Food Policy Council, an advisory group within the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry that would help coordinate networks of local farmers and related initiatives. That proposal, Senate Bill 2061, passed the Senate but died in a House committee.
Moore said the proposal could have been a “game changer” for small and midsize producers, who she said currently have limited representation in food policy decisions.
Before the bill stalled, Nice said SB 2061 is especially important not only in light of the USDA cuts, but also recent cuts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.
“I think it’s more pertinent as we saw what happened with the SNAP benefits cuts for our state,” Nice said during a Feb. 7 committee hearing. “For us to have had a council such as this in place, we would’ve had more of a fundamental way for us to educate Oklahomans about local food policy and areas of interest that can help them to understand how to grow their own food.”
Nationwide, SNAP participation has dropped sharply following a 2025 law signed by President Donald Trump that expanded work requirements and restricted eligibility, leading millions of low-income Americans to lose access to food assistance.
According to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, more than 3 million people — about 8% of recipients — left the program between July 2025 and early 2026, with declines recorded in every state.
In Oklahoma, more than 70,000 people lost their benefits during that period. Combined with roughly $1 billion in cuts to LFS and LFPA programs, those losses have left gaps that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are now working to fill.
“My current community, which sits within my district that I serve, it’s a food apartheid,” Nice told Investigate Midwest. “And it became more apparent when we looked at the harmful impacts of SNAP being cut over the late summer.”
read more
Republish our articles for free, online or in print.
