This summer season will be the last time some lower-income Oregonians will receive boxes of locally grown produce or meat as part of a federally funded program. That’s after the Trump administration abruptly ended the program earlier this year.

The federally funded Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement program, or LFPA, awarded funds to states and tribal governments, which then partnered with local groups to buy food directly from producers and distribute it through food banks, pantries and other community channels.

But now, farmers who supply that food are wrapping up deliveries.

Jesse Nichols, a founder of CAMPO, a nonprofit cooperative farm in Hillsboro, is one of those producers.

“We really love to be able to feed people in the community around here who have limited access to high-quality, nutrient-rich foods,” he said. “I thought it was a great program to apply for and participate in because of the simplicity.”

Some federal programs are hard to access, mostly because the paperwork and applications are written for large commodity farmers, not producers who grow diverse crops on small amounts of land.

“For small-scale farmers like us, there are definitely less opportunities than there are for larger farmers to receive funding through government programs,” he said.

This program was meant to help with that. It specifically focused on small-scale or socially disadvantaged farmers, a defined category within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said Sara Cross, the community food systems organizer at the Oregon Food Bank – which distributes the funds to farms.

“It was the first real grant that came out that centered on the farmer and not feeding the most people,” Cross said. “And so for the first time, we were able to pay farmers at full price.”

That’s because in order for food banks to feed the largest amount of people, they often ask food contractors to bid for the lowest amount of money they can accept for a truckload of food, Cross said.

In Oregon, around 278 farmers, ranchers and fishers participated in the program, which began in 2022. Cross said for many, it served as a boost for businesses to grow or even hire an employee.

“This allowed them to do more mutual aid work, and allowed them to invest in their community differently than how they were doing for their business,” she said.

So far Oregon has distributed $6.6 million in federal funds. The state was originally expecting to receive $4.7 million this year to continue the program past its end date of Sept. 30, a spokesperson from the Oregon Department of Human Services told OPB in a statement, but that federal funding has been canceled.

In early March, the state Department of Human Services received a termination letter from the USDA that said it had “determined this [LFPA] agreement no longer effectuates agency priorities and that termination of the award is appropriate.” No other explanation for the cut was provided, a spokesperson for the state agency said.

Although the state was granted an extension to wrap up deliveries and fulfill other requirements by March 2026, many farmers are doing their last deliveries now.

Nichols said he’s applying for other grants so that the farm can continue to serve the roughly 75 families it’s been delivering food to. But if nothing changes, he’ll be done with deliveries by October.

He said there’s still a real need to feed people, so he plans to donate what he can.

“Just over here in Hillsboro, the bills are going up significantly for water, for electricity, and low-income people in this area oftentimes are struggling to pay their bills and also pay their grocery bill,” he said.

Cross said the Oregon Food Bank is still considering alternative ways to keep the program going without funding from the federal government, but for now, there are no clear options.

The cut comes at a time when more Oregonians are relying on their local food bank as grocery prices rise.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/09/23/oregon-farmers-local-food-deliveries-assistance-federal-cuts/