This Freeze Won't Thaw

Want to do something? Stand up for farmers

I have a ritual within a ritual. When I swim, I listen to podcasts. It’s something I started doing a year or so ago. After much time spent underwater, counting my strokes with my own thoughts, I realized my mind wasn’t always up for the hour of independent meditation and sometimes tried to talk my body out of the much needed exercise. The solution I imagined was underwater headphones, and with the introduction of this technology in my life (which interestingly uses radio transmission, rather than bluetooth, to wirelessly carry sounds through water to my ears), I began to fill my mind with the ideas of others.

I still have occasional days where I forgot to recharge the headset, or I simply have some thoughts to process, where I enjoy the underwater solitude. But now during most swims I enjoy the company of conversation in the form of interviews. I’ve listened to nearly every episode of Everything Cookbooks, a brilliantly hosted series that is essentially a masterclass in cookbook writing and publishing, thanks to the generous conversations that are shared. There are several other series that have become favorites¹, and of course I gravitate towards topics on food, but in times when I feel like I need some more general encouragement and insight about life, I enjoy an episode of Julia Louis Dreyfus’s honest and feminist podcast, Wiser Than Me.

Nancy Pelosi was a guest of this podcast, and as I’ve recently found myself ruminating to the point of distress and distraction over the actions of the executive branch of our federal government, I decided her story might be helpful to know. I will absolutely recommend you listen as well (or read the transcript in the link). But what I want to share is a mantra Pelosi repeated as a rallying cry that resonated deeply with me:

Don’t agonize, organize.

It was just a week or so before I encountered this wisdom that Brad and I were in the kitchen preparing dinner and trading updates on political atrocities we had read about in our individual news feeds. As our discussion turned to lamentation, Brad said to me, “it’s frustrating to know this is all happening and feel powerless.” When I relayed this statement to a friend and mentor a few days later, I received some more sage advice in response, which I’ll now paraphrase and relay to you:

In turbulent times like these, so many people can be heard saying, “I wish someone would do something”. You need to be someone. We all need to do something.

My friend went on to offer more applicable advice for activism. She encouraged me to filter my many concerns down to the two to three issues that mean the most to me, and then to take just an hour or so each week for research and outreach. The low hanging fruit to convert these words into action would be to inform yourself, and then your local representatives, about an issue you believe needs support. All you have to do is write and send a letter (or three) to someone with more influence than yourself. The information you need to do this is at the tip of your fingers thanks to the internet.

My most pressing topics of concerns are crystal clear to me. They are our local economies and our environment, and the space where these cross over are in my support for the people who grow our food. So yes, I have started to write letters. But I have also decided to take my efforts a step further and amplify my activism by informing you all with real stories of first hand hardship you may not be aware of. My friends and readers, I hope this information inspires you to take action too.

Despite what you might have read in the news, judges’ orders and the law are being rendered meaningless. What I am referring to is the president’s freeze on federal funding. Don’t believe the hype, because orders to block the freeze and release federally granted funds are being ignored. You’ve likely heard about the global impacts of cuts to programs like USAID, but I’m here to tell you the federal freezes and cuts are hitting much closer to home. 

During my time as the owner-operator of Primal Supply Meats, growth and capacity-building within my business was aided significantly by over a million dollars in funding I was awarded by the USDA through a grant called the Local Food Promotion Project (LFPP). This program aims to support the logistics and marketing of local agricultural products, and thanks to it, my business was able to scale and put ten times the amount of money we received back into our economy by purchasing local goods and services, and employing and training people from our community. 

When a small business like mine (and the other farms and organizations I’ve known to be deserving recipients) are awarded these USDA grants, we build our business models on the promise of funding. When that funding is withheld, it jeopardizes the sustainability of operations and the well-being of every other business and individual that depends on us.

In 2018, when we lived and worked through the last actual government shutdown that lasted for thirty five days (the longest in US history, which took place during he who shall not be named’s first term), I spent every single day watching my bank account dwindle, having already paid for tens of thousands of dollars in approved budgeted expenses that I was promised reimbursements for. But the staff of the USDA department that managed my grant was furloughed until the government reopened, so no money was being dispersed. With each day that passed, I grew concerned with how I would pay crucial bills like payroll, and calculated the amount of time I had left until cash, and the capacity to operate my business, ran out.

Today, thanks to the federal funding freeze, all of the current LFPP awardees (each promised up to $500,000 over three years), including two local PA food businesses I know personally from having assisted in their receipt and management of the grant, are no longer able to submit reimbursement requests for day-to-day budgeted expenses, including salaries, they were promised to be repaid for. Because these companies serve as crucial connectors, purchasing from our region’s small farmers, a ripple effect of financial instability will be felt if the funds are not reinstated.

If you’re reading this newsletter from Philly, you may have once dined at the much loved restaurant Musi, a beautiful experiment in relationship cuisine helmed by my friend, Chef Ari Miller. If you did, you likely admired Ari’s one-of-a kind apron, and may have noticed the hand-made, upcycled linen napkin that accompanied your place setting. These items were made by Heidi Barr, who has since gone on to co-found the PA Flax Project with one of our great, local vegetable farmers, Emma de Long of Kneehigh Farm. PA Flax is on a mission to organize farmers and create infrastructure for processing to bring linen production back to Pennsylvania. 

Thanks to their incredible vision, the PA Flax Project is a recipient of the USDA’s Organic Market Development Grant. This guarantee of $1.7 million dollars over three years gave Heidi both the courage and the capacity to build an organization that aims to make a massive impact, but now the federal freeze has cut off their main funding source that represents approximately 90% of the PA Flax Project's operating budget. Over the last month, they have been forced to downsize to the point of laying off staff, canceling contracts with partner farmers and suppliers, and are now desperately raising funds and awareness to continue their work.

A crucial organization for supporting these farmers and many others here in Pennsylvania is PASA, a sustainable agriculture non-profit. I recently attended their annual conference in Lancaster, and could write you thousands of words about the information and inspiration I found in those three days. While PASA has remained a crucial voice and resource over the past month of increased stress and trauma for our region’s farms, the organization is now facing threats to its own operation and most impactful programs without the release of funds. Last week, after 40 days without access to previously guaranteed funding, the executive director sent an update notifying members that PASA will be instituting a phased furlough of most of its employees beginning April 1.

My friends Krissy and Gideon, who farm in California as Boonville Farm Collective (which I often rave about as a devotee to their chiles and beans), are the recipients of the Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure grant from the USDA. They have already purchased a $13,000 piece of equipment that is supposed to be reimbursed through that grant, and if they don't get the funding, the expense will hit the farm’s bottom line in a way they did not plan for. This is the type of impact that owners often make up for by forgoing their own compensation for working in the business, an unsustainable standard of sacrifice we’ve come to expect of entrepreneurs.

But my friends are even more concerned about the freeze’s impact on others, like their friends who are waiting on $100,000 of funding they were promised through the same grant to build critical farm infrastructure to expand production and provide produce to local school districts. Krissy has been sharing impact stories due to agriculture policies in her own newsletter, including funding threats to NRCS (the Natural Resources Conservation Service), which oversees conservation programs that directly pay farmers for the environmentally beneficial work they are doing on their farms. 

If you didn’t know, now you know. The crushing impacts of the freeze are affecting farms across America. This article is one of the most accurate I’ve read in detailing the impact on farmers of all sizes around the country. And the most recent news that the USDA is canceling grants for purchasing local food for schools and food banks is downright devastating.

Have you ever seen a bumper sticker that reads, “NO FARMS NO FOOD”? I assure you we are, in no uncertain terms, hurtling towards this future as a reality. We cannot stand by and wait for it to happen to us.

Ready to take action? 

Activism is as easy as sending an email to congress and the USDA to urge them to honor the binding agreements USDA made with farmers and the organizations that support them, and to ensure they receive the reimbursements they are owed.

You can use this form from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) toolkit to automatically send an email to your rep in congress based on your address. It takes 60 seconds!

Or you can:

• Contact Secretary Rollins, the US Secretary of Agriculture Rollins by emailing AgSec@usda.gov

• Use this contact form to send a message to US Representative Glenn “GT” Thompson, Chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture..

• Find your congressional representatives’ contact info here and call or send an email that identifies you by your zip code within their district.

Here’s a template from my own letters that you can use:

Dear XX,

My name is XX. I am an XX resident advocating for a more equitable and sustainable local food economy in my community. 

[You can update this to reflect your own values, connection, and location]

USDA Federal grants awarded to small farms and food producers in our region remain on hold. These organizations develop business plans based on the guarantee of federal funding and the hold has put these organizations and their stakeholders, including employees and partner farms, in jeopardy.

 [Elaborate with examples if you can – personalized emails have a greater impact]

I am very concerned about the current policies being put in place at the USDA that withhold funding, compromise the data of small businesses and the community-based organizations that support them, and reverse decades of progress towards achieving equity for underrepresented communities.

I am respectfully requesting your assistance in holding the USDA to the Prompt Payment Act to ensure that farmers and the community-based organizations that serve them can receive the Congressionally-approved funding they need to keep growing food for our communities.

Thank you for your service.

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As a parting message, I will encourage you as always to keep your money in our local food economies, because every dollar counts to the farms and small businesses who are now very much on the brink. If you have dollars to spare, you can also take action by directly supporting organizations in need with funding:

The PA Flax Project is accepting tax deductible contributions to a bridge fund to continue operations.

Donations made to PASA will sustain their crucial programs that uphold the fight for our local farmers.

Additional resources on how to support PA farmers and other organizations impacted by the freeze of federal funding can be found at the PASA website, which is being regularly updated with current information.

You can also find up-to-date reporting on federal policy and actions affecting the food system at a national level through the Civil Eats Food Policy Tracker.

We need the farms that feed us. Let’s do everything in our power to keep the dystopian reality of no farms no food from being our future. I’m counting on all of us to do something.

Thank you for reading and for being here,
Heather

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Still hungry?

Hungry Heart recommends you:

READ an absolutely beautiful essay titled, “Remnants”. Author

Kenny Asher

shares the wisdom of Wendell Berry at a time that “is going to be as consequential as anything we'll ever live through.”

Some of us have people to walk with -- people who know how to keep despair at bay. If you don't, finding that person might be the first and most important thing to do.

LISTEN to an excellent interview by Mark Bittman with philosopher Julian Baggini on “How the World Eats”. I enjoyed the podcast but you can also read an excerpt in this article.

​​[The food system] has become the hidden wiring of the modern, industrialized lifestyle, an essential part of the engine that keeps us going, and that nobody even notices unless it breaks down.

WATCH an inspiring and insanely entertaining story of language and music as activism. If you’re up for a movie night, I suggest you screen Kneecap.

1. Surprisingly not all food related! Here are the podcasts I’m listening to in heavy rotation:

• Everything Cookbooks

• Wiser Than Me

• Food with Mark Bittman

• Salt and Spine

• Handsome

• Films To Be Buried With