President Donald Trump’s federal funding cuts are being felt from farms in the Heartland to food banks in Chicago.
More than $1 billion in assistance that usually flows into the U.S. Department of Agriculture for two programs that help local farmers, schools and food banks has already vanished. Now the administration is threatening to slash the agency’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which provides low-income families with benefits to help supplement their grocery budgets.
All of that is leaving farmers, a key voting bloc for Trump, without what was once a safe outlet for their produce. Food banks are also receiving less aid at a time when demand is surging — after all, consumers were already grappling with the rising cost of everything from meat to eggs.
On Chicago’s West Side, Wendy Daniels has seen an increase of about 25% in the number of new people coming through her food bank since January. That’s a worrying trend, she says, as tariffs, inflation and funding cuts are set to squeeze grocery budgets while making it more expensive for food banks to cover their operating costs.
“I’m $5,000 over budget, and it is March and guess what, I’m not going to stop purchasing, because our families need food,” said Daniels, whose Breakthrough Urban Ministries food bank near Garfield Park runs a fiscal year that ends in June. “So we will probably end up in a $15,000 budget deficit by the end of the year.”
Funding cuts to the USDA include about $421 million for the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program, in which states can purchase food from farmers and then give it to organizations such as food banks that help underserved communities. About $660 million in funds were also cut for Local Food for Schools, a program that allows states to buy food and distribute it to schools and child care facilities.
In Illinois, the state Department of Agriculture also said the Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure Program, which offers better market opportunities and new streams of revenue to small and mid-sized agricultural producers, also ceased to operate.
Cuts to SNAP would impact about 1.9 million people in Illinois, 1.5 million in Michigan, 1.4 million in Ohio, 705,000 in Wisconsin and 610,000 in Indiana, according to a report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Federal SNAP spending totaled $112.8 billion in 2023, according to the USDA.
“You’re taking food away from families — it’s not Democratic families, or Independent families or Republican families, it’s all families,” said Illinois Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi. “It’s people in all states.”
The USDA confirmed cuts to the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program and Local Food for Schools.
There’s also uncertainty around The Emergency Food Assistance Program funding, which aids food banks. In a letter to the USDA, Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and 25 other senators questioned the agency on reports that a part of the program was paused.
“A cancellation of these funds could result in $500 million in lost food provisions to feed millions of Americans at a time when the need for food shelves is extremely high due to costly groceries and an uncertain economy,” the senators wrote.
In a statement to Bloomberg, the USDA said the administration of President Joe Biden “created unsustainable programming and expectations using the Commodity Credit Corporation,” but that the USDA continued to purchase food for TEFAP.
The Greater Chicago Food Depository said in a statement Tuesday that it had just learned that 1.7 million pounds, or 52 truckloads, of government food that was set to arrive between April and August has been suspended. The shipments, purchased through Commodity Credit Corporation funding, amounted to $3.3 million and included dairy, pork, chicken, eggs, dried plums and cranberries.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, said the Trump administration is “turning their backs on America’s Dairyland and betraying our farmers.” Trump won the state, which distributed about $4 million in food last year, with a majority of rural voters.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, also a Democrat, criticized Trump and Elon Musk for cutting a $12 million award used to provide local food to schools and child care programs.
“I’s just the latest terrible cut with real impact on families across Massachusetts,” Healey said this month. “There is nothing ‘appropriate’ about it.”
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, one of Trump’s most vocal critics, said farmers in the biggest U.S. soybean-producing state need the business brought in by USDA programs. In their pursuit to cut government spending, the administration has “made farmers the collateral damage in that endeavor,” said the Democrat, who is expected to have White House ambitions for 2028.
“Cutting the funding leaves farmers on the hook for expenses they incurred believing they would be reimbursed and leaves our most vulnerable, food-insecure communities without meat, fresh produce and other nutritious donations they were promised,” Jerry Costello II, director of the Illinois Department of Agriculture, said of the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program. “The federal government broke its promise, and the people of Illinois are paying the price.”
A number of food banks in Chicago met officials, including Krishnamoorthi, on Thursday to discuss potential cuts to SNAP. The program provides nine times more meals than all the food banks in the country are able to do, said Kate Maehr, chief executive officer of the Greater Chicago Food Depository.
“At a time of unprecedented need, which we are in, there is not a world in which charity can replace SNAP,” she said.
