For the last few years, schools and food banks around the country have been able to get fresh produce and meat from small, local farms, thanks to federal funding. But that’s about to end. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced it’s canceling the two Biden-era programs that paid for all that fresh, local food because it says they “no longer effectuate the goals of the agency.” 

That’s more than a billion dollars’ worth of contracts for small farmers, ranchers and fishermen.

Running a small family farm that turns a profit isn’t easy. Emma Johnson’s family has owned one for decades — she’s a fourth-generation farmer. She and her husband run Buffalo Ridge Orchard with her parents on 80 acres in Central City, Iowa.

“We grow a lot of apples, and we do grow some pears, and then we grow from A to Z all of the different vegetables,” Johnson said.

Recently, they’ve been selling about $65,000 worth of their produce to local schools and food banks through these USDA programs.

“And this season, we were anticipating for those numbers to grow because the budget had grown,” she said.

Instead, there’s suddenly no budget for those programs, which means Johnson and her family are scrambling to figure out where else they can sell all those fruits and vegetables.

Their contracts with schools and food banks would have been about 25% of their income this year.

“That’s jobs, that’s staff, that’s our ability to even have a profit for the season,” Johnson said.

In Pennsylvania, E. Nichole Taylor said she’s also scrambling to figure out how the Great Valley School District, where she’s a food service supervisor, is going to fill the sudden hole in its budget.

They’ve been using federal funding to buy local meat, milk and produce for school lunches.

“The meals that our students receive today are not the meals that I received when I was growing up,” she said.

Now, Taylor said, they may have to shift their budget around — cut somewhere — so they can afford some fresh, local food. But?

“There’s some things that we’re just not going to be able to offer our students,” she said.

Families that rely on food banks will see a difference too.

Paco Vélez runs Feeding South Florida, and he said buying locally has changed what they can offer.

“You name it, it’s grown here in Florida,” he said. “We get asparagus, we get broccoli, we get strawberries, we get blueberries.” Plus eggs, salmon and yogurt.

Without this USDA funding, the food bank will have less variety and just less food, period.

“As the government starts pulling out, then it leaves a huge gap,” Vélez said. “So the first thing that came to mind is, how are we going to do this? How are we going to ensure that as an organization, we’re doing everything that we can?”