Small farms food program gets local lifeline
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Catherine Nguyen runs Mora Mora Farm in Troutdale. Photo: Courtesy of Catherine Nguyen
Small farms in and around Portland are continuing to feed hungry Oregonians thanks to a $300,000 grant from a local conservation district that offset federal funding cuts last year.
Why it matters: The funding is helping nearly two dozen small farms to continue providing fresh food for those in need.
Driving the news: The board of the East Multnomah Soil & Water Conservation District heard about the federal funds being cut off and in January partnered with the Oregon Food Bank to provide grants to farmers like Catherine Nguyen, who runs Mora Mora Farms near Troutdale.
- Yes, but: The grant funding is a welcome reprieve, but it is only a fraction of the $2 million previously allocated through the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA).
- And it's only a short-term fix. It's unclear where similar funding will come from in the future.
Catch up quick: The LFPA, funded by the USDA and administered locally by the Oregon Food Bank, provided grants to farmers ahead of the growing season.
- The program provided more than $1 billion in grants to more than 8,000 producers nationwide between its inception in 2021 and last year.
- Unlike other programs, it allowed the producers to decide how their crops would be distributed.
Zoom in: Nguyen grows 40 to 60 different crops throughout the season on nearly 2 acres and was a participant in the program.
- Trying to find a balance between growing enough food to keep her farm financially sustainable and producing enough to help feed the hungry is a recurring challenge for Nguyen.
- "That grant is the only way that I've seen to actually get produce out to everyone while still honoring the farmers' time and inputs and work," she tells Axios.
- When she heard funding had been revoked, she was "so bummed" because it was "literally the only thing that I've seen that actually felt viable."
Zoom out: The LFPA funding is just one of several hits federal food assistance has taken recently.
- Thousands of Oregonians have lost access to SNAP benefits this year, and federal assistance to places like the Oregon Food Bank has dwindled.
- "We were expecting to receive millions of pounds of food from the federal government," Morgan Dewey, a spokesperson for the food bank, tells Axios. "That just stopped."
- The food bank recorded 2.9 million visits to its more than 1,200 partner sites across the region last year, a 51% increase over two years.
The bottom line: The funding has allowed Nguyen to continue partnering with nonprofits that specifically serve elders in Portland's Asian community.
- "I feel like every farmer hopes that they can just grow food and give it out for free," she says.