The U.S. Department of Agriculture will spend $1.7 billion nationwide to support farmers, offer nutrition assistance and boost rural economies.
That includes $1.2 billion for food banks, schools, child care centers and more to buy from local farmers and growers.
The Farm Bill is normally one of the main funders of programs that provide food assistance. But the federal bill has been tied up in political debates. Because of this, Joree Novotny, executive director of the Ohio Association of Food Banks, said farmers and organizations that provide food assistance have faced their own struggles.
"We've been in a state of sort of continued uncertainty with programs that either are permanently authorized through the federal Farm Bill or that have been launched in response to ongoing food supply chain challenges and other pandemic era impacts on people facing food insecurity, as well as the farmers and grocers and food banks that feed them," she said.
According to Novotny, this round of USDA funding has two components that will directly benefit food systems in Ohio.
Around $500 million from the investment will allow the USDA to purchase commodities for emergency food providers, and the other $1.2 billion is for a local food purchase assistance program.
“What this funding will do is help to basically provide important and critical stopgaps to ensure that food banks and farmers have the support they need to continue to respond to growing food insecurity crises in communities in Ohio and across the country," she said.
These federal dollars will build off of existing investments in local and regional food systems.
Novotny said the Ohio Community Agriculture Nutrition program will continue to benefit the state with this funding.
"We're really proud of having launched this program a couple of years ago in partnership with the USDA, as well as with our state agencies; both the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Job and Family Services," she said. "And this program quickly, over a couple of years, has done wonders to support local, small and mid-sized emerging BIPOC and other socially disadvantaged and historically underrepresented farmers, growers and producers right here in Ohio, helping them to supply product to food banks."
With this massive funding opportunity, Novotny is optimistic about the impact it can have locally.
“So nothing could be more important, from my perspective, than a resilient local and regional food supply chain," she said. "We don't want to find ourselves as Americans or as Ohioans without food nearby that we've produced here.”
The USDA said many farmers have been able to find new markets and recover from supply chain disruptions through programs like these.
