Pictured: Nina Much, Heritage Grange, a past grant awardee of the Wisconsin LFPA program, unpacking products for a food pantry in Waupaca County.
Wisconsin Farmers Union members have been vocal about wanting to continue farm programs that have lost federal support this year.
Michelle Ramirez-White is WFU’s government relations director. She joins Mid-West Farm Report in-studio with a special focus on the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program. The federal government cut the LFPA program in March.
WFU has launched a special campaign to continue the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program at the state level, which helps food pantries, etc., purchase directly from farmers. Without additional funding from the federal level, Ramirez-White explains that WFU wants the state to increase funding annually to continue the program.
She says farmers went into the growing season under the impression that the program and contracts would continue for another three years.
“So we really want to make sure that we’re supporting the almost 300 farmers in the state of Wisconsin that were participating in the Wisconsin LFPA program that have been taken that security from under them without a ton of notice,” she says.
Ramirez-White adds that the LFPA program helped growers scale their business for larger wholesale markets, stimulating the state economy.
“We have farmers that received anywhere from $10,000, $15,000, even more money per year for a contract. These are often smaller-scale farmers that wouldn’t have access to these larger markets,” she explains. “So, the program itself provided a level of transportation, packaging, and technical support that really let them integrate into a larger market and get a lot more consumers that they wouldn’t be able to access.”
