The Trump administration has canceled orders for truckloads of food — including cases of milk, eggs, cheese, chicken and fruit — that had been slated for Missouri and Kansas food pantries and hunger outreach groups beginning in April.
As part of an ongoing campaign to slash the federal budget, the U.S. Department of Agriculture pulled the plug on $500 million worth of government commodities designated for food banks nationwide.
Caught in the fray were scheduled deliveries to Harvesters, the food bank that serves the Kansas City area and helps supply food to area food pantries, community kitchens and shelters. The organization got word on March 25 that orders coming to both Kansas and Missouri had been called off.
For Kansas, Harvesters said canceled commodity orders included 4,176 cases of foods like canned vegetables and soup, along with 11,736 packages of items like containers of eggs, packages of cheese and cartons of milk.
The organization had not learned details about what orders to its Missouri service area had been called off, but officials said the entire state is destined to lose 45 truckloads of shelf-stable and perishable commodity food.
Karen Siebert, public policy and advocacy adviser at Harvesters, said no explanation came with word of the canceled shipments, which had been slated to arrive between April and August. It’s possible some of the food was already en route, she said.
Siebert hopes the orders can be reinstated if they are shifted to a different federal funding source — one that hasn’t been slashed by the Trump administration. But any shipments that are lost, she said, will be a blow to people who rely on food pantries.
The high-protein staples that come from the U.S. government aren’t easily replaced by donations or other sources.
“It’s some of the best food that we receive,” Siebert said. “I heard someone here call it ‘center of the plate food.’ … It’s a really healthy, important resource for families.”
The canceled shipments represent only a portion of the food Harvesters is expecting from the federal government. And Harvesters is less dependent on government shipments than food banks in other parts of the country. About $7.6 million of its $27.3 million in 2024 revenue came from government programs. Meanwhile, $18.6 million came from private support.
But at a time when the cost of food and other basic needs continues to increase, any loss of government support will be felt. News of the canceled deliveries comes as Congress seems poised to cut safety-net programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which gives low-income Americans money to buy food.
Harvesters distributed 60 million pounds of food in 2024, down from the 77 million pounds it distributed in 2021 during the height of COVID-19, but still more than the 53 million pounds it distributed in 2019, the year before the pandemic.
The food bank operates in 27 Missouri and Kansas counties, working with 489 food pantries, 69 school pantries, 54 community kitchens and dozens of other programs that connect those in need with food.
Epidemic of food insecurity
Food insecurity is a growing issue nationally.
Feeding America, an organization that focuses on hunger, estimates that in 2023 more than 47 million Americans, including one in five children, were experiencing food insecurity, meaning that they didn’t have the money or other resources necessary to get enough food. That was a 38% jump from 2021.
Organizations that work to mitigate hunger said the problem is only growing. Even before federal aid cuts, food banks and other hunger organizations were struggling to keep up, Siebert said.
“It’s not like it’s easy now,” she said. “We are just nervous about what’s coming down the pike.”
The cuts affecting Harvesters, involving commodities purchased through a program overseen by the secretary of agriculture, come on top of $1 billion in cuts the Trump administration made to federal funding that was designated to help schools and food banks buy fresh food and meat from local farmers.
Thomas Smith, chief business officer with The Kansas City Food Hub, a cooperative association of small urban farmers, said many of his organization’s members increased production based on a belief that those federal programs would provide a reliable market. One farmer sold meat to school districts in Kansas, for example, while others sold produce to food banks.
The programs, set up by the Biden administration to help bolster local food production markets during the COVID pandemic, supported farmers and brought a nutritious food source to hunger outreach programs. Eliminating the programs, Smith said, will be devastating.
“We’re going to lose some of the few small farmers we have,” he said.
A Kansas program modeled after the federal farm-to-food-bank program has also been eliminated, Siebert said. During recent budget negotiations, state legislators eliminated $900,000 that would have funded the program next year.
Other Kansas City-area hunger outreach groups are also seeing federal funding go away.
Double Up Food Bucks, a program administered by the Mid-America Regional Council, hasn’t lost federal funding yet, but two grants that were up for renewal have been put on hold. Donna Martin, the program’s director, said most of the program’s budget is at stake, but the government isn’t explaining anything, including whether funding will return.
The program, which reached about 180,000 people in 2023, gives people in Missouri and Kansas who receive SNAP benefits matching funds to spend on fresh produce at farmers markets or grocery stores. Like many food assistance programs, Double Up Food Bucks doesn’t just support people in need of food. It also puts money in the pockets of local farmers and grocers.
Cultivate KC, which promotes urban farming and runs a program to help immigrants become farmers, has already seen several of its 14 federal grants frozen, said Brien Darby, the organization’s executive director.
Federal grants provide three-quarters of Cultivate KC’s funding, but right now the organization is sitting on $80,000 in bills that haven’t been reimbursed under those federal grants. Darby said the organization has enough funding to make it until June. After that there will have to be changes if federal dollars aren’t restored.
Darby is trying to remain hopeful. Cultivate KC has joined other farming organizations in a lawsuit filed last week against the Trump administration.
“It feels like we’re in a time right now where that’s the best way to keep the government accountable,” Darby said.
This story was originally published by The Beacon, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.
