More than 40 million people had to ration food, skip meals and make sacrifices we might associate with the Great Depression, not 21st-century America. Churches, community groups and neighbors sprang into action. They checked on single moms juggling multiple jobs, elderly friends living alone, people with disabilities and large families with children too young for school lunch programs. And though food stamps were restored, the Trump administration is now threatening to pull Snap funds from Democratic-led states.
During the shutdown and this continuing uncertainty, many people scrambling for food have turned to local farmers, expecting them to give away fresh produce, meat, milk and eggs. Their logic was simple: farmers grow food and care about the community. Shouldn’t they be able to help us? But small farmers and local food advocates say it’s not simple at all....
Alesha Gonzales of La Huerta de Alesha farm in Hephzibah, Georgia, put it into context: “We are feeling the squeeze. So many [small family] farms will not make it to see 2026.” Small family farms, like Gonzales’s, are majority-owned by families and generate gross cash farm income (GCFI) of less than $350,000 annually, according to a USDA definition. Data from 2022 suggests that between half to 79% of those farms are at deep financial risk.
“What many don’t see,” he continued, “is that small farms feel the shock of a crisis just as quickly as households do. Sales channels dry up, costs continue and the margin for error disappears almost overnight. Giving food away without a structure in place isn’t just unsustainable. It can jeopardize the farms people rely on.”
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