Despite cuts to federal programs aimed at bringing locally-grown food into school cafeterias across Iowa occurring roughly a year ago, local leaders continue to feel the impact on how food moves from arms to classrooms and community programs.

Partnerships between schools and local farmers have helped bring locally grown food into cafeterias across Iowa. Federal programs aimed at supporting those connections expanded that effort until their recent elimination. 

Two U.S. Department of Agriculture initiatives — the Local Food for Schools program and the Local Food Purchase Assistance program — were terminated in May 2025, cutting millions of dollars in federal funding that helped schools, food banks, and farmers work together.

Across Iowa, the loss amounted to about $11.3 million in federal funding intended to help institutions purchase locally raised foods, according to the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship. 

The programs were originally funded through a $1.13 billion federal investment in local food systems, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture press release. 

The Iowa City Community School District serves roughly 9,000 lunches every day, making large-scale local food sourcing a logistical challenge, Alison Demory, Nutrition Services director, said. 

Demory said partnerships with local food organizations have helped the district bring regional produce into school meals.

“They work with farmers and help us source the items that we need for our school menus,” Demory said.

One key partner is Field to Family, an Iowa City-based nonprofit that connects farmers with institutions such as schools and food banks.

Through the organization’s food hub, farmers supply produce in quantities large enough for institutional kitchens, something individual farms might struggle to coordinate on their own.

Demory said the federal grants helped expand those efforts by giving schools additional funds to experiment with local foods. However, she said the district’s commitment to local sourcing predates the grants.

“The grant has been wonderful and helpful, but it has not been the sole reason why we use local,” Demory said.

Local foods appear most often on school menus during Iowa’s harvest season, typically between August and October. Some products, such as cabbage used for coleslaw or minimally processed butternut squash, can be used year-round.

For food hubs like Field to Family, the federal programs helped scale up connections between farmers and institutions.

Executive Director of Field to Family Michelle Kenyon said the grants allowed schools and food access organizations to order food through the food hub while the organization handled payments to farmers and logistics.

“Schools knew their budgets,” Kenyon said. “They just didn’t have to touch the money. We paid producers directly and delivered the food.”

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The program expanded rapidly in its final year. In 2024, Field to Family supplied food to 46 school districts and 24 food access agencies, purchasing more than $500,000 worth of food from local farmers, according to the organization’s impact data.

After the federal programs ended, those numbers dropped sharply. In 2025, Field to Family worked with 26 schools and seven food access agencies and paid about $330,000 to producers for local food, according to the organization’s 2025 impact report. 

The figures represent a substantial decline from the previous year, when federal funding allowed the food hub to connect more schools and food access organizations with local farmers.

Kenyon said the sudden end of the programs left farmers scrambling to adjust production plans.

“Producers that were wholesale-ready had scaled up already before this program,” she said.

Farmers plan crops months in advance. When the funding was cut in early spring, some had already invested in seeds and equipment, Kenyon said. 

“It’s really hard to walk back from that,” Kenyon said.

The effects were felt on the farms that work with Field to Family to supply local produce to school districts of Johnson County. 

Ilsa DeWald, food and farm manager for Johnson County, said local growers had relied on the programs to expand markets for their crops.

Many farmers growing food in the county, including plots at the Historic Poor Farm, a county-owned property outside Iowa City that supports community agriculture and provides land for local farmers, participated in the programs by selling produce to schools and food banks. 

With the funding gone, farmers who participated in the grants have lost those markets.

“We’ve seen growers who scaled up for those markets no longer having access to those markets,” DeWald said.

Farms are now looking for new ways to sell their products, from expanding farmers market sales to developing value-added foods.

Johnson County is constructing a shared commercial kitchen at the Historic Poor Farm, intended to help farmers process produce into items such as frozen, canned, or prepared foods. DeWald said the facility is expected to open later this spring or early summer.

Still, she said, there is currently no replacement funding comparable to the federal programs.

The professionals working to provide local produce say the grants benefited multiple parts of the local food system simultaneously. 

Schools gained access to fresh food, farmers gained stable buyers, and food banks were able to distribute more nutritious products, DeWald said. The grants supported communities in closing the gap between growing food and reaching residents. 

“That was a win-win-win,” DeWald said. “For farmers, for community members receiving food, and for our communities.”