Excellent; thanks for sharing, Hannah!

<div>Hey folks – the farm bill is nearing the House floor with a vote as soon as next week. </div>

And yet, this farm bill is yet again disappointing. It does nothing to restore the harm done to SNAP; it provides an empty promise to fund local food programs; and despite how much farmers and our communities have suffered since the 2018 bill,…

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We are organizing a speaker panel for our April meeting on the 16th and we’d love your help! One thing we heard in the survey we circulated to the group in November (which is still open; link below!) was a desire to have more farmer voices present and to learn more about their perspectives, concerns, and experience with farm-to-food…

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Hi all!

Looking forward to seeing you online tomorrow for our March F2FA Community of Practice call TOMORROW [Thursday 3/19] at 2p EST.

We’ve got a great set of guest speakers coming to share the results of their work documenting and sharing success stories that highlight the potential for local purchasing programs and farm to food…

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Hi all; Happy Wednesday!

Sharing an update on this emerging policy group [not affiliated with FSLN].

If you’re curious about policy work -and wins!- happening across the country: Join us! This nascent and informal gathering met for the first time on Jan 23rd and there are about 50 people on the guest list this Friday. This state-level food…

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I would like to attend this!

Good afternoon, F2FA friends!

I’m writing to invite you to join a virtual conversation this Friday, January 23rd @ 1:00 Eastern with other state-level food system advocates.

The goal of the conversation is to offer an opportunity for organizations doing state-level advocacy to build relationships, share successes, troubleshoot issues, and…

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Hello Food System Friends

For a couple years, many of you all have very kindly followed along and provided input as we demonstrated a food system map visualizing our LFPA work. We’re finally excited to announce we are entering a closed-prototype phase to explore customized food system use-cases of this tool with the long-term hope of…

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Thank you Samiha,

I’m just pinging everyone to please help us fill this out if you can. So far we have 9 responses, 840 farms we can be connected to in 43 districts across 8 states! I know if we gather some more responses we’ll be able to get so much amazing advocates.

As a reminder, this form is helpful to fill out even if you yourself aren’t…

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Hello all! Thank you for letting @andyollove and I present last week at the COP. We are hoping to begin building a base of LFPA farmers and administrators who may be able to support congressional advocacy for two new bills are proposed to continue local food work.

If you are an administrator of LFPA, or have relationships or knowledge about…

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Good afternoon! The Wallace Center, in partnership with the Food Systems Leadership Network and National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is seeking a partner to collect and write stories of farmers and businesses that benefited from their participation in farm to food assistance value chains. The selected vendor will write a series of 3…

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I am in search of examples of food banks offering services such as storage, transportation, software, etc. to food hubs for a fee. It would be great if there are breakdowns of the fee structure as well. I am trying to determine if there are viable models for a food bank-food hub partnership. Thank you!

-Laura

One way or another Congress needs to pass another extension or a new full bill. NSAC is partnering with a handful of organizations to lead a letter to Congress that sends a clear message: any farm bill that moves this year needs to invest in a sustainable future and fix the damage done by OBBB. The letter helps us collectively say that we…

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Hey all – hope you’re hanging in there ok. Our next F2FA CoP Call is on 6/18 and I’m thinking the topic this month should focus on short-term responses / pivots to the LFPA ’25 termination – specifically how food hubs and/or Value Chain Coordination entities are working with impacted producers to shift to other sales channels when the…

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We did not submit a plan but we have a signed cooperative agreement between our state and USDA for the LFPA 2025 funding amount.

Hey everyone –

I know that a handful of states submitted their plans for LFPA 2025 ahead of when Rollins terminated the program. I believe one of those was Indiana. Are there others that know whether their plans were submitted? I’m looking for information on whether there was any correspondence about subaward funding levels between the…

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Meredith, I know that some states have definitely been approved since the new administration took over, but I can’t tell you which ones in confidence.

Hello F2FA friends! The LFPA program in Illinois will be wrapping up in June for most of our sub-awardees. We plan to send an exit survey to the farmers who participated in the program. Has anyone done something similar for their producers? Would you be willing to share the questions you asked or the survey itself? Thank you!

Hi – my post about these jobs was from May 2024; these positions have since been filled. Thank you.

How temporary?

In today’s FAB F2FA Community of Practice call, we crowdsourced songs that are your go-to’s to cheer you up and make you smile. Just pulled them from the chat to make this amazing playlist:

Enjoy!! Keep up the energy folks, and remember our collective power and wisdom. Keep. Going.

Registration is open for a new 3-part project management course from the Food Systems Leadership Network. This should be a great professional development opportunity- read more and sign up below!

As nonprofits, community-based organizations, government agencies, and others advance their work, they must navigate complex systems and…

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Hey folks – we’re up to 650 signatures for this letter so far, which is great, but WE CAN DO MORE! Please help spread the word and get more LFPA stakeholders signed on to this letter. Thank you!!!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdTNaMvXuV0_oqOlvZgQ1PbUteJ-eXldM3MOz7x64WK5LwPtA/viewform

hello everyone!

A few weeks ago we mentioned a sign-on opportunity for a stakeholder letter that will be delivered to Secretary Rollins in response to USDA’s decision to terminate previously announced 2025 funding for the Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) and Local Food for Schools and Child Care (LFSCC) Programs.

This letter is now live:…

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Hey all – Given the urgency of the moment and the need for spaces to share strategy and be in solidarity with each other, we’re resuming the national F2FA Community of Practice monthly call series through the spring. You should have received a fresh calendar invite (if you’re registered). If not, register here:…

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This article was just published this morning and focuses on the freeze we experienced with our LFPA+ funds and the loss of the proposed 3rd round of LFPA/LFS funds in Arizona. Trump funding cuts take local produce from schools, hurt…

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I sent this update to NSAC and other groups last week but forgot to share here:

Illinois farmers showed up and showed out with hours of powerful testimony in a hearing on the tremendous momentum in our local food system and climate-resilient farming that’s been disrupted by the unprecedented federal funding freeze.

State Rep. Sonya Harper, chair…

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Wisconsin got the same news that it seems most states did, LFPA2025 terminated (https://datcp.wi.gov/Documents2/LFPA25TerminationNoticeWisconsinDepartmentofAgricultureTradeConsumerProtection.pdf). As far as we know – finishing up the LFPA and LFPA+ work. We have been keeping people updated at the public website for the program…

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WELL DONE everyone with getting the LFPA ’25 and LFSCC ’25 terminations in the news! It’s been amazing to see a flood of stories getting published – from hyper-local news to national outlets – about the impact this decision is having on farmers, food businesses, local economies and communities. This media strategy is KEY to raising attention…

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Same for KY. Current LFPA/LFPA+ and LFS are free to continue as planned. LFPA25 and LFSCC are terminated

We also received this news on Friday.

Liz, my understanding is that Cooperative Agreements have different terms than Contracts / Grant Agreements. You’d need to look at the fine print of the Cooperative Agreement to know which federal regulations it is subject to – they are usually named in the agreement. I have not personally looked at an official LFPA Cooperative Agreement so…

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We got this notice on Friday from the MN Department of Ag (MDA) for Minnesota:

We (MDA) received written notice from USDA today that our current LFPA agreements will continue to be in effect. (9/14/25 is the current program end date, or earlier if applicable per your individual contract.) USDA will resume processing payments for activities prior…

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We got word on Friday. March 7th, that reimbursements are being processed. Funding will be available through the performance period and no extensions will be offered at this time.

We also received a termination notice for LFPA25.

Carey Gillam is going to do a piece on the LFPA freeze and potential cancellation. She wants to talk to folks about the impact on your communities. https://careygillam.com/ She has asked for people’s names and orgs. You can contact me and I’ll connect you or you can contact her directly at careygillamnewsnow@gmail.com.

Thanks Giselle! Given the news on Friday, which seems to indicate that all LFPA and LFPA+ agreements will be honored through their period of performance, that reimbursements are resuming on those, and that the LFPA’25 agreements are all being cancelled, we likely need to pivot our advocacy strategy slightly. Telling the story of impact in…

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Thanks for sharing Jacob. Both a blessing and a bummer! We’re hearing this from most states – curious to see who else got this message on Friday.

just heard in california as well !

Hi all, I just got a letter that LFPA and LFPA+ is being honored until the end of our PoP (August of this year), and all costs will be reimbursed past Jan 20th, 2025. LFPA25 was cancelled however. Hoping to hear good news from your states!

Carey Gillam is interested in talking with people who have been impacted by the freeze to possibly do a story. She is an investigative writer, formerly from Reuters, who has focuses on Ag lots. She wrote the book The Monsanto Papers and Whitewash. I reached out to her after the zoom yesterday. I’m sure she’d love to talk to policy folks,…

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morning ! chatting with susan about best way to share everything. will have it today !

Thank you everyone for joining the call yesterday! It was grounding to see 400 people show up and remember we are not alone. Thank you to the organizers for bringing us together and providing space and direction!

@andyollove would you be willing to share a link to the resources you all have for collective organizing in CA? It would be great…

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I’m sorry to hear this, and know you’re not alone.

In IL, we’re bringing together the major local food purchasers (aggregators and direct to consumer sales, etc) to coordinate how to move product that was supposed to be sold through LFPA. The hope is to increase sales in existing market channels (buyers buy more) and to open new market…

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Are cooperative agreements between USDA and the states, like with LFPA and RFSI, the same as a contract?

We have been discussing the call to action to urge our state Attorney General to sue USDA over breaking the LFPA/ RFSI agreements so the courts can weigh in.
However, in a separate meeting with NRCS today, they described that an “agreement”…

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Yep. I have a couple other meetings tomorrow afternoon, but if the timing works, I’d love to join. Thanks for pulling this together

Thank you everyone for contributing to this thread! And to Andy for getting it going. We just spoke and connected a few dots and agreed that a national call is urgently needed.

Let’s get together tomorrow, Thursday March 6 at 3 EST / 12 PT to do some quick sensemaking and strategizing on collective action. Mike Lavender, Policy Director…

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Interested from SD.

I would also be interested in joining a call – I’m so sorry to hear about what folks are experiencing.

Iowa is frozen – we were notified on Feb 20th.
Farm Table Food Hub is holding $40k worth of inventory for LFPA that is starting to go bad – the quantity on hand is too much to move intime.

While small compared to some, this is putting extreme stress on our organization.

We would be interested in joining a call.