Small farmers left in a field of economic uncertainty amid USDA funding freezes

Across the nation, farmers are plowing through a field of economic uncertainty as they wait for the federal government to fulfill legal and active contracts for grants.

According to a USDA award amount document, 200 producers in Texas benefited from the more than $72 million awarded to the Texas Department of Agriculture.

The document states Texas was awarded $37.8 million for the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program, or LFPA. An additional $35.1 million was allocated to the state’s LFPA Plus Award program.

Of the more than $70 million, 38% was allocated to meat and poultry, 32% to produce, and 11% to bread and grains.

LFPA was created to maintain and improve food and agricultural supply chain resiliency. It helps keep food dollars in local communities. The money, however, is awarded to organizations that support local and underserved producers.

“The food bank receives those (funds), and then they're purchasing fruits and vegetables from us,” Chance Demases said. Demases owns and operates the family business, Demases Farms.

“Our history goes back to 1919,” Demases said.

According to Demases, his great-grandfather James Demases started the farm in 1919 in Fort Worth.

“Then from ‘41 to ‘87 we farmed 160 acres right off of 360 in Arlington, and then we moved out to Boyd in 1987,” Chance said. “We've operated over 100 years continuously. So, you know, we are set up to do, you know, larger-scale operation.”

In 2023, Chance partnered with Tarrant Area Food Bank and helped secure what he considered to be the most significant contract in the history of the family business.

“Our involvement with that program will set us up for the next five years, just in a short time,” Chance said. “We have a lot of additional acres that we were hoping to dedicate to that program.”

However, those plans remain uncertain.

In a statement last week, the Tarrant Area Food Bank announced a multi-million-dollar cut in federal funds.

“TAFB and our network are currently facing a significant shortfall due to recent federal changes, including the cancellation of state agreements for the 2025 Local Food Purchase Assistance Program (LFPA) and Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) food purchases. These changes have resulted in a loss of food equivalent to 2.5 million meals—or $4.2 million in value—for the remainder of our fiscal year,” TAFB said in a statement.

According to a spokesperson for the organization, the cuts have impacted their support to more than 20 local farmers.

“Really the wholesale side is what's been taken away through the LFPA funding cut,” Chance said.

Now, small or medium-scale farmers must readjust their budgets to plan for the summer harvest and make ends meet.

“We're just kind of planning for our retail operation, the restaurants we serve in DFW,” Chance said. “There are just limited outlets and places to sell fruits and vegetables at a local level without kind of going into larger-scale warehouses.”

TAFB said they are adjusting their food purchasing budget for the second half of the fiscal year and will increase their focus on shelf-stable items vs. fresh produce.