by Cheryl Tevis, Iowa Capital Dispatch
Iowa schools recently kicked off October National Farm to School Month by serving at least two locally grown food items for breakfast, lunch, or snacks. On Oct. 8, school students will tackle the ambitious goal of achieving 1 million crunches of locally grown apples during the Great Apple Crunch.
But a different type of crunch time challenge is threatening to take a bite out of both student nutrition and the bottom line of small local farmers during the 2025-26 school year.
“As much as I love local food, it’s more expensive,” says Kaitlyn Scheuermann, Waukee Community Schools registered dietician nutritionist. “We need to pay farmers fair value, but when you buy a local apple for 60 cents, it means you only have about $3.65 left to buy protein and milk. The school lunch program runs on a shoestring budget, and food and labor costs are up.”
That’s why after six months of cutbacks and cancellations, it seemed like a huge win when U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins recently announced with great fanfare up to $18 million in revamped Farm to School funding for fiscal year 2026. The grants range from $100,000 to $500,000, and are the largest total annual amount in the program’s history.
But at Pleasant Grove Homestead near Fremont, Ashley and Zach Wenke aren’t so sure that their local produce and egg business would benefit. Based on her experience, Scheuermann has reservations about the revised grant criteria.
“The Patrick Leahy Farm to School grants have been around for several years, and our school has participated,” Scheuermann says. “Although the grant amounts are larger, no more than 10 percent of the grant budget can be allocated to buy food. The $18 million will be competitively awarded across the entire U.S.”
If the revised grant restores only a limited menu of options for farmers and schools to participate, it’s unlikely to advance the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) goals for children and families. Is it simply window dressing for shrinking federal support for local foods?
Grant helps prepare the seedbed
Since 2013, the Patrick Leahy Farm to School Grants Program has awarded $100 million to help schools build infrastructure and capacity, including planting school gardens, buying kitchen equipment, food safety training for farmers, and ag education.
Between 2013 and 2024, Iowans received $1.6 million to undertake 21 of these projects. Then in March 2025, the grant was canceled, and funding for fiscal year 2025 was pulled midstream.
“The larger grants may attract more partnerships, bigger collaborations,” Scheuermann says. “But the size may discourage others. Smaller schools may need to partner with others, like ISU Extension, or nearby schools. Matching funds also are required.”
But the Patrick Leahy Farm to School grant is only a single fiber of a federal patchwork of programs stitched together to create local partnerships between farmers, schools, food banks, and child care centers.
Two other programs launched during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide federal dollars to schools, child care facilities and food banks were canceled at the same time: the Local Food for Schools (LFS) Cooperative Agreement Program and the Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) Cooperative Agreement Program. Both focused on targeted purchases from producers and facilitated local food partnerships.W
Due to these cancellations, Iowa schools and child care facilities lost a total of $8.3 million in promised grants over the next three years; food banks and pantries would have received another $3 million.
Scheuermann says Waukee Schools also participated in LFS, and worked closely with Farm Table Delivery, a nonprofit hub in Harlan that aggregated local foods. “Without this grant, it adds another layer of complexity to work directly with producers,” she says.
Laying the groundwork for a local foods farm
The Wenkes first applied for LFS and LFPA in 2021. By the time they found out the grant funds were canceled in 2025, they had ordered and paid for 350 birds and planted vegetables in their high tunnels. “Many don’t appreciate how far ahead growers have to be thinking, planning, and purchasing,” Ashley Wenke said.
The grants, which had helped them scale up production over the past few years, were built into their business plan. “It was a way to project a predictable income and stay as close to home as possible with our products,” Wenke said.
Most of their eggs and 55 types of their garden produce were distributed to food pantries and schools through the Grinnell Farm to Table Hub. They also delivered 200 pounds of cherry tomatoes per week to Iowa City’s Field to Family nonprofit food hub and market.
After the grant cancellations, the Wenkes added a farmers market to their schedule. “The markets are time consuming, and when weather isn’t good, sales can be disappointing,” she said. They also sold some of their hens.
The Choose Iowa Food Purchasing Program passed by the Iowa Legislature earlier this year was one step in the right direction. The Wenkes participate in this state program created to help food banks buy local foods. However, the total state appropriation is only $200,000. “Our farm alone had $50,000 in income from the two federal grant programs that were canceled,” Wenke said.
Food banks report rising needs
Emily Shearer has worked at Food Bank of Iowa for nine years, and as a food purchaser, she’s witnessed firsthand the positive impact of the LFPA on the food pantries in 55 of the 99 counties served.
“It’s often cost prohibitive to buy local foods, but LFPA provided options to buy cheese, lettuce, ground pork and beef, and other items,” she says. “It’s not true that people don’t want to eat healthy. It’s more expensive.”
Food Bank of Iowa distributed 27.3 million pounds of food in fiscal year 2025, an 8% increase over 2024. “We’ll still invest in local foods, but it may not be as consistent,” she says. “We’re having to do more with less.”
Although LFS and LPFA were launched to ease COVID supply chain shortages, Shearer says new sources of food insecurity are emerging.
“We’re distributing more than at the height of COVID, due to a combination of increasing food costs and a lot of jobs that don’t pay well,” she says. “The need is record and rising. We’ve never seen it at this level. We have to make sure people know food pantries can help.”
Scheuermann echoes this concern. “An estimated 2.4 million people will lose their SNAP benefits,” she says. “That means their children will lose their automatic eligibility to free-and-reduced school meals.”
This raises the question: If MAHA wants kids to eat healthier, why is the government cutting school, child care, and food bank funding? How does pulling out the rug from farmers producing fresh, healthy foods advance MAHA goals?
Local food is healthier, tastes better, supports our neighbors, and builds community. An accessible network of local food producers also builds resilience into our food supply to safeguard against the risks of climate change, trade wars, and future pandemics.
Crunch time challenge for local food supply chain
At the Food Bank of Iowa, Shearer witnessed the federal grants creating positive change. “It was great meeting growers and learning there’s a robust local foods landscape out here, contrary to the stereotype of Iowa farms. A lot of people worked for years to grow their farms and build regional food hubs. Continuing this momentum will be a challenge.”
Local food producers are hard to replace markets and carve new distribution channels. “It’s a lot of work to find a home for your products, and it’s more unpredictable now,” Wenke says. “We’re more cautious to sign any future agreements that leave us unprotected if cancelled. But we’re the type of people who figure things out. We want to keep doing this, and we’re too far into it to back out now.”
This column first appeared on Cheryl Tevis’ blog Unfinished Business, and it is republished here via the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative.
Editor’s note: Please consider subscribing to the collaborative and its member writers to support their work.
Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com.
