“The market for this produce that farmers had been anticipating and expanding because of the federal funds [was] cut without any warning.”
Originally published by ecoRI News, a nonprofit newsroom covering environmental news in Rhode Island. Read more at ecoRI.org
PROVIDENCE — Even in the best of times, farming in Rhode Island can be a challenge.
It’s called the Ocean State, not the Farm State, for a reason. Farmland has rapidly vanished underneath strip malls and housing subdivisions over the years, while land and space for agriculture remains at a high premium.
Farms in Rhode Island just don’t have the room to grow into the sizes seen in other, larger states. As a result, some 200 smaller, urban farmers make their livings on parcels less than 5 acres in size, many of them surrounded by urban buildings. Providence alone has a dozen of these kinds of small farms.
Many of the state’s already existing, older farmers are aging out of the industry, without a sufficient cohort of younger farmers to replace them.
That’s why even before the new administration in Washington, D.C., was sworn in this past January and promptly began slashing funding and programs, lawmakers and food system advocates were pushing for legislation that would give small farmers the boost they need to compete with larger, more established farms in the state.
“Our small urban farmers are not getting the support they need,” said Rep. Michelle McGaw, D-Portsmouth, at an event at the Statehouse on March 27 hosted by the Rhode Island Food Policy Council. “Those farmers have been pushed to the side for too long.”
McGaw is the chief House sponsor of a bill (H5534) that would grant farmers working on less than 5 acres of agricultural land access to tax exemptions already available to larger agriculture operations. If approved by the General Assembly, up to 200 small farms could benefit from the tax relief. Companion legislation (S431) has been introduced by Sen. Tiara Mack, D-Providence.
Advocates say extending the state tax exemptions to smaller farmers is long overdue. Rhode Island’s agricultural laws already on the books are more than 30 years old, with many benefits only being reaped by the large farms in the state.
Small and urban farms are the fastest-growing sector of the state’s farmland economy. Their annual market value is around $19.5 million annually, and they compose 43% of all farms in Rhode Island. Advocates also say allowing the exemptions for smaller farms will boost the next generation of farmers: new farmers are more likely to start a smaller farm in a rural area and work their way up, if possible.
And Rhode Island’s food ecosystem is in danger. The federal funding freeze and cuts decreed by the Trump administration has already wreaked havoc across many of the state’s environmental-directed agencies, nonprofits, and industries.
Farm Fresh Rhode Island, the state’s chief food incubator hub since 2004, has seen the brunt of federal funding cuts firsthand: 40% of its budget comes from the federal government, and it’s the designated administrative entity for a number of U.S. Department of Agriculture grants and programs.
Delite Primus, advancement director for Farm Fresh, said two USDA-funded programs were cut early in March: the Local Food Purchasing Agreement and the Local Food for Schools program, both of which facilitate procurement of locally grown produce for use in food pantries and school meal programs.
Primus said Farm Fresh expected to get another $3 million total for both programs; around $1.7 million for the school purchasing program and another $1.25 million for the local food purchasing agreement. A portion of the money set aside to buy local food for schools was designated for early childhood education centers, a new expansion to the program Primus said was added last fall.
“A lot of the local fruit and vegetable farmers, the fisheries, the food producers around the state, a lot of them are smaller farmers that were benefiting from this,” Primus said. “They have really been able to grow their operations because of these markets, and the funding that was available to support these purchases.”
Primus cited the experience of Steere Orchard in Smithfield as an example. The orchard had been growing 200,000 apples to be sold to school districts around the state, and had recently begun growing smaller apples, in line with the needs of school meal plans. Smaller apples are unlikely to reach a similar market size without the school purchasing program.
“The market for this produce that farmers had been anticipating and expanding because of the federal funds [was] cut without any warning,” Primus said.
As a result of the USDA cuts, Primus said Farm Fresh had to lay off four people related to the local purchasing grants, an unusual move in the nonprofit space, where it’s rare for funding that had been previously awarded to get cut.
Farm Fresh also administers the Bonus Bucks program for Rhode Island and some other New England states. The program, which currently is not facing cuts, allows people enrolled in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to get a 100% bonus if they choose to shop at a local farmers market. It’s a big incentive for enrollees to shop for fresh produce locally.
Rhode Island receives around $300,000 in incentives for that program, and so far, said Primus, everything has been operating normally. But the current grant only lasts until May of next year, and Primus said this is usually the time in the grant lifecycle where Farm Fresh would be applying for the next round to fund the program. The USDA hasn’t opened applications for that round yet.
The Bonus Bucks program is tied directly to federal SNAP benefits, and SNAP is one of the programs under fire from Republicans in Washington as they eye deep cuts to federal spending programs to pay for further billionaire tax cuts.
Cuts to SNAP benefits or Bonus Bucks — as well as cuts to local purchasing for food pantries — will likely dramatically increase hunger in Rhode Island. Thirty-eight percent of households in the state are food insecure, according to data from the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, and 144,188 Rhode Islanders are enrolled in SNAP as of last year. The food bank estimated its member agencies served an average of 82,600 a month in its last fiscal year, a 15% increase.
“The number of food insecure people in Rhode Island has been increasing for the last several years,” Primus said. “Any kind of reduction in the federal budget for the SNAP program will have a drastic, devastating impact on the number of food insecure individuals in our state and in the country.”
Another food-centered nonprofit, Providence-based Southside Community Land Trust (SCLT), which works with urban farmers, lost $600,000 as a result of federal funding freezes and the resulting contract cancellations.
“This isn’t just about numbers on a spreadsheet — it’s about real people who depend on our programs every day,” said SCLT executive director Margaret DeVos, who added that her organization must now made difficult decisions regarding staffing and program capacity.
The SCLT works with a network of 16 community food access partners to feed and employ people in underserved communities. According to the organization, 25,000 people ate food grown on SCLT farms last year; its youth program employed 50 people; and its certified farm apprentice program trained seven new farmers. Those programs and others, including the 40 small-scale farmers, predominantly people of color, who operate 28 small farm businesses, are in danger of seeing funding cuts.
To help combat the effects of the federal cuts, the Rhode Island Foundation announced in late March that it will award $3 million in grants to help state nonprofits affected by the loss of federal funding.
“We understand the harm these policies may pose to the work of our nonprofit partners, and most importantly, to the thousands of Rhode Islanders they serve each day,” said David Cicilline, the foundation’s president and CEO. “Many nonprofit organizations tell us they are already struggling with interruptions in the payment of federal grants or outright elimination of federal funding and contracts, which threaten to undermine their work to improve the lives of Rhode Islanders.”
The foundation will award the grants through its new Community Partner Resilience Fund. Through the program, seeded with $500,000 from the foundation’s reserves and matched by donors, organizations that demonstrate potentially significant and long-term federal funding losses can apply for grants of up to $50,000. The application period opens April 7.
