‘A devastating impact’: Leaders say federal cuts will worsen food insecurity in Bucks County

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Cuts to two federal programs that allowed schools and food banks to buy food from local farmers and producers will have a “devastating” impact in Bucks County, according to county officials.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced last week it was cutting the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement and the Local Food for Schools. The programs provided a total of $1 billion in funding nationwide to address food insecurity.

“That’s $800,000 less that our nonprofits will have to work with to help people who have trouble putting food on the table for their families,” said Bucks County Commissioner Bob Harvie at Wednesday’s commissioner meeting. He was referencing the amount from the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program that Bucks County Opportunity Council spent in the past three years on alleviating food insecurity.

The Warminster Food Bank is one of the 75 food pantries that make up BCOC’s network. Executive Director Mike Cerino said his organization hasn’t seen the impact yet, but he expects “it’s going to hit the supply chain pretty soon.”

“We’ve already seen critical elements like eggs and butter come off the supply chain that we were getting from our contacts at the larger food distribution centers like Philabundance,” Cerino said. “That’s going to be a devastating impact for us, because then we have to turn around and buy those eggs at retail.”

Cerino said the end to this particular program could look like a 10 to 15% reduction in the size of the monthly food baskets the organization provides to its clients.

On top of that, the food bank is settling into a new space, in part to better accommodate the steadily increasing numbers of customers they’ve seen in the past several years, Cerino said.

“We’re hoping that the community can step up and help us,” he said. “But it’s not going to be an easy road ahead, that’s for sure.”

According to Feeding America’s latest data, from 2022, Bucks County has a food insecurity rate of close to 9%, with more than 56,600 people experiencing food insecurity.

Cerino said at the Warminster Food Bank, they’ve seen an “exponential” increase in customers in the past five to six years.

In 2019, the “high water mark pre-COVID,” Cerino said, the organization was distributing 30,000 pounds of food a year. Now, they distribute 31,000 pounds of food in one month alone.

“These things kind of struck like lightning, and the effects are yet to be seen,” he said. “But anything off the supply chain is going to hurt because the demand is high and there’s no evidence that it’s lessening. In fact, there’s probably more evidence that it’s going to increase.”

The impact of the cuts will extend beyond those who are experiencing food insecurity, Harvie said.

“It will affect farmers, because that program specifically was geared toward helping nonprofits connect with local farmers to help buy food or take food from them,” he said.

In the wake of the cuts, Harvie said elected officials will try to ensure Bucks County residents still have access to food insecurity resources.

“It’s easy to miss the things that are important, because we get drowned out and tired of seeing the chaos and craziness and incompetence,” he said. “But there are real problems, and there are real threats, and there are real damage[s] being done to this country and to this planet. We are doing our best here to make sure that we can provide the services we need to provide to the people of this county, regardless of who they voted for in November, regardless of who they voted for a year and a half ago.”