A dairy farm advertising milk in its barn can be seen from the Pennsylvania Turnpike between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg on October 14, 2025. (Photo by Jessica Kourkounis for the Pennsylvania Capital-Star)
Less than two months into President Donald Trump’s second term, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that it did canceled the program which sent millions of dollars to Pennsylvania farmers who supply produce to food banks.
Program of the Agreement on the Local Food Purchasing Cooperative (LFPA) was founded in 2021 in response to the coronavirus pandemic by President Joe Biden’s administration.
In the last full month of Biden’s term, his administration agreed to the latest contract to extend the initiative. For Pennsylvania, that meant an additional three years and $13 million for the program.
The LFPA cancellation in March resulted in bipartisan opposition from lawmakers such as Governor Josh Shapiro, all four chairs the General Assembly Agriculture Committee (Republicans and Democrats), as well as farmers and food banks.
Since 2022, LFPA has distributed nearly $30 million to participating Pennsylvania farms to provide food banks with locally grown produce, according to Shapiro’s office. Nearly 190 farms and 13 regional food banks from across the state participated in the program.
Now, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-8th District), has developed legislation that could revitalize the program’s goals.
The Local Farmers Feeding Our Communities Act According to the proposal’s authors, it would allow states through the USDA to enter into cooperative agreements linking farmers and producers with food distribution organizations. Thanks to this, the funds will be used to purchase local, fresh and minimally processed food, such as seafood, meat, milk, cheese, eggs, fruit and poultry. Bill also allocates part of these funds to purchase food, especially from petite, medium-sized, beginner and experienced farmers.
Get our top stories delivered straight to your inbox every morning. Sign up now for the Pennsylvania Capital-Star Morning Guide.
Bresnahan told the Capital-Star that “there are certainly some connections” between this proposal and the program established under the Biden administration.
In August, while attending his first Agricultural Advancement Days at Penn State University as a member of Congress, Bresnahan said agriculture in his district, which is based in northeastern Pennsylvania, is an approximately $65 million industry.
“The average farm in our district is 179 acres, and over 95% of that farm is family-owned,” Bresnahan said.
“The idea is that we talk about hunger. We talk about the challenges of food security, but sometimes we don’t talk about the local farmers who produce it,” he added. “And this way we can connect two different ideas together.”
Chris Hoffman, president of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, supports the action.
“I think it’s just a wonderful program that we can take from the farms and be directly involved in feeding our friends and neighbors who are in need,” Hoffman said. “It’s a really serious situation when one in seven people goes to bed hungry every night in Pennsylvania.”
“So this is our job,” he added. “We live in a land of plenty, so we must provide food for everyone.”
In addition to Farm Bureau’s support, several other organizations also support the bill, including Feeding Pennsylvania, National Milk Producers and Save the Children.
Democrats and Republicans talk differently about terminating the LFPA contract
Efforts to revive the program have drawn support from both sides of the aisle, although Democrats and Republicans differ on why it came to an end.
Shapiro announced in June at Share Food in Philadelphia that his administration had filed a lawsuit against the USDA over the cancellation.
“I’m tired of waiting for someone to stand up for our farmers and our food banks. That task falls to us,” Shapiro said. “The USDA and Trump administrations have ignored our farmers and ignored the people who are hungry here in Pennsylvania.”
As of October 30, no ruling had been made.
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME), one of the Democratic co-sponsors of this legislation, described USDA’s decision to cancel the contract as an action “pulling the rug out from under farmers and food banks.”
Republicans, however, do not blame Trump.
U.S. Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-15th District) serves as chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.
During a roundtable discussion at Ag Progress Days, Thompson promoted Bresnahan’s proposal but said the one set by the Biden administration had not been approved by Congress. He added that it is “not surprising” that the program could be discontinued due to a change in administration.
“I thought they were really good ideas,” Thompson said. “I pleaded with Secretary Vilsack, who was President Biden’s Secretary of Agriculture, to work with Congress to bring these proposals to us and legislate them. And he refused.”
Bresnahan said the contract cancellation inspired a bipartisan effort to find a solution for the program, which he said “was very effective.”
“Again, I’m not in the administration and I’m not sure how the executive branch sometimes decides what programs get passed and what programs end, but we thought if we really wanted to focus on the program itself, that’s what the Feeding Our Communities by Local Farmers Act is all about,” he told the Capital-Star.
At the end of August Bresnahan led the roundtable discussion regarding a proposal in his district in Brace’s Orchard in Dallas, Luzerne County. He told the Capital-Star that 10% of revenue, or about 55,000 pounds of food at Brace’s Orchard last year, came from the LFPA.
“We want to codify this and make it a reality forever,” he said.
What do Food Banks think about this?
The executive director is George Matysik Share food program in Philadelphia, a hunger relief organization that serves five counties in and around Philadelphia. Thanks to our partnership with the National School Lunch Program, approximately 305,000 children in 800 schools receive meals every day.
He said they have participated in the LFPA program over the past few years as demand has increased.
Like other participants of the program, he found out in March, when national media reported about it, including: Policy.
“We had a contract for this. It was a contract we had with the USDA,” he told the Capital-Star in a September interview. “We have already placed orders with some local farmers.”
“So it wasn’t just about the cancellation,” he added. “But it was also about how we found out, when we found out, the lack of notice and the signed contract, all of that made it even more difficult for us.”
Matysik said the Share Food program now has fewer resources than ever before, and over the last three years the number of people coming to it for food assistance has increased by 120%.
“And now you are taking away one of the programs that really helps in particular provide fresh, local and nutritious food to the people we serve, and you are cutting it at a time when we need these types of programs more than ever,” he said.
Five months after breaking the contract, Matysik told the Capital-Star that they were feeling the effects.
“I have never seen our warehouse as depleted as it has been over the last three months, and not just because of the LFPA,” he said. “It’s also a number of other cuts that we’ve received from this administration.”
“All of these cuts, all of the cancellations for us added up to about eight and a half million dollars a year in food and funding that our organization would have received that was taken away from us,” he added. “In this way, over a quarter of all our food and funds have been squandered here in the last six months.”
Matysik supports Bresnahan’s proposal and said if passed, they could serve about a million and a half more meals a year within three years.
But Matysik, while adding that he was “excited” by the proposal, said it only addressed a “very small portion of the total cuts” made to food banks over the past year.
Where is this going?
Thompson said he intends to work to include the measure in Farm Bill 2.0. But he said they need to find a way to pay for it without raising taxes and increasing debt, and he cited Farm Bill 1.0 as an example.
“I think we can accomplish that,” Thompson said. “We are both committed to making this happen.”
Bresnahan told the Capital-Star that if they can’t pass this bill as a stand-alone piece of legislation, they will hope to include it in the next farm bill.
However, he expressed no concerns about how to pay for it.
“I think such a program can be fully paid for independently, only through proper program management,” he added.
Bresnahan also expressed optimism that his proposal could get across the finish line.
“I really think it makes a real difference, more than ever,” he told the Capital-Star, noting the organizations that support him and the bipartisan support. “This is an example of how government can work together.”
It is not yet known what the exact timetable for voting on this legal act will be.
“But I guarantee you this will be an important part of the discussion about Farm Bill 2.0,” Bresnahan told the Capital-Star.
