Hoosier Hills Food Bank announced earlier this month that it will lose at least 62,000 pounds of food after the United States Department of Agriculture canceled $500 million in nationwide food deliveries.
For Hoosier Hills, it's a waiting game to see if the Trump administration will implement new programs. For those who rely on food banks, the move adds another layer of uncertainty amid previous federal cuts to other food assistance programs.
The food bank identified at least eight canceled shipments between March and July. It purchased the food through the Commodity Credit Corporation, a federally appropriated fund sometimes used to support emergency food programs.
The canceled shipments follow a separate March cut by the agriculture department that ended two pandemic-era programs, Local Food for Schools and the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement. The programs provide funding for states to distribute local produce to schools and food banks. Hoosier Hills received more than 60,000 pounds of food through the program in 2024.
The cancellations came from The Emergency Food Assistance Program, which purchases food and makes it available for state distribution. It provided over a fifth of the food Hoosier Hills distributed last year. While food purchased through the Commodity Credit Corporation makes up only a part of the Emergency Food Assistance Program, Bloomington food pantries will still feel its impact.
Julio Alonso, the food bank’s executive director, told the IDS in an email that the bank is trying to fundraise to make up for the lost commodities.
Hoosier Hills said in a statement on Facebook that shifts in funding priorities were common with new administrations and that the previous Trump administration had invested in TEFAP.
“Every new administration establishes its own priorities, so that is not new,” Alonso said. “This is a more sudden reduction in food than we expected, however.”
Most of the bank’s food is sourced through national donors, purchased food and community food drives, Alonso said. The food bank serves more than 50,000 individuals monthly through its partners and programs. One in seven Hoosiers face hunger in Indiana.
“We are continuing to monitor the situation and are hopeful that some of the food will be restored through new programs established by the new administration,” Alonso said.
Hoosier Hills distributes food to various nonprofits in Monroe, Brown, Lawrence, Martin, Orange and Owen Counties, including Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard, one of Bloomington’s largest food pantries.
Megan Betz, the president and chief executive officer of Mother Hubbard’s, said nearly all of the pantry’s food came from Hoosier Hills.
“Hopefully, this is one of the moments where it’s paused and we get back on track,” Betz said. “It sounds like there are some where we’ll miss a shipment of like pouch chicken, we’ll miss a shipment of some frozen green beans and we’ll feel those things, but there will still be food coming to us.”
Betz said while she hopes for the best, cuts to social services at the federal level have given her pause. She said potential congressional cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid in the budget process could drive more traffic to Mother Hubbard’s.
She said the number of individuals the pantry serves each month has jumped by 30% since January. Hoosier Hills reported a 34% increase in the number of individuals served from 2023 to 2024.
“The overall feeling in the pantry is that folks are coming to us needing more and that we don’t have enough food,” Betz said. “We’re not keeping pace.”
Betz said she had received a lot of questions and concerns from the community about how the cuts would impact them, but that donations had yet to increase drastically.
“It would take hundreds of thousands of dollars to fill gaps if things start really being cut,” Betz said. “We need a lot more community support.”
Alonso said Hoosier Hills relies on its national and state partners, such as Feeding Indiana’s Hungry, to advocate on its behalf. Feeding Indiana’s Hungry is an affiliate of Feeding America that partners with 11 of Indiana’s food banks, including Hoosier Hills, to provide hunger relief.
Emily Weikert Bryant, the executive director of Feeding Indiana’s Hungry, said she was pleased to receive an announcement from the USDA approving additional purchases of fruit, tree nuts and vegetables, but they wouldn’t fully replace the canceled orders.
“It’s the uncertainty,” Bryant said. “When, you know, there’s an expectation that we have a load of something hitting our dock this week and it doesn’t, and we don’t know when the next one’s going to come.”
