Here’s What Federal Food Aid Cuts Mean During Climate Change | Eater
"A regional food hub based in Warrenton, Virginia, that lost roughly $4 million in expected USDA-funded work — about 25 percent of the work they had planned for the year — and as a result had to let five staffers go. Founder Tom McDougall described the immediate staffing and distribution fallout: “We work with Virginians, with families with children who’ve been with us for years, who don’t deserve to be laid off, but they are going to be because we will not have food to put into places and deliver it the way that we had planned,” said McDougall. He remained "cautiously optimistic" that the administration and USDA might reverse the decision, and warned about longer-term resiliency needs: “When, not if,whenthe next disaster hits, we’re going to need to turn back to what we did during COVID, which was local and regional supplied [food] webs,” he said. “The next hurricane, who’s going to have food available? We’re going to have food available. We’re going to be able to get into these communities again and again and again. This is a conversation not just about the economy, but about resiliency.”" - Ayurella Horn-Muller
