Federal funding cuts ripple through the heart of Trump country
The phone rang over the whine of Trey Yates’ butter churn. The person calling was polite, but the message was devastating: Mountaineer Food Bank was ending Yates’ butter contract, due to the federal government’s funding cuts, News.az reports citing Xinhua.
The next day, President Donald Trump signed a declaration celebrating National Agriculture Day, praising farmers and food makers like Yates. But the canceled contract with the federally funded food bank, one of only two in West Virginia, had been a lifeline for Yates’ business.
In that moment, Yates, 27, wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold on. Heart pounding, he called his father, John Yates, shocked that Trump’s administration would take such action.
"Dad, they’re trying to bankrupt me," he said. Yates, a registered independent, said he did not vote for Trump.
Along the winding back roads and Appalachian hollers of West Virginia, in a state where Trump won 70% of the votes cast in November, his administration’s vow to cut back on government spending is being keenly felt.
Yates’ lost sales stem from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s cancellation of the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, which was due to provide about $500 million this year to food banks.
Trump’s administration also rolled out cuts to other federal funding that has kept small agriculture businesses like Yates’ Greenbrier (NYSE:GBX) Dairy churning.
Orchard owner Natasha Zoe, a retired Marine, is waiting on grant funds to reimburse her for building a small cannery near the town of Alderson that will allow fruit farmers to make and sell syrups and juices.
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