WILLMAR — Just a few weeks ago, Cindy VanDerPol put together bids to supply the Litchfield , Hutchinson and Dassel - Cokato school districts next school year with beef, pork, chicken and eggs raised on her family’s Pastures A Plenty farm between Clara City and Kerkhoven.
She contacted small-town meat processors and a hatchery in the area to make sure they would be able to meet the farm’s needs if awarded the bids.
“The Farm to School Program was going to make a big impact on our farm,” VanDerPol told U.S. Sen. Tina Smith , D-Minn., at a gathering of local food producers Tuesday at the Becker Market in Willmar.
A few weeks after VanDerPol put her bids together, the United States Department of Agriculture announced it was ending funding for the Farm to School and other programs allowing child care centers and food shelves to purchase foods from local producers. The USDA will not honor agreements to provide more than $17 million over three years to help Minnesota schools purchase food from local farmers, according to a March 12, 2025, report by Minnesota Public Radio.
Three generations of the VanDerPol family operate the farm, and are impacted directly by the federal budget cut, VanDerPol told Smith.
VanDerPol said the impact will be felt well beyond her family’s farm. Four different communities are affected too, as the processors who would have worked with the family will not see that economic activity, she pointed out.
The Farm to School funding helps family farmers, and benefits the rural economy while also providing children with good nutrition, Smith said in response.
“If suddenly the rug gets yanked out from under you, then it has a lot of ripple effects through the community, not to mention your business,” she said.
“The last time I checked, it’s not easy to make a ton of money farming,” she added.
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Buying local foods is not only good for the rural economy, it’s also important for young people to know where their food comes from, according to Jeanine Bowman, food services director for the Morris Area Schools.
“It is truly about teaching our kids where their food comes from," Bowman told Smith.
The Morris Area School District purchases a wide variety of local foods for its students, thanks in part to Beverly Dougherty, founder and director of the Becker Market, according to Bowman. Her work makes possible a consistent supply of local foods for the district and area, she explained.
Since its start about 17 years ago, the Becker Market has served as a food hub for local producers. Fresh and locally raised vegetables, fruits, meats and other products are available at the market year-round. Dougherty and her son, Jason, distribute the products to locations in a roughly 50-mile radius of Willmar, assuring a consistent supply of locally-raised foods to people in the region.
Bowman said students in Morris appreciate the quality of local foods. She laughingly said she fears there would be a “revolt” in the district if it could not maintain its fresh egg fry every Thursday.
Janeen Peterson, food and nutrition services director for the Alexandria Public Schools , told Sen. Smith that the nutritional value and the sustainability of growing our own foods is very important.
Local food producers at the session said the Becker Market and food hub has helped them grow their operations. Dan Moe, an organic vegetable producer with Farm of Minnesota in Hutchinson, said that until the Becker Market opened, he believed the only market for local foods was in the more populated area east of Hutchinson.
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Kent and Lori Peterson, of Bees and Greens in Benson, said they’ve seen demand grow as well, especially last year. Thanks to the food hub and the market access it provides, they are able to grow in larger quantities. In fact, at what would be considered retirement age, they are expanding and adding a greenhouse, Kent Peterson told Smith.
He urged the senator to continue working in Washington to support local foods.
“We need your support to help people like Beverly, which in turn helps people like us,” he said.
Smith said she would continue to work in support of local foods. She decried the decision to cut funding for a program when it was expected to be in place for the coming year and more.
“This is about the federal government making an agreement with a farmer in this country saying ‘if you do this, we’ll do that’ and this administration is not living up to those agreements. (It’s) putting farmers in an untenable position,” Smith said.
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