Less than two months in, Trump’s USDA is bulldozing efforts that help small farms and food producers sell healthy food directly to schools, food banks, and their local communities.
In November, after months of finishing complicated paperwork, developing infrastructure, and building relationships, the pieces were finally in place for Emma Jagoz to start fulfilling a new contract to sell fresh fruits and vegetables to Maryland schools.
It was terrible timing. Jagoz, owner of Moon Valley Farm, grows organic vegetables on 70 acres near Frederick, Maryland, while also acting as an aggregator of produce from about 50 other small farms in the region. By November, the bulk of the Mid-Atlantic harvest had been sold. Despite that, in the months since, she managed to move more than 300,000 pounds of apples and pears, about 10,000 heads of lettuce, and more than 30,000 pounds of broccoli, carrots, sweet potatoes, and squash into hundreds of schools in 12 Maryland counties.
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