A.C. has been farming for four years in Salinas. She started growing food for one main reason: to provide healthy produce to those around her.
KAZU is using her initials because she’s worried about immigration enforcement.
A.C. grows strawberries and organic vegetables on a 3-acre plot at ALBA, the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association.
As a relatively new farmer, A.C. has relied on outside funding to help get her business started.
“Last year was a good year,” she said in Spanish, “there was a lot of help from government programs.”
One U.S. Department of Agriculture program in particular made a big difference—the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA). It started under President Joe Biden, and essentially gave money to food banks to buy directly from local farmers at a fair market price. A similar program helped small farms sell to schools.
But this spring, President Donald Trump cancelled previously allocated funding for both.
For many, including A.C., this was a huge blow.
“Before, the food bank bought produce from me every week,” she said. “And now, no. They’ve bought from me once or twice, that’s it.”
All the changes are affecting her farm. Additionally, inputs like fertilizer are getting more expensive because of Trump’s tariff policies.
The Community Alliance for Family Farmers (CAFF) helps farmers sell their products. It also received some LFPA money. Hector Reider, the co-director of CAFF’s Farm-to-Market program, says the loss of federal funds has been especially hard on small-scale farms.
“What we end up with is farmers that can’t sell to their own communities,” he said. This is, of course, exactly what many want to do.
Last month, the USDA released some of the LFPA funds it had previously terminated, according to a spokesperson. The released funds apply to the first two rounds of LFPA funding, but the most recent round remains cancelled.
In Congress, a bill was recently introduced that would establish a similar source of funding to LFPA. Democratic Rep. Jimmy Panetta, who represents the Central Coast, is a co-sponsor, and the bill has bipartisan support.
According to a 2023 report from the agriculture and food nonprofit Wallace Center, every $1 spent through LFPA has generated about $1.75 in local economic impacts.
“What these programs create is not necessarily a subsidy, but it's a market channel that is actually accessible and pays fair market price,” Reider said.
Without programs like LFPA, Reider said farmers are left with two main options: sell to larger distributors or set up at farmers’ markets. The markets are more lucrative, but only after a lot of investment—a refrigerated truck, enough variety to supply a farm stand, and staff.
Everardo Solorio and his cousin farm 23 acres in San Juan Bautista and Prunedale. They sell at farmers’ markets in Hollister, Oakland, Sacramento, and Marin County. The operation takes a lot of people—they currently have four full-time employees and half a dozen part-time employees.
Heightened immigration enforcement has left Solorio worried for his workers.
“The truth is, it makes us scared for the people we have,” he said in Spanish, “there have been times when they’ve told us, you know, ‘I heard there is immigration over there, we will not be able to go.’”
Solorio then has to shift where people will work on a given day, even though so far he and his staff have not had any encounters with immigration officials.
A.C. thinks people are especially afraid of being separated from their families. She said sometimes she asks people how long they’ve been in the United States. Often, they tell her they’ve been here for years or even decades.
“At that point, you’re not from that place, you’re from this place,” she said, “because this is where your roots are, this is where your kids are, this is where everything is.”
A.C. recounted one time when her daughter’s school gave the kids strawberries from local farms. The kids were so excited that they drew pictures for the farmers, to thank them.
“My daughter came home and asked me, ‘Mom, were the strawberries yours?’ I told her they weren’t mine, but I hope one day they will be.”
