Small local farms face uncertain future amid federal spending freezes, cancellations

WEST VALLEY CITY — Nathaniel Moudoubaye Yalinga walks up and down tilled rows of soil in the late afternoon sun, stopping every couple of feet to cover carrot, onion and pumpkin seeds with earth.

Only the first green shoots are starting to peek above the soil, but the small farm will soon produce vegetables Yalinga will eat or sell at a local farmers market to earn supplemental income to support his pregnant wife and five children. Yalinga oversees about a dozen rows of crops and revels in the freedom that comes with it.

"The job from a company, they talk too much. ... There, the people are like the police: 'Hey, you. Hey, Nathaniel, do this. Nathaniel, do this,'" he said. "But here, no people talk to me. I'm the boss."

As his own boss, Yalinga can plant what he wants, including plants that are common in his native Central African Republic but hard to find on grocery shelves in the U.S. His favorite is cassava, or yuca, a starchy, tuberous root native to South America.

The small, five-acre farm is nestled between a West Valley subdivision and several community ball fields — the outfield fence of one contours the farm's western edge in a long arc. Yalinga is one of 54 farmers who work the land on their own time, thanks to the New Roots Farm Business Training program, an International Rescue Committee initiative that leases land for refugee farmers to cultivate and provides resources to help those farmers find a market for their crops.

In addition to hosting farmers markets in the summer, New Roots helps refugees sell produce to recipients of SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps, and create produce cooperatives.

"We have a couple farm business owners that this is their main income source, and then a lot of them it's they're retired, and this is kind of what they do now; or they have another job, and they do this on the side," Sierra Govett, the program manager, told KSL.com.

New Roots has operated the West Valley farm for over a decade to help refugees become self-sufficient. But the early days of the second Trump administration have all but ended the resettlement of new refugees and put in question federal funds that have helped the program grow.

They are not the only Utah farmers trying to navigate the new and uncertain landscape.

Funding freezes and thaws

Anne Dunaway has owned and operated Urban Prairie Agriculture in Ogden for five years. Her mission is to provide local, healthy food to food-insecure community members. Worried that too much consolidation of the food supply could leave the nation vulnerable, she began the business to fill gaps in the supply chain.

A key partner in that vision was the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees grants as part of the Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure program, or RFSI, which aims to bolster the middle of the food supply chain and help small farms gain a foothold in the market. Her business was also given a boost by Farm Service Agency loans that helped her cover overhead costs while she got it off the ground.

"Maybe some people don't feel that I'm entitled to have a program that helps me get a loan to grow ... but it sure has changed a lot in our community because of it," she said. "There is direct impact from the things that my business has grown into."

Shortly after President Donald Trump took office in January, Dunaway and other recipients of federal grants were told the funds had been frozen. In some cases, Dunaway had already spent money promised late last year as she prepared for the upcoming growing season.

"Food doesn't happen overnight, so those contracts are how we were going to continue to buy the next set of products to grow," she said. "And it's a cycle, right? When you just suddenly sweep that out from under people's feet, that's pretty crippling to business."

New Roots also received Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure and similar grants, and Govett described a tense couple of weeks while the funding was uncertain.

"It wasn't too horribly long, but it still was a scary moment for us," she said.

Although most of the grants resumed after a delay, those depending on them are still unsure if the funding will be reliable going forward, making it hard to plan for hiring, planting and growth.

"Nothing is super stable right now, so we're just going day by day," said Danny Beus, the executive director of the Utah chapter of the International Rescue Committee. "It's hard on our organization, but it's also hard on the clients we serve, just not knowing, 'Hey, are we going to be around tomorrow?' ... Where some funding sources were incredibly stable before, we don't have that confidence in them anymore."

The Utah Department of Agriculture and Food administers the grants, which the federal government passes through. A spokeswoman confirmed that all the previously awarded grants have been unfrozen, but she was also uncertain about the future of such programs.

"At least in the four years that I've been with the department, we haven't seen anything like this from the federal government," Bailee Wolstenhulme said. "We're just trying to adapt to the up-in-the-air nature of things, just trying to get as much information as we can from the federal government. It's been pretty difficult."

What's next?

Even with the resumption of grants, Dunaway's business is trying to find contracts to fill the void of another federal program: the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, which Elon Musk bragged about feeding "into the wood chipper" in February. USAID purchased food from farmers, including Dunaway, and with that source of income having dried up, she's scrambling to replace it.

A potential retail purchase contract is on the horizon, but that is several months away, and Dunaway said she's not sure she can survive that long. She's promoting produce cooperatives this summer and has turned to a GoFundMe* fundraiser to help cover the next several months, but she's also considering selling the business.

"If I'm very lucky, I might break even," she said, growing emotional. "Sorry — this is the part where I'm emotionally attached because I genuinely believe what I'm doing is super needed. We need to change our food systems so that it puts the power back on us. ... It's just terrible timing. If these grants were a problem a year from now, that's fine, because our revenue contracts would all be at max by then, or close to it."

New Roots is already stretched relatively thin, and Govett said in a worst-case scenario, the program would try to get by with only one paid staff member.

"Unfortunately, I've had to think about this a bit," she said when asked about contingency plans if federal funding went away permanently.

She is already looking to attract more private investment to offset any uncertainty from the federal government, but she argues that the program is a boon to the local economy by growing food and helping refugees get back on their feet. With the administration pushing for government efficiency, New Roots feels like an example of that.

"Our program does it better and more efficiently than if this was a government program," Beus said. "We have a small staff that are helping hundreds of people and managing so many acres of farmland and garden space that they do it better. And so, if it's about efficiency, this is the most efficient way to serve people."

Correction: An earlier version of this story said there were about a dozen farmers who work in the New Roots program. There are 54.

*KSL.com does not assure that the money deposited into the account will be applied for the benefit of the persons named as beneficiaries. If you are considering a deposit to the account, you should consult your own advisers and otherwise proceed at your own risk.

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