As Virginia’s food banks struggle to meet increased demand, the federal government canceled food purchasing contracts that could have fed thousands of needy residents for months, an analysis by the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO shows.
More than 1.7 million pounds of food aid earmarked for Virginia’s seven main food banks was canceled between May and August, according to data obtained by ProPublica. Among the lost shipments was about 550,000 pounds of chicken. Based on average consumption, the federal cuts translate to no chicken for nearly 6,400 typical households for four months.
Chicken is just one of nearly a dozen protein and dairy food items on the list of the canceled shipments. The amount of milk orders would have been enough to supply about 2,300 households for the same period, according to the VCIJ analysis. ProPublica obtained the data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The nonprofit investigative news organization found that the Trump administration canceled 94 million pounds of food aid to charities across the U.S. in the spring and summer.
Food bank officials in Virginia say the canceled resources could have helped them tackle a combination of challenges that have increased demand for food assistance in the past few months. The seven main food banks supply a network of community charities, providing more than 170 million pounds of food to families annually.
“The last few weeks brought added challenges stemming from uncertainty as a result of the government shutdown,” said Greg Knight, a senior director at the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank. “Federal workers working with no pay, plus the SNAP issues, led to increased spending by hunger relief organizations, which stressed the food supply at our normal vendor partners.”
The increased spending resulted from an influx of people in need of food assistance, a trend Virginia Tech Professor George Davis attributes to income and prices. Government furloughs, disruption of SNAP and higher food prices have driven more people to food banks, he said.
“A decrease in income leads to more reliance on food banks,” he said. “Higher food prices mean food budgets cannot go as far, so the choice becomes to eat less food or look for alternative sources of cheaper (or even free) food, such as food banks.”
Davis, who heads the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, said a reduction in income is especially problematic for those on SNAP because they have the least resources to absorb these types of shocks.
It also has to do with feeding budgets being a cost residents can forego in favor of more pressing ones like housing, according to another Virginia Tech Professor, Sarah Misyak, Assistant Director of Family Nutrition Program at the Department of Nutrition.
“As housing costs have continued to rise, you can decrease your food budget if you need to,” she said. “You can go to a food pantry or a food bank, but you can't change the amount that you need to pay for your rent or medications or energy. As those prices go up, it has to come out of the budget somewhere, and a lot of times that's food.”
The data from May through August gives only a glimpse of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s $500 million in cuts to food aid. The Trump administration also erased significant funding that went directly into Virginia’s economy through the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA) and Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program (LFS). The agreements allow states, tribes and territories to support local and regional producers by procuring food unique to their geographic areas for distribution to food banks and schools.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, said in a March 2025 letter to the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture that Virginia would lose nearly $21 million through the LFPA and LFS cuts.
In the Blue Ridge region, the food aid cuts translate to over 360,000 pounds of food or 300,000 meals, according to Knight.
Without government funds, the food banks have spent more from their own financial reserves. Last year, the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank spent $3.9 million on purchased food. This year, it is on track to spend nearly $1million more.
The Blue Ridge charity is not the only food bank seeing an upsurge in demand driven by federal workers who had not been paid.
“We have seen our service numbers double month over month because of the high degree of federal employees and contractors in our region,” said Dan Maher, CEO of Fredericksburg Regional Food Bank. “This probably tells us many of those people are coming to us from the federal furloughs.”
Each year, the food bank serves 53,000 people across Caroline, King George, Spotsylvania, and Stafford counties, as well as the Locust Grove community – part of a congressional district ranked as the fifth largest in the nation for federal employees, according to U.S. congressional data.
Fredericksburg provides food assistance in a wealthier region with less food insecurity, as a previous VCIJ analysis on the usage of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program across the state shows. Maher said a survey of those turning up for food assistance in the past month showed more than half were receiving assistance for the very first time.
Despite the growing need, the federal government cut over 225,000 pounds of food aid that would have gone to the Fredericksburg food bank. It typically relies on government supplies for 25% to 40% of its annual inventory.
“It’s not so much about the cuts,” Maher said. “It's about the fact that there wasn't a chance or time to really plan or to anticipate the cuts. This is happening in the summer, the least resourced time for food. Donations dry up during the summer. Just like people go on vacation, food banks, in some sense, go on vacation from donations.”
The disruption meant that organizations like the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore could not supply food to dozens of smaller partner agencies, which support multiple communities across the region. The federal government-supplied aid is how these smaller agencies acquire food aid because they often have no funding to acquire it in other ways, said the organization’s CEO, Christopher Tan.
“We are often forecasting three or four months ahead,” he said. “When you think that a truck is coming and it's been canceled within the time it's supposed to come, you just can't just turn around fast enough.”
The federal food supply supports 12 of every 100 people who receive food assistance from the southeastern food bank’s inventory every month, according to Tan.
Even as demand for food assistance in its coverage area rose by 10% month over month, federal cuts to the LFPA program cost the Southeastern Food Bank $300,000. The Foodbank of the Peninsula faces a separate loss of $160,000.
On the Peninsula, the organization lost $725,000 in federal food aid this year. “We receive about 30% – 33% of all of our products from the USDA,” said Bob Latvis, CEO of the Foodbank of the Peninsula. “We have to fill in the gap with our purchased food budget.”
Even though the organization had budgeted up to $2.5 million for food purchase this year, the government cut still created “a great deal of chaos” impossible to alleviate by fundraising, he said.
Latvis said the food bank has seen over 10,000 more people than usual seeking food assistance in Hampton and Newport News, the two largest cities it serves.
The upsurge in demand was so great that the organization emptied out two cold storage off-site facilities it was renting.
“We cannot purchase our way out of this predicament,” Latvis said. “When the new requirements for SNAP benefits take effect at the beginning of next year, it will put an additional burden on the charitable food network. There will be less people who qualify for SNAP benefits. Those individuals are going to need to go somewhere.”
Reach Kunle Falayi at kunle.falayi@vcij.org.
