Shapiro administration responds after USDA accuses governor of ‘playing games’ with food bank cuts

The fight between Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture over canceled funding for food banks escalated last week after USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins accused the governor of playing “political games” when he urged the department to restore a $13 million contract.

Last month, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture filed an administrative appeal urging the USDA to reconsider a decision to cancel a contract that would have provided $13 million over the next three years for Pennsylvania food banks to purchase food from local farmers. If the decision was not reconsidered, Shapiro warned, he would consider taking legal action.

President Donald Trump’s administration announced plans in early March to end the $470 million Local Food Purchase Assistance program. While the program was established during the COVID-19 pandemic it had become a key source of funding for Pennsylvania food banks — making up 18% of the food purchase budget at Philadelphia’s Philabundance.

Food banks across Pennsylvania worried that the decision would result in fewer and less nutritious meals as food insecurity continues to increase across the state.

But during a trip to Pennsylvania on Monday, Rollins dismissed the concern about the cuts, arguing that Shapiro and others either had wrong information or were purposefully misleading the public.

The money, she claimed, was sitting in state coffers, without offering specifics about where the money came from.

“Governor Shapiro, who I actually respect, is playing some games here,” Rollins said from a Lebanon County dairy farm. “Since I moved into the head of the USDA, we have released almost a billion dollars into food banks, into food programs all around this country.”

“So this just isn’t accurate. I think the Democrats are playing games,” she added.

On Thursday, Shapiro’s agriculture secretary, Russell Redding, shot back with a letter explaining that Rollins had incorrect information.

The program, Redding explained, is funded through reimbursements that are provided only after Pennsylvania has already sent funds to food banks across the state. Until the end of July, Redding said, Pennsylvania would continue to spend and request reimbursement according to prior contracts.

But a contract, agreed to in December by President Joe Biden’s administration, provided for an additional $13 million over the next three years. The Trump administration, Redding said, canceled that contract under the argument that the program no longer met the USDA’s goals.

“Pennsylvania has held up its end of the bargain. LFPA funds have been used by food banks across the Commonwealth to buy food directly from Pennsylvania farmers, in furtherance of the program’s essential goals,” Redding wrote. “The LFPA program falls squarely within the core mission of the USDA to strengthen American agriculture by giving farmers a new, reliable market outlet for their fresh foods, while encouraging the consumption of healthy, local food, by all Americans, regardless of income.”

The cuts to the program came as food banks have said they are facing need that rivals the early days of COVID-19 and anticipate an increase in hunger in the coming months.

George Matysik, executive director of Share Food Program, which serves the Philadelphia region and has lost around $8M from various cuts including this one, said in a statement Friday he appreciated Shapiro’s efforts to advocate for the program.

“Hunger is not a game, and there is nothing political about hundreds of thousands of school kids and families being hungry in our state,” said Matysik, who has been sharply critical of the Trump administration’s cuts. “The harsh reality is that working Americans are hurting more than ever, and toying around with reckless funding cuts and tariffs is only pushing preventable pain and food prices higher.”