Agriculture makes up a significant part of Arizona’s economy, but actions coming from the federal government have some farmers concerned.
Andrea McAdow owns Rosebird Farms in Kingman. It’s less than an acre and grows baby greens, roots and flowers. It also serves the area as a food hub, working with other farmers to distribute their products to local customers.
But recently, McAdow says, canceled federal grants have caused problems for farmers like her, including from the Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure (RFSI) and Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement (LFPA) programs.
McAdow joined The Show to talk about how her operation has been affected by funding cuts so far.
Full conversation
ANDREA MCADOW: Yeah, so us personally, we were awarded a RFSI grant. which was supposed to fund infrastructure programs within our state to move food locally because previously — this is something you might have seen during COVID — is when large-scale infrastructure failed, our small scale-infrastructure had to step in, and it wasn’t quite there.
So we had a ban we were supposed to be awarded about eight months ago. We’ve been waiting on that. We were supposed to get our contract in January, and we just haven’t gotten any word on what’s going to be happening with that, so we’re not sure how to plan for our future contracts with wholesale customers and how we’re going to be moving the food for farmers we work for.
The other part that we’ve been personally affected by was the cancellation of the LFPA purchasing program for food banks. We worked with our local food banks here in Kingman. We worked with about three different food banks that we would deliver to weekly.
So they canceled the funding for future years, and that means that we will continue out our contract. They have some funding to pull us into a little bit into 2026. But that is about, you know, 20% of our revenue that we have to figure out where we’re gonna send our farmers’ products to instead.
MARK BRODIE: And are you seeing similar things from some of your counterparts at other farms, both in that part of the state and maybe elsewhere in Arizona?
MCADOW: Yeah, so our aggregation distribution is tied into a larger food system within Arizona with some other cooperatives and farmers down in Phoenix as well as Flagstaff and Tucson, and I’ve heard stories directly from other farmers, people who have hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of crops in the ground that they’re not sure where they’re going to be able to send them to in the future here.
BRODIE: So you mentioned the LFPA, which is the local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement program. And that was the one where $21 million was canceled in Arizona. What kind of impact might that have just beyond sort of the folks growing the food, but maybe the people who buy or and/or eat that food?
MCADOW: Yeah, so, very specifically, there will be less fresh food in the food banks because farmers were being paid to deliver this food to the food banks. So that’s first and foremost.
But there was also a portion of this that this funding helped create an economy of scale for our small to midsize farmers that made their businesses stronger. It allowed them to hire farmers that could do more work across the farm, and it also helped with our local food distribution between co-ops and farmers, so that we were making sure we were sending full trucks back and forth to farmers, to end users.
So, yeah, we might see increased prices if we’re not able to replace that because we’re gonna have to be able to make up the cost of the transportation, and also that overhead costs for the farmers too.
BRODIE: So does that mean that you’re going to try to find another way to get that food to the food banks, even not if not through this program?
MCADOW: Potentially through the food banks. I’m not sure how we would make that work, but I think we are more so thinking finding other institutional buyers, other large-scale buyers, different markets that we haven’t reached yet, so different locations. I think we’re trying to put our heads together and seeing how we can sell these products that our farmers are growing.
BRODIE: When you take all these changes in funding in total, what does that mean for the viability of Rosebird farms going forward? Can you continue to operate as you have been? Can you continue to operate at all?
MCADOW: It’s more so we will find a way through. I don’t expect we’ll have to close our doors, but we will have to pivot and potentially not be able to serve the people who might need it the most because we have to find different markets in order to keep things going.
And there’s also the part of we were planning to make expansion because of these grants we had been awarded, and we’re not sure that they’re gonna happen. So it may just be playing a little bit smaller until we can figure out how to fund these programs that would have allowed us to expand our reach and our service areas.
BRODIE: What kind of impact have you seen from all the talk of tariffs? I know that a lot of folks in the agriculture community were concerned about that. Has that affected you at all?
MCADOW: You know, we haven’t seen that specifically. I’m always worried about the fact that it might increase our costs, purchasing things especially like packaging that might be coming from overseas. I haven’t noticed an immediate impact, but there’s been so much we’re trying to keep tabs on that that’s just one that hasn’t risen to the forefront of my mind just yet.
BRODIE: OK. Have you found yourself sort of paying more attention to the news and less attention to growing conditions and the fields and all? Is this sort of a change in how you have to sort of manage your time?
MCADOW: Oh, absolutely, yeah. There’s so much uncertainty, and I’ve been communicating a lot with our partners, with the awarding agencies in the state, and the people we work with, my farmers, spending hours just trying to reassure them that we’re gonna be able to figure this out. So it has been very stressful and yeah, there’s just a whole other set of things to worry about other than just running our business. So, yeah.
BRODIE: What have you heard, if anything, from folks, you know, either in Washington, D.C., or elsewhere about the possibility of some of this money maybe coming back at some point? Or do you just get the impression that it’s kind of gone for good?
MCADOW: Yeah, we’ve been pretty much in the dark. We don’t really know what’s happening up until the point that they canceled LFPA. We were really unsure if it was on the table or not to be cut. So I had reached out to some of our representatives and had been assured that nothing for farmers was gonna be cut whatsoever, and a month later it was. So I really don’t feel like we have any assurance that it’s gonna go either way.
BRODIE: How do you like, how does that affect your planning? Like how do you try to figure out what you’re going to plant and maybe how much of it you’re going to plant, and then what you as you talked about earlier, like what you’re gonna do with it when it’s time to take it out of the ground?
MCADOW: Yeah, it’s very uncertain. Luckily I’m small enough where I can pivot, but some of our bigger farms have to purchase materials way ahead of time, and you’re kind of just hoping that it all works out. And I feel like a lot of our farmers are just the attitude to that we’ll figure it out when it comes to it, but we do have to make a decision yes or no right now. So yeah, it’s been very uncertain, and trying to plan when you don’t know what’s gonna be coming, you know, the news in the next week. It’s, yeah, stressful.
