LEMON DROP | Trump's Policies Are Harmful for Farmers!
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hi, everyone. Welcome to a very special edition of the Don Lemon Show. I saw something on social media that caught my eye, and I immediately reached out to these folks, hoping I could get them on.
What viral video sparked this conversation about local school food programs?
Let me show you what I saw, and then we're going to interview someone who was in that video to explain to us what's going on and if they received any help. Here it is.
Hey guys, my name is Nolan Ager and I'm a senior at A.C. Reynolds High School and a fifth generation farmer here at Hickory Nut Gap. I just want to take a minute to share something important that's happening in our local food system.
For the past three years, Hickory Nut Gap has been honored to provide locally sourced grass-fed beef to schools across North Carolina through a program that made high quality nutritious food more accessible to kids.
It's been a way for farms like ours to directly support our community, making sure students get good food on their plates while strengthening local agriculture.
We just received notice that federal funding for this program, the Local Food for Schools and Child Care Initiative, has been pulled as part of recent cost saving measures.
We get that budgets are tight, but this program wasn't about making money. It was about something bigger, building community through agriculture, connecting kids with local food, and keeping dollars circulating in our local economy.
We'd love to see this decision reconsidered. If you care about keeping local food in our schools, now's the time to speak up.
Thanks for being a part of this journey with us. Let's keep pushing for a food system that supports our farmers, our kids, and our future.
Yeah, good folks there. And I'm so glad that I saw that. And I am so happy to be joined by Jamie Ager, who is the CEO and owner of Hickory Nut Gap Farm, located in Fairview, North Carolina, a pillar of the community you are. Thank you very much, Jamie, for joining us.
How did Hickory Nut Gap participate in the Local Food for Schools program?
How are you doing?
Good. Thanks for having me.
Yeah, absolutely. So tell us what happened here. So the new administration comes in, there are budget restraints. What happened?
Well, I think it was like three or four years ago that we got word from the North Carolina Department of Agriculture, which I've been involved in like farm organizations over the years, Farm Bureau and folks like that. And They got a grant. I believe they got a grant from the federal government to do local food and local schools. And I think this program went to all the different states across the country. And the Department of Agriculture in North Carolina has had sort of a farm to school program. a commissioner Troxler here in North Carolina was interested in doing all that stuff. And so this grant kind of helped make it all happen. And so we were really excited to be able to sell, you know, our beef into the local school systems and, and a, it was a good, you know, good opportunity for, for selling hamburger meat for us.
And then number two, it was really cool for us since we have three kids in the school system to be able to sell local food into local schools and, You know, it generates a lot of conversations among the children about where does food come from. And the schools were even doing a good job sort of celebrating where the meat was coming from as well.
Yeah. So this is personal for you because your son, Nolan, was in there and you said you have three kids. So imagine you have two other kids. So this was something personal for you. Not only did it help your farm, but also you could give back to the community. Am I correct?
That's right. Yeah, we weren't making a ton of gross margin on this product. As you can imagine, the school systems don't want to pay a ton of money. The meat business, though, is really just all about carcass balance and utilization. And this was a great way for us to really sort of participate in a program that was, we felt like, really consistent with sort of getting healthier food into the schools, which seems like a great idea.
So how and when did you find out that this program would be killed, that this program that's really helped a lot of folks in your community and provided, I would imagine it's provided food for hungry school children, right?
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:10
2
What viral video sparked this conversation about local school food programs?
0:10–1:38
3
How did Hickory Nut Gap participate in the Local Food for Schools program?
1:38–17:27
4
When and how did producers learn the federal grant would be cut?
17:27–19:19
5
Why does Jamie call cutting farm‑to‑school funding an error or oversight?
19:19–28:50
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from The Don Lemon Show
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