State officials spoke to lawmakers on Monday Aug. 18 about the impacts to food from federal budget cuts. From left, Sarah E. Flores-Sievers, from the health department; Austin Davidson an analyst for the LFC; Les Owen from the agricultural department; Michael Chavez at the state's education department and Niki Kozlowski from the New Mexico Health Care Authority.
Congress’ recent paring back of federal food programs will impact New Mexico’s food from the farm to the table, state officials told lawmakers Monday.
At a Las Cruces hearing, state agency deputies overseeing New Mexico’s agriculture, food assistance programs, school lunches and senior care told the interim Water and Natural Resource Committee cuts will likely deepen children and senior hunger.
However, the full impacts of the Congressional spending bill signed by President Trump in July remain uncertain, they told lawmakers, as some cuts go into effect immediately, but others are implemented in later years.
State lawmakers have met over the summer to address cuts to federal programs like Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as New Mexico ranks the highest enrollments per capita in both programs. Members of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s office has said she will call a special session in late August or September to address federal policies.
Just over one in five New Mexicans — 457,655 participants — use SNAP benefits and nearly 40% are children. Niki Kozlowski, the acting deputy secretary for the state’s Health Care Authority told lawmakers that cutting eligibility and stricter enforcement of work requirements will likely worsen outcomes for low-income children.
“We have a very high rate of child food insecurity, about 23%, which we do believe is likely to worsen due to the downstream impacts of this bill,” Kozlowski said.
While $5.5 million of the cuts to school SNAP programs are not immediate, the state is working to transition schools to a different federal program, said Michael Chavez, the senior manager for student success and wellness at the state’s education department.
“We’ve got to stay ahead of the curve of what these cuts are going to be,” Chavez told Source NM.
The state’s senior population also has the fifth highest poverty rate in the nation with 64,000 New Mexicans over 60 years old receiving SNAP benefits as of fiscal year 2022.
“The impact of funding cuts, although unknown, is very alarming for this population because we do know that our aging population is growing and they’re in need,” said Denise King, who directs aging network services for the New Mexico Aging and Long-Term Services Department.
Reduced federal funds will impact state programs for produce safety inspections and climate funding for sustainable farming, Les Owen, the deputy director at the New Mexico Department of Agriculture, said.
The 40% reduction in the federal budget will not impact actual inspections of produce, but will limit how much outreach and education the agency can do. Owen also noted the U.S. Department of Agriculture canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in funding, which impacted a few programs in New Mexico for soil health and reducing carbon in ranching.
Originally, New Mexico was awarded funds for 22 projects according to a USDA dashboard, but Owen said he didn’t have a full figure of the grant cuts when reached by Source NM.
“All of these changes, the shake-ups and the reorganizations have created just a tremendous amount of uncertainty,” he said.
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