Oaks and Sprouts, in Urbana, Ohio, Tonni and Graham Oberly's family farm, got the email from the Ohio Association of Foodbanks just after 5 o'clock on March 7, 2025.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) had notified the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS) that it was ending a program that gave state, tribal and territorial governments federal dollars to stock food pantries from farms within a 400-mile radius. In turn, the Ohio Association of Foodbanks shared the notice with the more than 150 farms that supplied the state's food pantries with fresh produce, meat and dairy. One of them was Oaks and Sprouts, whose younger and diverse owners are just the type of growers the USDA's Local Food Purchase Assistance program aimed to connect to food-insecure Americans.
Last growing season, Oaks and Sprouts had a contract worth up to $25,000 with the program, a significant amount for the small farm. The produce made its way to food pantries in nearby Springfield and Dayton and, from there, to the Ohioans who rely on them to feed themselves and their families. For Tonni Oberly, a trained doula with a background in public health, joining that distribution chain connected her work at the farm to the focus of the city and urban planning doctorate she had recently completed: how place impacts the health of Black mothers and children.
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