Leave the LAMP on.

The 2026 USDA budget proposal zeroes out small farms and farmers markets: why there’s still hope.

In the middle of a dizzying array of bad news on official letterhead received by American small farmers and farmers market managers since January, you may understandably have missed the USDA budget proposal for 2026. Especially troubling for market people: the USDA seems to be proposing to eliminate LAMP. All of it. 

Remember that in the alphabet soup of Federal programs, LAMP, or the Local Agriculture Market Program, funds the Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP), Local Food Promotion Program (LFPP), and Regional Food Systems Partnership (RFSP). FMPP grant season fuels creativity as market programs and expansion are envisioned and hope as painstakingly crafted proposals are uploaded and the wait for approval begins.

Already this year we’ve had to learn new words like rescission and reconciliation. We’ve waited while USDA officials who used to answer our questions and manage our grants combed through already confirmed proposals for scary words like “equity”. We learned that “inclusion” and “regenerative” could trigger suspension or termination of existing contracts, without reimbursement for money already spent.

When the administration’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” act (OBBB) was introduced in January and signed into law last month, it dealt more blows to small and medium-sized farms and the farmers markets that serve them.

Like a reverse-Robin Hood, it transfers billions of dollars from family farms to the largest corporate and commodity growers. It also has the effect of making a new farm bill even harder to pass, since many of the issues that usually nudge congress into unwilling action on the farm bill, especially SNAP, have already been lost in the OBBB.

Sticking with the OBBB’s themes, the administration’s budget proposal for 2026 includes almost 6 billion dollars in reductions to the remaining services that still exist for small farmers, hungry people, conservation programs, rural housing, and other much needed support. 

Farmers market managers struggle to explain to farmers, shoppers and staff why there is suddenly no money to support programs, compensation or jobs that they expected. It’s been awkward. And heartbreaking. ¹ 

LEARNING BY LAMP LIGHT

For farmers markets and other direct-to-consumer outlets for local and regional producers, FMPP is one of the only sources of public funds to support our work. One to three year grants of up to $500,000 let farmers markets bring new customers to our farmers and vendors, hire new staff and upgrade technology. It helped us buy PPE and drastically reinvent market operations during the pandemic. Market organizations use it to develop programming and offer education and training to farmers, vendors, and market managers across the country.²

For the last four years, local food advocates had been working towards improvements to the program—most notably getting rid of the pesky 25% match requirement that acted as a barrier for smaller market groups to access these funds. Many of us, whether we knew it or not, were benefitting from LAMP funds procured by organizations that could make the match, including our state-wide farmers market associations.

So what does it mean that where it says “LAMP” in the USDA budget proposal³ there’s no number at all, nothing but a dash? Short answer: LAMP isn’t being snuffed out this year, but convoluted machinations of federal funding combined with the astronomical cost of tax cuts for the wealthy mean that the future is looking dim. 

How does this all affect farmers markets? Well, first, let’s be clear that LAMP is still funded. Yes, the USDA budget proposal sought to cut the line item for LAMP in its budget for the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) which funds the program. The explanatory notes to the proposal say those programs should be managed at the state level⁴ ; many states already chip in their fair share of matching funds. But overall, USDA  can’t cut LAMP entirely. That’s because LAMP is actually funded by the farm bill, not by the agriculture department’s discretionary annual budget. 

Under the Farm Bill, LAMP has mandatory baseline funding, historically the gold standard in don’t-mess-with-us for the US Government. If you’ve been watching, you’ll know that the 5-year 2018 farm bill still doesn’t have a replacement. Instead of passing a new one, congress has extended the old farm bill twice, and programs with expiry dates have already started to disappear. Luckily, LAMP’s permanent baseline funding means it’s been able to stay funded without a new bill, and it will not disappear under current rules. 

What the USDA is proposing to cut is AMS’s funds for administering the program. As anyone who’s needed answers from USDA knows, these federal employees were already overworked and underresourced to meet the needs of their constituents. So while the proposal to eliminate this funding wouldn’t kill LAMP entirely, it would absolutely make all of our lives worse.

The good news: the USDA’s proposed budget truly is only a proposal. Congress gets to decide what money is spent, and they don’t have to do what the USDA says. Despite all we’ve seen from members of congress this year, that proposal has not actually been taken up by the House and Senate committees whose job it is to approve the budget for 2026. The six billion dollars in USDA cuts? The House refused to consider them, instead proposing a budget that cuts much less ($1.2 billion), while the Senate actually proposed an increased budget of almost a billion dollars, mostly going to WIC and to the Agricultural Research Service. 

Both the Senate and the House committees have now passed their respective appropriations bills. The next step is for the two houses of Congress to reconcile their bills and pass a single appropriations package by September 30th. 

There is still a big scary cliff that could potentially loom for LAMP. The OBBB costs so much, and deepens the deficit so drastically, that if implemented in its entirety it may trigger automatic failsafes built into the government to ensure that we don’t wildly overspend.⁵ As our friends at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition write in their excellent explainer on the bill:  “In layman’s terms, OBBB increases the federal deficit so significantly that…numerous USDA programs subject to sequestration [c]ould be completely wiped out for a period of time.”

Those include AMS as well as the Food and Nutrition Service, which runs SNAP, and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, which runs the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP) that supports so many SNAP match programs at markets.

TURN UP THE LAMP 

So what do we do? One easy step? Contact your representatives. If they voted to pass an agriculture budget that kept USDA funding at current levels or added to it, thank them for refusing to bow to pressure and protecting essential services for small and medium sized farms. Tell them specifically how much LAMP, LFPP and FMPP mean to you, to the many shoppers who frequent markets and to the parent of kids whose schools buy local produce. Tell them that we need a new farm bill, one with real improvements, not just another extension. Tell them we need them to fight for small farms. 

There is power in numbers, especially when counting voters. Talk to your farmers and vendors and your customers about the impacts of this legislation on our ability to plan for the future. Invite them to speak up for farmers markets and these services they rely on and need. Spread the word far and wide when our market advocates⁶ and your state farmers market associations create calls to action.   

Our dual missions of supporting small farms and businesses and creating spaces of community and connection are obviously more important than they have ever been. Small farms need vibrant, dynamic market outlets that are ready to evolve in a landscape of grocery industry consolidation narrowing options for local growers. Communities need places to gather and access healthy food and forge connections with the people who feed us and recognize our interconnection. Realistically, we should recognize that in the near future funding for our markets and our services may not be coming from the federal government. 

Leaning into this moment means planning ahead to survive these changes. The core function of selling food at a fair price can be supported by structuring farmers markets as financially sustainable operations. As we all explore new ways to fund the programs that educate and expand our constituencies, sharing our harvest will be key. Together, we can find new ways to grow.