Valerie Grayson
Fifth graders at Mendota Elementary School in the school garden.
[Update: The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction notified Rooted by email on April 28 that the group must pause all of its AmeriCorps Farm to School programming immediately. That affects programming at Mendota Elementary, Lake View Elementary and La Follette High School.]
For the last several years, Rooted, a Madison nonprofit focused on urban agriculture, has run programs that help get locally grown food into student lunches and snacks, as well as fund school gardening programs and other initiatives. Now these programs are threatened by the Trump administration’s cuts to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) funding. One of the grants the group applied for is canceled for the next funding cycle, while the grant it currently has is uncertain for the next cycle.
Erica Krug, farm to school director at Rooted, tells Isthmus that the nonprofit reapplied for the USDA’s two-year, $100,000 Patrick Leahy Farm to School grant in January 2025 for another round of funding, but learned through a March email from USDA that the grant is now canceled.
Meanwhile, Krug received an email from a spokesperson with the Lake Michigan Food System Innovation Hub Grant — another USDA grant Rooted received in 2024 and planned to reapply for — in early February that said the next round of funding is paused. It’s possible that grant may move forward, but there has been no definitive announcement.
Rooted’s Farm to School programming includes connecting local farmers with school districts so students have access to more locally grown foods in school meals. It also supports on-site school gardens with a gardener-in-residence program, educational workshops about agriculture, and field trips to Rooted’s two youth farm sites.
Krug believes it’s important for students to have fresh fruits and vegetables in their school lunches, as well as having “that opportunity to see where their food comes from.”
“It’s hard to see everything you’ve been working on, paused,” she says.
Rooted works with a number of schools in the Madison Metropolitan School District to provide this programming. Its current AmeriCorps Farm to School program collaborates with Mendota Elementary, Lake View Elementary and La Follette High School. Garden-based education programs run at 10 additional schools, including Kennedy Elementary, Southside Elementary and Badger Rock Middle School.
Garden-based education programs run at 10 additional schools, including gardener-in-residence programs at seven schools and garden programming and farm field trips at Kennedy Elementary, Southside Elementary and Badger Rock Middle School. For now, these will continue.
In the proposal for the now-cancelled Patrick Leahy Farm to School grant, Rooted asked for funding for garden education and maintenance at schools that have the highest economic disadvantage rates. Free field trips to the farm sites were also supported by this grant money. New sources of funding will have to be found for these programs to continue.
The Madison school district is continuing to monitor USDA information as it becomes available. “Given the speed with which things are changing at the federal level, and the uncertainty surrounding the impacts those changes may have, we will continue to absorb and assess information as it becomes available, and focus our efforts on what we can influence locally,” district spokesperson Ian Folger tells Isthmus in an email.
Rooted is now shifting its focus to local fundraising. It will be hosting a fundraiser called Farm to School Aid May 24 at Troy’s Kids' Garden, 502 Troy Drive, featuring local bands and food vendors.
Krug remains perplexed by the cuts. “Everybody benefits when we support our kids eating nourishing foods in school meals,” she says. “And everyone benefits when we support our local farmers and give them the resources that they need in order to be able to grow healthy food.”
