The Trump administration recently slashed $500 million from a federal program that supplied food banks and emergency food providers with free, healthy food from American farmers.
And those cuts were high on the agenda during Foodlink's "Nourish" annual member conference Thursday.
Foodlink's CEO Julia Tedesco said the regional food bank learned it was losing 17 truckloads of food worth roughly $655,000 because of the cuts to the USDA's Emergency Food Assistance Program.
The cuts, she added, come at a time when food insecurity is at a record high and grocery prices are increasing.
"It is a nerve-wracking time and an exhausting time to know that our federal government is not supporting the most vulnerable in our country and not ensuring that that those folks are fed," Tedesco said during the conference's lunch break.
That food would have gone to pantries across the region at no cost.
Food pantry operators are also worried about the cuts.
Zachary Ennis is the executive director of Rochester Deaf Kitchen, a food pantry that serves Monroe County's deaf community. He said deaf people are disproportionately affected by food insecurity and many are already struggling due to cuts to other federal programs.
"We are fighting to help people avoid deaths in our community, with the additional cuts, more people will absolutely perish," Ennis said.
Ennis used American Sign Language and spoke through an interpreter.
The cuts are also a blow to food pantries in rural areas. Deb McLean, manager of the Geneseo Groveland Emergency Food Pantry, said the pantry relies largely on the USDA-provided food and donated food.
"We can definitely sense that we see a lot more seniors coming into the pantry over the last couple of months," McLean said. "A lot of new families are coming in over the last couple of months. So there's definitely a sense of unease."
Tedesco said Foodlink plans to seek assistance from the state, raise funds, and plan with its member agencies to help make up for the food and funding losses.
On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand slammed the Trump administration for the cuts and called on it to restore the funding. The Democrat noted that it came on top of $1 billion worth of cuts to other federal food programs.
"I have grave concerns about the impact that these cancellations will have on New York farmers and the families that rely on food banks, school lunch programs and child care centers to get enough to eat," Gillibrand said.