Trey Yates, a fourth generation West Virginia farmer, says his business is not waste, not fraud, not abuse.

His business is butter.

“Our big thing is butter. Churn-style butter,” Yates said, with 98% of that product going to school food programs and food banks.

“We service about 20 counties month in and month out with butter,” with those one-pound tubs being used to add creamy flavor to pepperoni rolls or veggies.

He established Greenbrier Dairy four years ago, and now it’s endangered through forces outside his control.

His business model is in danger because of two recent cuts totaling about a billion dollars to grant programs under the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The money would have flowed from the federal government to state agencies and then to school systems or food banks to make fresh food purchases.

The cuts in West Virginia run into millions of dollars.

One of the cuts is to the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Program, would have allocated $500 million this year to food banks across the nation.

Over the past three years, the West Virginia Department of Agriculture has received more than $4 million in federal dollars to pass along to programs like Mountaineer Food Bank and Facing Hunger.

The other is the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program, which was set to direct about $660 million in 2025 to purchase produce from local farms for schools and child care facilities.

This represents a cut of about $4 million for the West Virginia School Nutrition Office.

The cuts have occurred under the influence of the Department of Government Efficiency, headed by tech billionaire Elon Musk. The U.S. Department of Agriculture called the move a “return to long-term, fiscally responsible initiatives.”

Yates said the federal grant programs have supported a food supply chain built on more than just major food companies.

“It’s no secret the local product is more expensive than the bigger names,” Yates said in a telephone interview.

“We think it’s a better quality of product and it’s fresher product. So we believe the extra cost is beneficial to the school system. It’s a healthier option.”

The most recent turn, he told the local Real WV publication, is “bankruptcy bad.”

The expenses at Greenbrier Dairy include the labor of about five workers at the farm and five at the creamery. The business has 35 to 40 cattle of its own for milking and obtains milk from other dairy farms, particularly in West Virginia. There are utility expenses.

And Yates took out loans from banks for investments like property, buildings, equipment and transportation, pledging personal responsibility because he and the loan officers assessed that his business model was solid.

“We never thought the government would think that government funds were a waste of money going to kids and folks facing hunger,” he said.

“It’s a good amount of money. Agriculture’s been growing in the state of West Virginia, and these federal programs have helped us do that, particularly when you’re talking about getting fresh foods into those who are food insecure or in our schools,” Leonhardt said in an interview at his office in the state Capitol.

“Having these fresh foods — and you see a lot of this in the news, talking about improving our diets — can certainly reduce healthcare costs on down the road. But we always in government don’t think in multi years; we think about this current year and this current budget.”

Leonhardt agreed that some farms have built their businesses on the availability of grants to school food programs and food banks.

“They do hurt,” Leonhardt said.

Leonhardt expressed support for the West Virginia Growing Program to help farmers who have been reliant on the federal support diversity to other markets “so that they’re not relying on one source of income, so that business becomes more resilient should they lose a single source of income.”

More immediately, Leonhardt acknowledged that the farmers have been hit as they’re trying to make decisions about what they’re planting or what livestock they would use, “so it does affect things, particularly when they come so suddenly.”

U.S. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., was asked a couple of questions about the cuts to agriculture grants during a briefing last week with West Virginia reporters.

The first, from Jaime Baker of WTOV television, asked about the effects of the cuts on school meal programs. She noted that about half of all West Virginia children rely on free and reduced-price meals during the school year. The reporter wondered if a form of federal funding could continue to support those programs.

Capito responded by agreeing that school supplied-meals are vital for student nutrition. “You can’t learn, you can’t be emotionally in the right place if you’re hungry or if you’re malnourished because you’re not eating proper foods,” Capito said.

The senator suggested that officials from a range of agencies, including state and federal agriculture, human services and education representatives, “will be working to reformulate this. I don’t think this is going to result in any child not getting to eat a meal they’re counting on for their schools.”

Another reporter, Tom Susman of WMOV radio in the mid-Ohio Valley, asked Capito about the effects of the on farmers. Susman noted in his question that farmers trying to make plans for their businesses are also being affected by rapid changes to U.S. trade policies, particularly tariffs.

Capito acknowledged that farmers already face significant financial pressure and uncertainties.

“Many of our farmers, particularly in West Virginia, are operating on a very thin margin anyway, and they’re subject to things they really can’t control, like the weather,” she said, “and so that adds an added strain, and many of these are family farms.”

Capito again said the local food to school program is valuable both for local farmers and to encourage freshly-supplied nutrition.

“You know, we’re going to go back. We’ve been pressing the administration to find out how and if this program can be reinstated and maybe in a different way. That’s what we’re finding on a lot of these cancelations or holds, that the administration is holding them so they can make sure they go out in a more efficient or cost-effective way,” she said.

“Right now, that’s not much comfort to our farmers. So what I would say to them is, ‘I’m on your side,’ and I think that the questions that I’m going to be asking the Secretary of Agriculture hopefully will help us loosen some of the dollars that have been provided, particularly for our schools but also our food banks.”

Yates agreed with Capito’s assessment: That’s not much comfort.

“The response that she gave, I would rather have not heard one at all,” he said.

“What we really need out of leadership is for them to say the Trump administration has done a wrong and we’re going to do everything we can to fix it. And we haven’t heard that.”

“The bank does not care if they take time to evaluate where federal dollars go,” he said.

“When our representatives say they’re just going to take time to evaluate everything and come back with something better, the bank’s still sitting there saying they need their payment.”