As federal cuts to nutrition assistance programs are being debated in the nation’s capital, food pantries in southern New Mexico are continuing their work in providing baskets of food to families in need.
Kristen Muñoz works for Casa de Peregrinos, one of the largest food pantries located in the southern part of the state. Muñoz is no stranger to the struggles of hunger faced by so many in New Mexico.
“When I was a kid, my family struggled a bit with food insecurity. We were on SNAP, and we did go to food banks and stuff. I did get to see that from a very young age and understand the feeling of not having those resources and being worried about where your next meal is coming from.”
According to the latest data from FeedingAmerica.org, 16.4% of households in Doña Ana County are considered food insecure, about 3% higher than the nationwide average. Muñoz expressed the need for federal programs to continue.
“If those programs are cut, then it’s a little bit less hope that’s in the area, a little bit less support. And some people, that little support is all they have. Without it, they don’t have anything,” she said. “Supporting us is supporting the people. And a county, a state, a country is nothing without its people. I think when you’re in a position of power, it is your responsibility to take care of the people that you have power over.”
Casa de Peregrinos Executive Director Lorenzo Alba Jr. said that federal cuts will influence the pantry's output, and that meeting demand could be a challenge.
“We run a really tight budget so cutting down some other parts of our budget is going to be difficult. So what we’re going to do is be a little bit more aggressive on fundraising and ask the community to really help us through that, because we can’t do it without food coming in or money coming into our organization,” he said. “And that’s something that I share with my staff all the time. If there’s not food or money coming in every day, we’re in trouble.”
And while Casa de Peregrinos hasn’t taken any major hits yet, The Roadrunner Food Bank, the state’s largest food bank, is already seeing consequences of cuts to the USDA’s Emergency Food Assistance Program, according to Katy Anderson, the organization’s vice president of strategy, partnerships and advocacy.
“The challenge at play right now is there is no indication of [whether] this food is gone forever. Is it going to come back into play again? The particular type of food that was canceled makes up about 30% of the total amount of commodities. So moving forward into [Fiscal Year 2026], does that mean that whole stream of food is now gone, which would be somewhere between six and eight million pounds over the course of the next year.”
Anderson said that there has been no communication from the federal entities that the food bank works with, exacerbating challenges in finding ways to fill gaps left by the cuts.
“Replacing that food stream of six to eight million pounds would potentially cost the food banks upwards of eight to nine million dollars, just to replace that particular stream of food. The reality is that’s not a possibility, we don’t have access to funds like that. We’re nonprofits,” she said. “The impact across all sectors of society in our country will be immense if a lot of these things are pushed through.”
As debates over funding continue, and millions of pounds of food assistance disappear for New Mexicans, it’s uncertain how drastically the state’s food pantries will be impacted in the coming months.
