SPRINGFIELD, Ill (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – An urban farm tucked away off Fifteenth Street and Lawrence Avenue in Springfield helps feed the needy and even teach them how to grow their own. But U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski (pictured, right) (D-Springfield) says the organization is a victim of the Trump administration.

“They’re having a hard time planning because of that uncertainty coming out of the USDA,” Budzinski said Tuesday. If Democrats next year are “in the majority, we will be able to hold USDA accountable, to bring in Secretary (Brooke) Rollins to ask her specifically, why would a grant that’s already been appropriated be pulled back?

“I think that’s illegal.”

Motherland Community Project, founded by Illinois National Guardsman Yves Doumen (pictured, left), has been in operation for six years. He’s growing forty crops.

“The mission is to remove barriers and challenges that people who live in underserved communities have to go through to access fresh food or even just to get involved in the farm and agriculture in general,” said Doumen. “Our work is to make it easy for people to get into this, not only having access to food, which is a basic necessity, but also being capable of joining the force to produce.”