August 18, 2026

By Lisa Abelar

When Keith Cunningham checks on his flock of 3,500 chickens, it’s not uncommon for the birds to follow him around the farm. He lets them wander outside, peck around and find some shade. And sometimes he even has conversations with them. This is what his life looks like now, as an organic poultry farmer in the rural Oklahoma community of Rose. 

It’s a smaller-scale operation by design, because after decades of farming as a contract producer of meat birds for a large poultry conglomerate, he had reached his limit. 

“To be honest, I was burned out. I raised 13 million birds in my career. Conventional commercial growers lose the effect.  I asked ‘What are we doing?  What are we growing?’” he said. “It’s a production, that’s all it is. Get it done. You just have to get these birds started and get them out.  I wanted to do something different.”

Now, instead of shipping his birds to a big-label distributor, he is handing them over to people living in his community — and sometimes he’s doing it himself. His participation in the Local Food Purchase Agreement (LFPA) program helped catalyze his success. 

The USDA program offered grants to organizations, like tribes and food banks, to purchase food from local producers. The idea behind the program, which was cancelled by the Trump Administration in 2025, was to create more resilient local food systems. The LFPA program aligns with other agriculture-based programs that use public money to support domestic food production, stabilize the food supply and protect producers against market volatility.

Farmers like Cunningham benefited from new markets, consumers benefited from locally-grown produce, and the commerce supported local economies. Admittedly, marketing wasn’t Cunningham’s strong suit. Raising chickens was. The LFPA program offered the exact type of support his farm needed. 

“I learned real quick you can have the best product and if people don’t know about it, you sit on it. The LFPA helped get me out there,” he said. “At the end of 2023, I made my first sale through the LFPA. I just remember that was a huge shot in the arm. I thought this deal could possibly work.”

After that first sale, Cunningham secured several more, primarily with tribes. He worked with the Peoria Tribe of Indians, the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska andthe Seminole Nation. The connections he made through the LFPA contracts were invaluable to sustaining his fledgling operation and allowing it to expand.

Cunningham remembers participating in food distribution events with the tribes and hearing recipients ask where the chicken had come from. He was proud to stand in and take ownership. 

“If you only had one tastebud on your tongue, you’re going to be able to tell the difference. It’s a clean taste,” Cunningham said of his organic flocks. “We’re small but yet there’s eight other businesses that you affect when you spend a dollar with me, that all rely on me.”

He works with a processor to harvest his flock when it’s ready and he uses an independent hauler to move the birds from the farm to the processor. He hires local “ag boys” to help on the farm and he pays them “way more” than he was paid growing up. He works with small supply companies, a local trucker and an independent feed mill that offers certified organic grains. Put simply, when Cunningham’s organic poultry farm is doing well, so are the businesses he relies on to make his farm operate.

“It really helps the small communities,” he said. “I would love to see LFPA come back.” 

Despite a lapse in funding, the connections Cunningham made while the program was active have endured. Several tribes still order from him, and those orders are growing at a steady pace. He also connected with the OKC Food Hub, a nonprofit distributor connecting local producers with local markets as part of its effort to build a resilient local food system. 

Now his organic chickens are in 19 retail stores in the Oklahoma City area and in three schools. 

“I want to make a living and be independent about it,” he said. “And I want to know when I trade off a product it’s not just I needed to make a buck but I put my heart, mind and soul into that product. So far, there’s been no regrets.”