How USDA Policies Are Undermining a Healthier Food System

Trump’s budget and USDA cuts prioritize Big Ag while dismantling the programs that feed families, support small farms, and promote public health

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At the beginning of this month, the USDA issued a press release titled, "In First 100 Days, Secretary Rollins Puts Farmers First, Reverses Woke Priorities of Biden Administration."

In it, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins claimed:

"It is absurd that while the Biden Administration was driving up inflation, American taxpayers were forced to fund billions in woke DEI initiatives. American farmers and ranchers don’t need DEI, they need reduced regulations and an Administration that is actively putting them first. In the first 100 days of the Trump Administration, USDA has done exactly that, by cancelling over 3,600 contracts and grants saving more than $5.5 billion.”

It’s hard to believe these are official government communications. They read less like agency press releases and more like campaign ads that are heavy on buzzwords and light on honesty or substance.

In this case, “DEI” is a convenient scapegoat to justify dismantling programs that are actually working to serve the public good. It seems that anything that doesn’t directly serve large agribusiness interests, whether it’s small sustainable farms, environmental protections, or improving access to nutritious food in low-income communities, is apparently now a 'woke priority.'

So let’s take a closer look at what’s really been cut, and who the USDA is truly ‘putting first.’

"Canceling Wasteful Spending" or ?

The USDA proudly announced that it cancelled 3,600 contracts in its effort to “reverse woke priorities.” Here are just a few of the programs included in that list:

The Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program

The LFS program was designed to help schools and childcare programs purchase fresh, local food from nearby farms. It was a program that supported small farmers, local food systems, and helped supply schools and childcare centers with fresh, local food. Its termination has disrupted the supply chain between local agriculture and educational institutions.

The cuts are negatively impacting both schools and farmers. In Arkansas, the North Little Rock School District had been benefiting from the LFS program, allowing children to receive fresh, local food produced by nearby farmers. With the program's cancellation, schools are expected to revert to cheaper, processed food options.

And many local farmers are being left stranded by these cuts. For example, John Wahrmund of Little Rock, had already planted his spring crop with a specific contract in place to supply local schools under the LFS program. With the contract abruptly canceled, he’s now sitting on thousands of dollars in perishable produce with no guaranteed buyer — a major financial loss for a small farm operating on tight margins.

The Local Food Purchase Assistance Program

The LFPA program was created to support food banks in sourcing fresh food from local producers, helping small farmers while feeding families in need. It was a powerful, dual-impact program that strengthened local economies and improved nutrition access in communities hit hardest by food insecurity.

Its abrupt cancellation has had immediate and devastating consequences. In Chicago, Top Box Foods, which used USDA LFPA funds to deliver fresh produce to underserved neighborhoods, now expects to serve thousands fewer households. They had built a community-driven infrastructure that ensured families in food deserts could access affordable, healthful food. That model is now in jeopardy.

And this isn’t an isolated impact. In Central Texas, the local food bank is facing a $5.5 million funding loss due to the program’s termination. Already, over 40 scheduled food deliveries have been canceled, translating to 761,000 fewer meals for the community. And in the Washington, D.C. region, food banks have lost access to more than 1.4 million meals they were counting on, and are now scrambling to find emergency replacements just to meet basic demand.

The Patrick Leahy Farm to School Program

This program funded school gardens, food education, and fresh produce in school meals. Its goal was to connect children to healthy food and local agriculture through hands-on learning and community partnerships.

With the program’s cancellation, many schools across the country have been forced to scale back or eliminate garden-based education, nutrition lessons, and locally sourced lunches. In states like Michigan and Vermont, where schools had longstanding partnerships with local farms, educators are now attempting to fill the gap.

The Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities

This initiative was aimed at funding projects that improved soil health, supported carbon sequestration, and helped farmers adopt sustainable practices. While critics called it “woke,” it was designed to future-proof agriculture against worsening climate disruptions.

Its cancellation has left thousands of farmers in limbo. Many had already enrolled in pilot programs, purchased cover crop seed, or installed conservation infrastructure with the promise of USDA support. Farmers in Nebraska and Iowa, for example, were mid-project when reimbursements were halted, creating financial chaos and forcing some to abandon improvements that would have made their operations more resilient and environmentally friendly.

What’s especially telling is that some of the very same voices pushing this agenda, including those in the Make America Healthy Again movement, talk about the need to improve soil health and reduce ultra-processed food. But this is how you actually do that. You support farms that are opting to rebuild soil with cover crops, reduce synthetic inputs, and invest in sustainable practices. Instead, those very programs are now being cut under the guise of fighting “wokeness.”

Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP)

The USDA has halted millions of dollars worth of food deliveries to food banks, originally allocated through TEFAP. This decision follows earlier cuts of more than $1 billion in federal spending for schools and food banks to source from local farmers. Food bank leaders from six states report cancellations of planned orders, adding to the difficulties of meeting increasing demands as food prices have risen by 20% since 2020.

Food for Progress Program

The USDA has canceled all existing grants under the Food for Progress program, which supports agricultural and economic development by sending U.S. commodities such as milled rice, soybean meal, wheat, and yellow soybeans to developing nations. In 2024, the program awarded over $218 million, aiding countries like Tanzania, Tunisia, and Sri Lanka. The cancellation aligns with the broader budget proposal to eliminate foreign food aid programs, including Food for Progress, McGovern-Dole Food for Education, and the USAID-administered Food for Peace.

USDA Priorities in Trump’s Budget Bill

Earlier this month, Trump released his proposed budget bill, titled the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act." [insert eye roll]. Inside its 1,100+ pages are more clues to this administration’s true priorities when it comes to food and agriculture.

The bill is a reconciliation bill, meaning each congressional committee was required to find budget savings to meet a set fiscal target. The House Agriculture Committee was tasked with cutting nearly $300 billion, most of which would come from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the single largest program under its jurisdiction.

What's in the Agriculture Portion of the Budget?

To understand the ag section of the budget, it's important to know that the House Agriculture Committee oversees a wide range of programs, but by far the largest piece is nutrition assistance, particularly SNAP, which accounts for about 80% of the committee’s total spending. The rest includes farm safety net programs like commodity subsidies and crop insurance, conservation programs, rural development, and agricultural research.

To meet its assigned savings target of over $300 billion, the committee had to look across all these areas. And the resulting budget proposal gives us a clear picture of their agricultural priorities.

The proposal includes over $60 billion in new ag spending, but nearly all of it is directed toward traditional commodity programs:

• Massive expansion of commodity subsidies and crop insurance, which will disproportionately benefit the largest industrial farms

• Raised payment limits, which will allow mega-farms to collect even larger checks

• 30 million more base acres added for payment eligibility, a move that benefits large farms by increasing their subsidy footprint, even on land that may not currently be in productive use

• No significant funding for small, beginning, or diversified farms, despite their role in community food security and local economies

• Inflation Reduction Act conservation dollars rescinded, removing support for climate-smart agricultural practices

So while $60 billion sounds generous, the spending is highly concentrated and reinforces a system that already funnels the majority of support to the biggest players in U.S. agriculture. This approach props up a food system designed around large-scale monocultures and long supply chains. One that prioritizes shelf-stable, ultra-processed foods that can travel long distances, rather than supporting regional food systems that grow fresh, nutritious food closer to where people live. It’s the opposite of the policies we need if we want to build a healthier, more resilient food system.

How They Plan to Meet the Cuts

To meet the House Ag Committee’s reconciliation target of nearly $300 billion in cuts, Republicans advanced a proposal that centers its savings almost entirely on cuts to SNAP, the country’s most effective anti-hunger program. I wrote more about SNAP here.

Here’s how they propose to do it:

• Restructures SNAP’s funding model and shifting costs to states: states would begin covering 5% of benefit costs starting in FY 2028 — and up to 25% if they exceed federal error thresholds. Administrative cost-sharing would also shift, with states responsible for 75% (up from 50%). This forces states to choose between raising taxes, cutting other programs, or restricting SNAP access, which will hurt states with the highest poverty most. These changes are conveniently delayed until after the next midterm elections, which is an obvious political calculation designed to hide the long-term, devastating consequences.

• Caps Thrifty Food Plan updates at every five years with no inflation adjustment, ensuring benefits won’t keep pace with rising food costs.

• Expands work requirements to include adults aged 18 to 64 (up from 54), and narrows caregiving exemptions, requiring many parents and older adults to work 20 hours per week or lose benefits.

• Redefines dependent children as only those under age 7 (currently age 18), excluding millions of parents and grandparents from exemptions.

• Restricts utility deductions for all but elderly or disabled households.

• Imposes a zero-tolerance policy for administrative payment errors, even though most SNAP errors are minor and unintentional.

• Eliminates all funding for SNAP-Ed, an important program that offers nutrition education and cooking skills to low-income families.

The Ag portion of the current bill would essentially gut food assistance for millions of Americans while expanding subsidies for large-scale agribusiness, which is exactly the opposite of what needs to happen in order to improve the health of Americans. The proposed bill is shifting resources away from low-income households and public nutrition programs to make room for corporate tax cuts and industry-friendly spending.

This Isn’t About Health At All

Despite the slogans, this isn’t a vision for a healthier America. It’s an agenda consolidating control over our food system in the hands of the biggest players, while stripping away support from the people who need it most.

They say they’re “putting farmers first,” but it’s only a certain kind of farmer—the industrial-scale operations already benefiting from the bulk of federal subsidies. They say they’re eliminating “woke” programs, but what’s actually being cut are the programs that help families put fresh food on the table, support small and regional producers, and invest in a more resilient, sustainable food system.

And they say they want to “Make America Healthy Again,” but nearly every policy choice tells us otherwise. You don’t improve the food environment by defunding programs that supply schools with fresh, local food, dismantling climate-smart agriculture, and gutting the nutrition assistance program that keeps millions of people fed. And you don’t fight chronic disease by making it harder for the people struggling most with their health to access fruits, vegetables, or nutrition education.

So we have to stop taking these statements at face value. The rhetoric may be wrapped in the language of freedom, wellness, and reform, but the reality is a sweeping rollback of the very policies that support health, equity, and food security in this country.

If we want a food system that nourishes people instead of profits, we have to pay attention to the actual harm being written into law, and not just what’s being said.

What Can You Do?

✅ Call your representatives
Let them know you oppose cuts to SNAP and support investment in small farmers, local food systems, and public nutrition programs. Download the 5 Calls app — it gives you contact info and scripts based on your location.

✅ Talk about it
These policies are being pushed through quietly under the cover of eliminating “woke” programs and “efficiency.” The more we talk about what’s actually happening, the harder it is for lawmakers to hide behind slogans.

✅ Support local efforts
Find and support organizations in your area doing the work these policies are trying to dismantle—food banks, farm-to-school coalitions, mobile markets, co-ops, or orgs like Top Box Foods that deliver fresh food to underserved neighborhoods.

✅ Stay informed and speak up
I’ll keep tracking these policies and helping break them down. If you’re not already subscribed, please do so. The more people who understand what’s at stake, the stronger our voices get.