‘100% Not in Line’ With MAHA: USDA Cuts to Critical School Lunch, Local Farm Programs Put Kids at Risk
The U.S. Department of Agriculture last week cut two programs that provided U.S. schools and food banks over $1 billion to purchase food from local farms and ranchers, Politico reported.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) last week cut two programs that provided U.S. schools and food banks over $1 billion to purchase food from local farms and ranchers, Politico reported.
Approximately $660 million went to schools and childcare facilities, which used the funding to buy food from local farms through the Local Food for Schools program. The remainder went to fund a similar initiative, the Local Food Purchase Assistance program, which buys and distributes locally produced food to in-state food banks.
The cuts threaten to hurt school districts that are already short on resources needed to provide children with healthy lunches, School Nutrition Association (SNA) President Shannon Gleave said in a statement.
“With research showing school meals are the healthiest meals Americans eat, Congress needs to invest in underfunded school meal programs rather than cut services critical to student achievement and health,” she said.
Pediatrician Michelle Perro of GMO Science voiced similar concerns. She said eliminating programs that help schools purchase fresh, locally sourced food “is a deeply misguided decision that will negatively impact children’s health.”
“Access to healthy, nutrient-dense meals is essential for proper growth and cognitive development, especially for vulnerable students who rely on school meals,” Perro said.
She said supporting local ranchers strengthens communities and ensures food quality. “This policy change not only undermines these benefits but also prioritizes short-term cost-cutting over the long-term health of our children,” Perro said. “This is 100% not in line with the MAHA [Make America Healthy Again] agenda and must be reinstated.”
More than 40 states have signed agreements to participate in the programs. Some of the largest amounts of program money were earmarked for farmers in California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Michigan and Georgia, according to The New Lede.
In a statement to The Defender, the USDA said the programs were pandemic-era programs canceled because they “no longer effectuate the goals of the agency.”
“With 16 robust nutrition programs in place, USDA remains focused on its core mission: strengthening food security, supporting agricultural markets, and ensuring access to nutritious food.”
A USDA spokesperson said the agency is focusing on programs that “deliver lasting impact.”
“The COVID era is over — USDA’s approach to nutrition programs will reflect that reality moving forward,” the spokesperson said.
The agency notified the states and Native American tribes that the funding for the programs for fiscal year 2025 has been canceled and the agreements will be terminated following a 60-day notification, according to USDA.
Funding for both programs was expanded under the Biden administration “to build a more resilient food supply chain that didn’t just rely on major food companies,” Politico said. Last year, the USDA announced more than $1 billion in additional funding for the programs.
SNA said other school lunch funding is also on the chopping block. The organization lobbied against these and additional cuts for school meal programs at the Capitol on Tuesday. They cited several proposed reductions listed in House Republicans’ budget reconciliation package that they say will threaten school meal programs and severely limit student access to healthy meals.
Lawmakers and farmers sound alarm on ‘catastrophic’ cuts
The move to end the programs that give access to some healthy food for school lunches comes as food costs continue to rise, according to the USDA. Food prices have risen 31% since 2019, making it more difficult for many people to buy healthy food.
Nearly 30 million U.S. kids eat school lunch every day, according to the SNA. The quality of that food can have serious consequences for children’s health.
States that participate in the programs targeted for cuts are sounding the alarm.
In Minnesota, the money funded the Farm to School program that schools used to add fresh and local food to school lunches. Lawmakers in Minnesota called the cuts “catastrophic,” saying the program had also provided “additional revenue streams” for farmers.
The Iowa Food System Farm Coalition said the cuts would hit farmers particularly hard because they had already outlaid funds to provide food for next year — the crops are already being produced.
“It is outrageous to think that this promise to Iowa farmers, schools, food banks, and childcare centers could be broken,” said Executive Director Chris Schwartz.
Berenika Byszewski, who ran a small organic farm in Albuquerque, New Mexico, told The Defender that programs like these not only provide a reliable market for small farmers but are one of the few ways low-income kids get access to organic produce.
A lot of small farmers depend on farmers markets to sell their produce, she said, but farmers markets are mostly only accessible to more affluent people. “There are a lot of great programs that let people use SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] money at farmers markets, some even doubling the value of the credits, but it is still hard.”
Support for local purchasing programs can be “a good way to make sure the food is going into the community at the schools.”
Administration should prioritize ‘whole, non-toxic, local foods’
Zen Honeycutt — founder and executive director of Moms Across America, a nonprofit representing hundreds of thousands of mothers who want safer food served to their kids — said the organization was “deeply dismayed to learn that the Trump administration has cut over $1 billion dollars to support local food to schools and food banks.”
The organization has tested school lunches across the country and found the presence of heavy metals, pesticides and other toxins that are being served to children daily.
That makes it particularly important that school lunch programs focus on providing access to healthy foods, Honeycutt said.
She added:
“Our children’s health and access to whole, non-toxic, local foods should be a priority for any administration. Diabetes and obesity are not Democratic or Republican. Cancer is not choosy. Poison is not partisan.
“We call on this administration to re-fund the USDA program for local, organic food in schools and food banks, supporting our local farmers, children, and the future of America.”
Honeycutt said they suspected that one of the reasons for the cancellation was the misuse of funds. “It has been reported to us that the funds for local foods in one school district funneled money to a local soda company and flooded the school with soda pop,” she said. “This type of misuse should be canceled.”
Rather than canceling the programs, she said, there must be better regulation on the use of funds. “Moms Across America asserts that the only healthy use of government funds would be for healthy, organically grown, non-toxic, nutrient-dense locally grown produce, grains, beans, meat or dairy.”
School lunch is the ‘best meal’ many children have in a day
School lunches that aren’t healthy can contribute to the obesity epidemic, according to researchers at the University of California, Davis.
Current guidelines don’t prohibit ultraprocessed foods and often allow for unhealthy foods as long as certain nutritional guidelines are met regarding calories, sugar and fat content, according to The Lancet Regional Health — Americas.
School lunch testing by several organizations that advocate for healthy school lunches found that school lunches often contain a high number of toxins.
For example, food items served to school kids in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., contained heavy metals, including lead, and roughly 50 pesticides, according to testing commissioned by Spotlight on America and reported in October 2024.
The Health Research Institute (HRI), an accredited independent lab in Iowa, conducted the testing and identified 49 pesticides — with 38 different pesticides detected in just one elementary school lunch. Among them was carbendazim, a fungicide banned in most European countries that can cause infertility and endocrine disruption.
Many wheat-based items contained the weedkiller glyphosate, commonly marketed as Roundup, which causes cancer and disrupts immune function.
In 2022, Moms Across America commissioned HRI to analyze the contents of 43 school lunches gathered from public schools in 15 U.S. states.
HRI Co-founder, CEO and Chief Scientist John Fagan said Spotlight on America’s 2024 testing produced comparable results to the 2022 testing.
However, he said, the 2022 testing also looked at nutritional value — an area that needs more attention.
Many U.S. school kids come from low-income families, Fagan said in an earlier interview with The Defender. “They’re food-insecure. School lunch is probably the best meal many of those kids have during the day. And yet it doesn’t give them the essential nutrients they need for their brain to grow and be healthy and strong.”
According to Fagan, fast food companies — including Subway, Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Chick-fil-A — commonly supply school lunches. Other suppliers include large food-service companies, including Aramark, Chartwells, Sodexo, Opaa!, Revolution Foods and Whitsons Culinary Group.
Healthy and fresh foods in schools can make a difference. In the late 1990s, a private group called Natural Ovens Bakery in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, began replacing processed foods in schools with fresh foods. Not only did student health improve, but their academic performance and behavioral issues did as well.
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I agree we need fresh local food, but there is a lot of waste and even graft in some of the use of these funds. More than just buying soda.... My hope is Brooke Rollins and the USDA will find ways to improve upon these programs -- the cuts are not for the current program year so there will not necessarily be an interruption of legitimate farm sourcing.
This seems completely contradictory to MAHA! Why would the USDA be allowed to cut this funding? If I’m understanding this article correctly, isn’t this part of RFK Jr.’s new role as HHS Secretary? Or isn’t it?