The U.S. Division of Agriculture has minimize greater than $1 billion in federal packages that gave colleges and meals banks funding to buy meals from native farms and ranchers ― a transfer that faculty lunch advocates say will take away free meals from tens of millions of kids whose mother and father are grappling with rising grocery costs.
The College Diet Affiliation (SNA), a nonprofit devoted to making sure kids are fed nutritious meals in colleges, sounded the alarm on this system cuts Monday.
“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,” SNA president Shannon Gleave, a registered dietitian nutritionist, mentioned.
“These proposals would cause millions of children to lose access to free school meals at a time when working families are struggling with rising food costs,” she continued. “Meanwhile, short-staffed school nutrition teams, striving to improve menus and expand scratch-cooking, would be saddled with time-consuming and costly paperwork created by new government inefficiencies.”
SNA mentioned greater than 800 of its members are visiting Capitol Hill right this moment to induce Congress to dam the USDA’s cuts and maintain investing in class meal packages.
The USDA confirmed to HuffPost that it had notified states of the 2 packages being minimize: the Native Meals for Faculties Cooperative Settlement Program (LFS), which gave $660 million to colleges and youngster care amenities, and the Native Meals Buy Help Cooperative Settlement Program (LFPA), which funded native meals banks and different comparable organizations.
A USDA spokesperson defended the change as a return to fiscal duty ― mirroring messaging from Elon Musk’s so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity ― and labeled LFPA and LFS as bygone wants from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“As a pandemic-era program, LFPA will now be sunsetted, marking a return to long-term, fiscally responsible initiatives,” the spokesperson informed HuffPost. “This isn’t an abrupt shift — just last week, USDA provided over half a billion in LFPA and LFS funding to fulfill existing commitments and support ongoing local food purchases.”
The spokesperson mentioned USDA nonetheless has greater than a dozen different “robust” vitamin packages in place and that this may permit the company to concentrate on different efforts.
“Unlike the Biden Administration … USDA is prioritizing stable, proven solutions that deliver lasting impact. The COVID era is over — USDA’s approach to nutrition programs will reflect that reality moving forward.”
Whereas the world could now not be in a pandemic state, the rising price of once-affordable, nutrient-packed grocery necessities is a pressure on mother and father’ wallets. General, the USDA discovered, meals costs in January 2025 had been 2.5% greater than in January 2024. However the skyrocketing, record-high price of eggs has made the largest headlines, with the USDA saying egg costs are predicted to extend 41.1% this 12 months alone.
Go Advert-Free — And Shield The Free Press
Already contributed? Log in to cover these messages.
Economists say President Donald Trump’s deliberate tariffs are additionally prone to enhance the price of groceries, at the very least briefly.
