USDA Cuts More Than $1 Billion Earmarked For Local Food In School Lunches | EUROtoday

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has minimize greater than $1 billion in federal applications that gave faculties 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 hundreds of thousands of kids whose dad and mom are grappling with rising grocery costs.

The School Nutrition Association (SNA), a nonprofit devoted to making sure kids are fed nutritious meals in faculties, 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 as we speak to induce Congress to dam the USDA’s cuts and hold investing at school meal applications.

The USDA confirmed to HuffPost that it had notified states of the 2 applications being minimize: the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program (LFS), which gave $660 million to colleges and youngster care amenities, and the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA), which funded native meals banks and different comparable organizations.

A USDA spokesperson defended the change as a return to fiscal accountability ― mirroring messaging from Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency ― 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 instructed 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” diet applications in place and that it will enable 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.”

While the world could not be in a pandemic state, the rising value of once-affordable, nutrient-packed grocery necessities is a pressure on dad and mom’ wallets. Overall, the USDA discovered, meals costs in January 2025 had been 2.5% larger than in January 2024. But the skyrocketing, record-high value of eggs has made the largest headlines, with the USDA saying egg costs are predicted to extend 41.1% this 12 months alone.

Economists say President Donald Trump’s deliberate tariffs are additionally more likely to enhance the price of groceries, no less than quickly.