The administration has gone after food banks and school lunch programs.
While the Trump Administration claims to be focused on policies that will “Make America Healthy Again,” the reality is much different.
For the millions of American kids who rely on school meals as a key part of their daily nutrition intake, Trump’s actions are harmful.
Jessica Winter explores this dynamic in a recent piece in the New Yorker.
But, in the case of Bardwell’s abandoned cucumbers and cabbages, the mortal blow was struck by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in March, when it abruptly terminated a billion dollars in Biden-era funding that had helped food banks, schools, and child-care centers procure fresh food from local farmers. (The U.S.D.A. stated that the programs “no longer effectuate the goals of the agency.”) Bardwell Farms earned about two hundred thousand dollars selling vegetables through these federal programs last year, and expected to make a little more than that in 2025.
The losers in Trump’s America? Small farmers, food banks, and public schools.
The winners? Not at all clear.
Nearly thirty million children participate in the National School Lunch Program, and more than two-thirds of them are eligible for free or reduced-price meals.
That’s a pretty big impact – that is, the Trump team is hurting a lot of kids across the country by ending this one program.
The termination of the U.S.D.A. programs reportedly cost Minnesota more than seventeen million dollars over the next three years. “All the cuts really shake the farmers’ trust,” Haag said. “Farmers have a hard job. That’s why I quit. No one needs to make marketing these crops any harder. It makes farmers and rural communities feel forgotten.”