Food Policy Tracker

Since then, there have been a dizzying number of changes to the plan. While Trump has backtracked on several other deadlines, he has said August 1 would be the final deadline for countries to negotiate trade deals with the U.S. If they failed to reach a deal, the higher rates proposed earlier would go into effect.

As that deadline approaches, these are a few of the most important things to know about how farmers and America’s food system might be affected, especially with regard  to the country’s biggest agricultural trade partners: Mexico, Canada, China, the European Union, and Japan. Many other smaller markets will also be impacted.

Trade with Mexico and Canada: Since April 2, a 25 percent tariff has been in place for many goods from our closest neighbors, but imports covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) have been exempt. That includes many agricultural products like fruits and vegetables from Mexico and animal feed, grains, and meat from Canada. Trump also reduced the tariff on potash, an important fertilizer not covered by USMCA, to 10 percent. Now, he says Canada’s rate will rise to 35 percent and Mexico’s to 30 percent. The carveouts for USMCA goods and fertilizer are expected to stay in place, but that has not been confirmed. Canada has since imposed reciprocal tariffs on American meat and dairy products.

Exports to China: The U.S. is currently charging a 51 percent tax on imports from China. That could go up to as high as 145 percent if no deal is reached, but Trump has extended the deadline for negotiations, which are ongoing, to August 12. China has retaliated by imposing steep taxes on American farm goods, including corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, meats, dairy products, and more. During Trump’s last term, commodity farmers were particularly hard hit by Chinese tariffs and the export market never fully recovered. Trump’s USDA bailed farmers out with close to $30 billion in taxpayer funds.

The EU Trade Deal: This week, Trump announced a major trade deal with the European Union that set the tax on imports from the E.U. at 15 percent instead of the 30 percent proposed earlier. While the rate is lower, the tariff will likely still drive up prices at restaurants, which buy products like wine and specialty cheeses from Europe, and could make it harder for small, independent restaurants to operate. Trump has also said the deal will benefit American farmers, but details on agricultural tariffs the E.U. has agreed to drop have not yet been shared.

The Japan Trade Deal: Last week, Trump also finalized a deal with Japan to set its tariff rate at 15 percent instead of the 25 percent proposed earlier. As part of the deal, Japan agreed to increase imports of American rice 75 percent and purchase $8 billion in U.S. goods, including corn, soybeans, and biofuels made from crops.

Brazil’s Looming Deadline: Trump has proposed a 50 percent tariff on all products imported from Brazil starting on August 1, and Brazil responded by promising to reciprocate with the same rate. Brazil sends a significant amount of coffee, sugar, and specialty foods like açai to the U.S., so the prices of those products could rise. On the flip side, it accounts for 20 percent of U.S. fertilizer purchases.

In addition to the major trade deals and tariff negotiations, the White House and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) over the last month have announced smaller deals they characterized as trade wins for American farmers.

On July 1, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Namibia will now accept imports of American poultry products, “unlocking a market valued at $15 million.” On July 23, Rollins said Trump had negotiated access to Australian markets for U.S. beef producers, but Australia’s prime minister later said the decision to ease the restriction on U.S. beef, in place due to historic concerns around mad cow disease, had nothing to do with Trump.

Since March, the percentage of federal revenue provided by tariffs more than doubled, from about 2 percent historically to 5 percent; fiscal year revenue from customs duties topped $100 billion for the first time in June. (Link to this post.)

“The threats posed to our health by foods often considered ultra-processed are clear and convincing, making it imperative that we work in lockstep with our federal partners to advance, for the first time ever, a uniform definition of ultra-processed foods,” FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said in a press release.

The FDA is housed within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is a frequent critic of ultra-processed foods, also referred to as “UPFs.” The first Make America Healthy (MAHA) Report, released by the MAHA Commission he leads, focused heavily on the foods’ health harms. Last month, HHS also announced it will run a public-facing campaign to warn Americans of the dangers of ultra-processed foods.

While many nutritionists have been recommending diets heavy in whole foods for decades, the science on the specific health harms of ultra-processed foods is still new, and no clear, single definition exists. The most common definition comes from the NOVA system, developed by researchers in Brazil. However, some experts point to its limitations.

In the Federal Register notice, officials ask the public to weigh in on some of the complicated details that often get discussed when it comes to what is and isn’t a UPF: Which physical processes should lead to a food being considered ultra-processed? Which ingredients on a label immediately make a food UPF, and does the amount in the food matter?

In an interview with Politico’s Dasha Burns over the weekend, Makary acknowledged that landing on a “perfect” definition will be difficult; he characterized the process as essentially figuring out where to draw the line between simple processing that doesn’t affect the healthfulness of a food (like chopping a cucumber) and industrial processing that does.

The agencies will take public comments until September 23. The process is likely to draw significant input from health and nutrition advocacy groups, food companies and their trade associations, and the agricultural groups that represent farmers growing crops that get turned into common UPF ingredients, such as corn and soy.

In the press release, the agencies said that when completed, the final definition “will allow for consistency in research and policy to pave the way for addressing health concerns associated with the consumption of ultra-processed foods.” That could include significant implications for school meals and food aid programs. While federal regulations in those programs don’t currently include restrictions on UPFs, several states have already begun passing laws that do, with Kennedy’s help.

“At a time when the cost of diet-related disease continues to grow, we welcome any effort to help consumers identify and avoid UPF and build healthier diets,” said Scott Faber, senior vice president for government affairs at the Environmental Working Group, in a statement. (Link to this post.)

The Pesticide Injury Accountability Act is a response to Bayer’s ongoing efforts over the past two years to lobby for laws at both the state and federal level that would make it harder for individuals to sue agrichemical giants based on claims that their products caused cancer and other illnesses. Those efforts were successful in two states: Georgia and North Dakota. And last week, Republicans in the House added a clause to an appropriations bill that could also make it harder for individuals to sue. Representative Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) plans to introduce an amendment to strike the provision.

“Rather than providing a liability shield so that foreign corporations are allowed to poison the American people, Congress should instead pass the Pesticide Injury Accountability Act to ensure that these chemical companies can be held accountable in federal court for the harm caused by their toxic products,” Booker said.

Organizations including the National Family Farm Coalition and Farm Action praised the bill. Groups aligned with Robert F. Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement—including Moms Across America and Children’s Health Defense, which Kennedy founded—are also backing it. While advocacy groups have been pushing for reforms to pesticide policies for decades, Booker and Pingree have long been some of the only lawmakers in Washington willing to support them.

Booker’s bill was just one of several pieces of food and farm legislation introduced last week. Some of the following bills could get attached to a farm bill if Congress decides to move forward with a slimmed-down version later this year.

Asunción Valdivia Heat Illness, Injury and Fatality Prevention Act
Named after a California farmworker who died of heat stroke after picking grapes, the bill would direct the Occupational Standards and Health Agency (OSHA) to create stronger regulations to protect workers from dangerous heat. It was introduced in both the House and the Senate with a long list of co-sponsors, all Democrats.

DIGNITY Act
Among other immigration provisions, the bill would fund border security and mandate the use of E-verify while creating a new ​​path toward green card status (but not citizenship) for immigrants who have been living and working in the U.S. without legal authorization for at least five years. It was introduced in the House by Representatives Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Florida) and Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) and has bipartisan support.

AFIDA Improvements Act 
Makes changes to the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA) to mandate more comprehensive, timely tracking of foreign investment in and purchases of farmland. Representative Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) introduced the bill along with nine House colleagues from both sides of the aisle. (Link to this post.)

In a five-page memorandum and an unlisted YouTube video aimed at USDA employees, Rollins laid out the details of the plan, which includes four key pillars:

• Ensure the size of USDA’s workforce aligns with available financial resources and agricultural priorities
• Bring USDA closer to its customers
• Eliminate management layers and bureaucracy
• Consolidate redundant support functions

The plan notes that the agency will move “much of” its 4,600 D.C. area employees out of the capital, eliminating what it calls “a bloated, expensive, and unsustainable organization.” Rollins said that the five hubs, where most D.C. staff will be relocated, will bring the USDA closer to its “core constituents.” Those hubs are located in:

• Raleigh, North Carolina
• Kansas City, Missouri
• Indianapolis, Indiana
• Fort Collins, Colorado
• Salt Lake City, Utah

The move builds on Rollins’ testimony to Congress in May that the agency was close to finalizing its plan to restructure and shrink the USDA. During the first Trump administration, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue led a similar effort to reorganize and relocate USDA employees. The Biden administration worked to undo those efforts, but the reorganization of two offices within the USDA resulted in a loss of half their staff, and similar moves in the Bureau of Land Management led to an exodus of leadership during the first Trump administration.

Rollins’ message to USDA employees is below; Civil Eats will continue to report on this plan as the details take shape. (Link to this post.)

Among the groups represented at the hearing were the National Pork Producers Council, the Iowa Farm Bureau, and the American Farm Bureau Federation, along with agricultural economists.

The hearing represents  the latest salvo in a years-long effort to overturn animal welfare rules that were established in 2018 by Prop. 12. In advance of the hearing, House Agriculture Committee Chair G.T. Thompson (R-Pennsylvania) issued a statement claiming Prop. 12 “has wreaked havoc on America’s food supply chain, forcing chaos and cost onto producers and consumers nationwide.”

“In the name of so-called animal welfare, radical activists are using state law to impose their extreme agenda on all 50 states and our international trading partners,” he wrote, adding that Congress must now “restore order and protect the balance between states’ rights and interstate commerce.”

Republicans and witnesses repeatedly said during today’s hearing that the retail cost of some pork products has increased by  an average of 20 percent as a result of Prop. 12. These numbers are inconsistent with research, however, and, as  Civil Eats reported in May, are based on limited data: a seven-month period during which the law was being phased in.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics and the USDA’s Economic Research Service both report much lower real and projected increases. BLS data show about a 1 percent increase in pork prices between June 2024 and May 2025, and USDA data show pork prices rose about .6 percent between May 2024 and June 2025. Politico’s Grace Yarrow is reporting that the USDA released new data showing that Prop. 12 increased pork prices in California by nearly 19 percent compared to last year.

Democrats in both houses of Congress are speaking out in opposition to any efforts to roll back the animal welfare rules. In today’s hearing, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Illinois) said that 82 percent of small pork producers (those who raise fewer than 500 pigs) are benefiting from Prop. 12. A group of 28 Democratic and Independent senators sent a letter to the Senate Agriculture Committee earlier this month urging them to reject efforts to repeal the rules, which they say threaten not only these state-level food and farm bills, but would undermine countless state and local laws and create “an overnight regulatory vacuum.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) on Wednesday introduced the Save Our Bacon Act, which is the same language first introduced as Section 12007 in last year’s draft farm bill text.  The new bill would restrict states from passing laws on animal welfare that affect producers in other states. In a press release, Hinson’s office noted that the bill aims to “alleviate this overregulation by prohibiting state and local governments from interfering with the production of livestock in other states.”

Other groups, including animal-welfare advocacy groups and organizations representing small farmers, issued statements in opposition to today’s hearing.

“There are thousands of farmers across the country who support and depend on commonsense bans against the cruel confinement of farm animals,” said Matt Bershadker, head of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). “We encourage Congress to listen to these farmers and protect state laws like Proposition 12, which create vital market opportunities for higher-welfare farming that align with the values of the American public.”

Farmers associated with Farm Action Fund sent a letter to the House Agriculture committee in support of Prop. 12, which they said has “created a stable, premium market that allows us to sustain our farms, invest in better infrastructure and livestock care, and continue farming in an increasingly consolidated industry. . . . [We] now rely on this market as a part of our farms’ financial futures.” (Link to this post.)

On July 9, the USDA sent a letter to state agencies, which administer SNAP, informing them that they will be required to submit data including addresses, birth dates, and Social Security numbers to be collected in a new national Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Information Database beginning on July 24.

According to a notice in the Federal Register, the USDA will use the data to “ensure the integrity of Government programs, including by verifying SNAP recipient eligibility against federally maintained databases, identifying and eliminating duplicate enrollments, and performing additional eligibility and program integrity checks specified herein.”

But Senator Adam Schiff (D-California) and a group of about a dozen Democrats in the Senate sent a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins yesterday saying that the plan violates laws meant to protect Americans from federal government overreach.

“Simply put, this plan negates the right to privacy for any of the tens of millions of Americans in need of food assistance during economic hardship,” the senators wrote. “We demand that USDA cease the unlawful compiling of sensitive and personally identifying information regarding American families under the guise of ‘defend[ing] against’ unsubstantiated allegations of fraud, waste, or abuse.”

The senators noted that the USDA identified “verifying eligibility based on immigration status” as one use of the data. Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for SNAP benefits, and the recent passage of the Republican budget bill made additional groups of immigrants with legal authorization, such as refugees, ineligible. Yesterday, the Associated Press reported that the Department of Health and Human Services is now handing over data on Medicaid enrollees to Immigrant and Customs Enforcement.

The USDA first requested the SNAP data from the states in May, but then walked it back after a coalition of groups sued, claiming the law says the data must be maintained by the states and that the agency was violating federal privacy laws. Those groups are concerned about the data being used to track Americans based on characteristics like disabilities or gender identity. The lawsuit is ongoing, and yesterday, the groups requested a temporary restraining order in response to the USDA’s renewed effort. (Link to this post.)

“While this legislation provides the administration flexibility on which funds they can return, I included an amendment that clarifies that funding will not be taken from the administration of commodity-based programs like Food for Peace and McGovern-Dole that provide a critical market for our farmers to sell excess commodities to feed hungry people around the world,” Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) said in a press release.

The rescissions process is being used as a way to give Congressional authority to the Trump administration’s spending cuts. With the help of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Trump began dismantling USAID soon after he took office, and the agency was shuttered on June 30. In a May budget proposal, President Trump proposed eliminating Food for Peace and the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education program, which funds school meals in low-income countries.

Staff in Uzbekistan unload a shipment of USAID food assistance in 2020. (Photo CC-licensed by USAID Central Asia on Flickr)

However, unlike with other cuts to foreign aid, some Republicans have pushed back on defunding the food programs because they purchase billions of dollars in commodities from farmers in their states. In early July, The New York Times reported that Kansas farmers who lost Food for Peace contracts were looking into dog food as a new market for their grains.

In the press release, Moran pointed out that the recently passed Senate appropriations bill allocating agriculture funding for next year also preserved funding for the Food for Peace and McGovern-Dole programs. Senators included a requirement that the administration provide a report on what it would take to transfer Food for Peace to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A team at the State Department is currently running the remaining USAID programs.

The rescissions package’s zeroing out of funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is expected to hit the small, rural affiliates of National Public Radio (NPR) the hardest, since federal funding generally makes up a larger portion of their budgets. The total cuts saved $9 billion, which is about .1 percent of the federal government’s $7 trillion in annual spending. (Link to this post.)

July 16, 2025 – In a draft appropriations bill that House Republicans moved forward this week, lawmakers included a provision that would halt the progress of an influential Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assessment related to the risks of forever chemicals in farm soils.

Released by the Biden administration in mid-January, it was the first government report to find that the common practice of spreading sewage sludge on farms for fertilizer poses serious health risks for farmers and their neighbors due to the presence of the chemicals, which are collectively called PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances). EPA officials found “human health risks exceeding the agency’s acceptable thresholds for cancer and non-cancer effects.” It had been published as a draft in order to accept public comments.

But the appropriations bill includes language that says no government funds “may be used to finalize, implement, administer, or enforce the draft risk assessment.”

“Preventing EPA from protecting public health and our food supply from toxic contamination epitomizes special interest politics at their worst,” said Kyla Bennet, the Science Policy Director for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, in a press release. “If finalized, this ban will leave ill-equipped state agricultural agencies to deal with a rapidly spreading chemical disaster.”

In May, Trump’s EPA also rolled back limits on some PFAS in drinking water and canceled a collection of research projects that were part of a $15 million investment into understanding PFAS contamination on farms and in food.

The bill also includes language prohibiting funds from being used to change pesticide labeling in any way that conflicts with the EPA’s human health assessments. The pesticide industry has been lobbying lawmakers to strengthen the agency’s authority on pesticide labels as a way to prevent states from adopting labels that advise of different potential risks and to curb lawsuits, but it’s unclear exactly what impact this provision might have.

The bill will now be taken up by the full House Appropriations Committee and then go to Senate appropriators, who could make significant changes; if they do, then the House will need to re-vote on the updated bill.

In June, the House appropriations bill dedicated to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) funding took a similar tack to stop and reverse progress on a set of rules meant to protect farmers from meatpacker abuse. But when the Senate took up the bill this week, it removed that provision. Senators also restored Supplemental Nutrition Assistance for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) funding for fruits and vegetables, included funding for Food for Peace and the McGovern-Dole Food for Education program, which Trump proposed eliminating, and largely maintained appropriations funding for USDA and FDA programs.

Congress has until October to finish the appropriations process and pass final bills. (Link to this post.)

Correction: This post has been updated to clarify that the bill will go to the full House Appropriations Committee next.

Organizations operating the 12 business centers have had their funding frozen since January and have been struggling to function as they sought answers from the USDA.

“The Biden Administration created multiple, massive programs without any long-term way to finance them. This is not sustainable for farmers who rely on these programs, and it flies in the face of Congressional intent,” Secretary Rollins said in an emailed statement sent to Congressional offices. “USDA will honor existing commitments for over 450 grants to farmers and food businesses to ensure planning decisions on the farm can continue as normal, however stakeholders should not plan on this program continuing.”

The small Regional Food Business Centers program was one of a suite of initiatives created by the Biden administration that were focused on rebuilding regional supply chains. The repaired infrastructure was intended to serve small family farms and push back on the increasing consolidation in the food system that has hollowed out rural communities.

The centers were designed to be hubs of business development activity, including the issuing of small “Business Builder Grants” to farms and food entrepreneurs in their areas. In an October 2024 progress report, Biden’s USDA reported that 2,800 individuals had received technical assistance, recipients had formed 1,500 new partnerships, and 287 businesses reported increased revenue as a result of the program.

But because the five-year grants were awarded in 2023, some centers are still in the process of getting up and running and allocating their funding. The USDA said that those centers that have not yet awarded grants—Great Lakes Midwest RFBC, Southeast RFBC, Delta RFBC, and Islands and Remote Areas RFBC—will see their contracts immediately terminated. However, a source within the USDA who asked for anonymity due to the risk of retaliation said that those centers would have already awarded grants but were unable to do so due to the funding freeze. For those that have awarded grants, USDA said they would honor the contracts and allow the centers to manage them through May 2026.

In a Civil Eats story on the freeze in funding published in April, individuals running the centers said the program was especially impactful because it was designed to link farms, businesses, and others in the local supply chain together to improve economic viability.

“If there ever is a program that really deserves bipartisan support across the spectrum, it’s this program,” Paul Freedman, the director of the Appalachia Regional Food Business Center, told Civil Eats. “Our middle name is business. Our goal here is to help businesses bring food to market so that it’s available at a fair price and so that producers, processors, and farmers can actually make a living doing this.” (Link to this post.)

This article has been updated with new detail on why some centers had not yet awarded grants in their regions.

“Today’s guidance eliminates the illegal threats issued under the Biden Administration that mandated compliance with ever-evolving concepts of gender ideology as a condition for participation in USDA school programs,” reads new guidance posted on July 7 for state administrators of school breakfast and lunch programs.

On X, the Congressional Equality Caucus chaired by Representative Mark Takano (D-California) posted that the change would make it easier to discriminate against LGBTQI+ people. “This is beyond cruel. No American should go hungry just because of who they are or who they love,” they wrote.

A group of Republican states and others had sued the Biden administration over the guidance several years ago, and the USDA mentioned this “litigation risk” the agency faced as a reason to roll back the guidance. The new directive also says rescinding the anti-discrimination rules will prevent “the waste of resources” involved in overseeing compliance with those rules.

At the same time, the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the USDA all issued new directives around “public benefits” that will make it harder for immigrants to access workforce protection resources and meal programs.

In an email to supporters, the Food and Research Action Center (FRAC), a D.C.-based hunger policy organization, said that while neither the rollback of discrimination protections nor the new restrictions for immigrants will immediately change who is eligible for school meals or other food programs, “they could have a chilling effect on participation.” (Link to this post.)

The Food Chemical Reassessment Act of 2025 would require the FDA to review, every three years, the safety of certain chemicals added to food. The initial list includes the most common food dyes and other controversial additives, like titanium dioxide and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT).

“Too many chemicals in our food supply haven’t been properly reviewed for safety, or haven’t been looked at in decades,” Jessica Hernandez, the director of the nonprofit Environmental Working Group Policy, said in a statement. “We’re grateful to Rep. Schakowsky and Rep. DeLauro for taking action to make sure the FDA does its job to protect our health.”

The bill is an attempt to crack down on the Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) process, which allows companies to self-certify ingredients as safe to eat. Watchdog groups have been attempting to change it for decades, and their efforts have generally been supported by Democrats in Congress.

Over the past year, that has shifted. Supported by his Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made food additives a central focus of the FDA.

In March, Kennedy directed the FDA to look into revising the GRAS process. (Biden’s FDA had started a process to do so; last fall, the agency began taking public comments on how to better review chemicals already added to food.) Kennedy also rolled out a plan to pressure food companies into removing chemical food dyes from their products, with a goal of eliminating the dyes by 2026.

Since then, some food giants like Nestle, Kraft Heinz, and General Mills have committed to ditching the dyes. The FDA has also been fast-tracking the approval of natural alternatives. It announced the approval of gardenia blue, derived from a flowering evergreen, on Monday.

Amid an emerging patchwork of state laws that ban dyes and other additives, the federal government has mainly stopped short of regulation. Laws passed by Congress could change that. Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) created the Senate MAHA Caucus to provide the legislative force needed to execute Kennedy’s goals.

Marshall’s office has been working on legislation that would also change the GRAS process, but he has not yet introduced the bill. Republicans in the House MAHA Caucus have not yet weighed in on whether they’ll support the Food Chemical Reassessment Act. (Link to this post.)

July 11, 2025 Update 2: The United Farm Workers on Friday announced that one of the workers injured during Thursday’s ICE raid in Camarillo, Calif., died of his injuries.

July 11, 2025 Update 1: The Department of Homeland Security announced today that federal agents arrested 200 immigrants in the farm raids in Carpinteria and Camarillo and that during the operations they also “rescued” 10 migrant children “from potential exploitation, forced labor, and human trafficking.” Officials also said one protester in Camarillo fired a gun at officers; they are offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the individual’s arrest. An ABC video appears to show a protester firing a gun; the accompanying summary says no injuries were reported. Our reporter on the scene at the time did not witness gunfire.

July 10, 2025 – Large groups of immigration agents with military vehicles, helicopters, and weapons raided two farms in Southern California today, one in Carpinteria and another in Camarillo, where they rounded up workers and threw tear gas at protestors.

Both were locations of Glasshouse Farms, a cannabis operation that grows marijuana in large greenhouses.

In Carpinteria, farm staff told a local news station that 10 workers had been detained. There, federal agents threw flash-bang grenades and smoke bombs at a group of protestors, including  U.S. Representative Salud Carbajal (D-California) and a local councilwoman.

In Camarillo, Ventura officials estimated 12 to 15 workers were detained. There, live helicopter footage from ABC News showed about a dozen military vehicles, fire trucks, and ambulances near the farms. At the site, individuals could be seen lined up against two walls outside. Federal agents blocked a road, where protesters gathered with signs and bullhorns and filmed with their cellphone cameras. At around both 1:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m., agents fired non-lethal rounds and tear gas at the crowd before advancing forward, pointing weapons at the protestors. At one point, some protestors tried to block military vehicles from advancing; several protestors threw water bottles at the phalanx of federal agents.

(Photo credit: Brian Calvert)

Civil Eats was on the ground in Camarillo, where protestors said they had been assembled since around 10 a.m. They said the agents had advanced at least four times and also shot rubber bullets at them. The protestors said they could see agents lining people up outside the farm facility and loading them into vans. One woman said her cousin, who was in the process of applying for legal status, was hiding inside.

“We feed the country, we feed the people. Out here, this is all farmland. This a farm community,” said Javier Martinez, a Ventura County employee who took part in the protests. “There are a lot of farmworkers, field workers; they’re here to work.”

Although the administration has wavered several times as to whether farmworkers would be included in mass deportation plans, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said this week that there would be “no amnesty.” Civil Eats has been tracking raids on farms and other food establishments and has recorded at least 23 to date. (Link to this post.)

This story has been updated so that all times mentioned reflect Pacific Time.

In response to decades of well-documented discrimination against farmers based on race and gender, the 1990 Farm Bill defined “socially disadvantaged” as a category that applied to Black or African American, American Indian or Native Alaskan, Hispanic, Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander farmers. Depending on the program, women may also be included.

Some farm bill grant programs are designed specifically for these groups, like the 2501 Program, which also serves veteran farmers. Other programs administered by the agency, as well as farm loans, have included carve-outs for disadvantaged groups. For example, the 2018 Farm Bill mandated that 5 percent of grant funding in the Conservation Stewardship Program, which pays farmers to implement environmentally friendly practices, had to go to socially disadvantaged farmers.

A National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition analysis found that the policy was successful in helping get funds to farmers who had historically been locked out of USDA support. The new rule would likely end set-asides like that one, although the exact outcome is unclear since Congress has authority over how the USDA spends money.

While many rules are posted as a draft first for public comment, agency officials posted this rule in its finalized form without soliciting input. In the text, they said the USDA’s efforts to address past injustices have succeeded. “These actions collectively support the conclusion that past discrimination has been sufficiently addressed and that further race- and sex-based remedies are no longer necessary or legally justified under current circumstances,” they wrote.

The move is in line with other USDA policy changes made since January to implement President Trump’s executive order on eliminating policies that prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).  USDA officials scrubbed the Equity Commission Report completed during the Biden administration from its website almost immediately after the inauguration, and it has been steadily canceling signed contracts with farmers and organizations that use language referencing race and gender.

In the rule, USDA also referenced lawsuits over its prioritization of racial groups. White farmers, some backed by prominent Republicans, have sued the agency, claiming discrimination.

In response to the rule, Agriculture Committee member Representative Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) put out a statement referring to the move as part of Trump’s “resegregation agenda.”

“The ‘socially disadvantaged’ designation was a long-overdue recognition of the barriers to land, credit, and opportunity that farmers of color have faced for generations,” she said. “This move isn’t about fairness or efficiency. It’s about erasing history and stripping the tools that help level the playing field. USDA must be held accountable, and Congress must act to protect the farmers this country has long ignored.” (Link to this post.)

California voters approved Proposition 2 in 2008 and then Proposition 12 in 2018, both of which include requirements around how much space egg-laying hens have on farms. Since then, other states have proposed cage-free laws, while consumer demand drove a larger shift across the country.

According to recent U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data, nearly half of the country’s eggs now come from cage-free production.

However, DOJ lawyers argue California’s animal welfare laws violate the federal Egg Productions Inspection Act by imposing requirements that are different from or on top of the federal standards.

“Americans across the country have suffered the consequences of liberal policies causing massive inflation for everyday items like eggs,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a press release. “Under President Trump’s leadership, we will use the full extent of federal law to ensure that American families are free from oppressive regulatory burdens and restore American prosperity.”

While cage-free eggs are slightly more expensive than conventional eggs, economists say higher national egg prices in recent years are due to a confluence of factors including bird flu, COVID-19 supply chain disruptions, and companies taking advantage of consumers through price gouging.

Analyses of the impact of California’s animal welfare laws have found that while they may lead to price increases on the specific foods subject to the state’s laws (especially in the beginning as supply chains adapt), there’s no evidence they affect prices outside the state.

Proposition 12 has been the target of multiple lawsuits, but the pushback to date has largely come from the pork industry. In a 2022 Supreme Court case, the Association of California Egg Farmers submitted a brief in favor of keeping the law in place. The Court ruled in favor of California against the pork industry; at the end of June, it declined to hear another challenge brought by pork producers. The pork industry is now working to get Congress to overturn the law.

“We fully expect this misguided and disappointing DOJ initiative to meet the same fate as every similar legal challenge before it,” said Scott Edwards, general counsel for advocacy group Animal Wellness Action. “States have the constitutional authority to ensure humane treatment of animals and to protect their citizens from unsafe and unethical agricultural practices. DOJ should be defending these rights—not working to hurt American farmers, consumers, and animals.”

The Trump administration has been targeting California on many fronts, with multiple lawsuits and immigration enforcement actions that are much more aggressive compared to actions in other states. (Link to this post.)

At the event, Rollins unveiled a National Farm Security Action Plan that lays out actions to work with the Border Patrol to prevent plant and animal pathogens from entering the country and review all U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) programs to ensure they comply with President Trump’s “America First” mandate, among other steps.

But at the top of the list—in the plan and at the event—was a focus on foreign entities owning farmland. More specifically, Rollins pointed to Chinese companies owning farmland near military bases.

“If you look at the gradations of threat, that’s the most obvious,” said Peter Navarro, the White House trade advisor who has also been a driving force behind Trump’s tariffs. “What Secretary Rollins is doing today, it’s a historic day. She’s putting down the marker that the United States is no longer going to tolerate attacks on our agricultural system, not just the land, but the supply chain as well.”

Foreign farmland ownership has become a hot-button issue in Washington, D.C. and states around the country over the last several years, with Republicans zeroing in especially on China. Less than 4 percent of American farmland is owned by foreign entities, but the acreage has been increasing in recent years. Entities in Canada, the Netherlands, and Italy own the bulk of the land. Chinese companies own about 265,000 acres, or .02 percent. Pork giant Smithfield, owned by the Chinese firm WH Group, is responsible for most of that, although the company has been selling off some of its land, according to The Washington Post.

Navarro mentioned both Smithfield and the other large agricultural company owned by a Chinese entity: Syngenta, one of the four largest seed and chemical companies in the world.

Last year, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report on foreign farmland ownership in which it found the USDA’s processes “to collect, track, and report key information are flawed” and recommended several actions to correct them. Some of the actions have already been completed, while others are included in the new farm security plan.

But at the event, Rollins hinted at a more definitive path toward banning foreign ownership and “clawing back” land that’s already in the hands of foreign companies. “We are looking at every available option,” she said. “You’ll likely see an executive order on this very soon from the White House, and we’ll be looking at multiple different authorities.”

Some states have already passed laws, and members of Congress, including Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kansas), have also proposed legislation.

“To me the Chinese owning land is just a small, small piece of the puzzle,” Marshall said at the event. “I’m much more concerned about the food supply down the road here, that right now foreign entities own about a fifth of the protein processing. Between beef and pork, JBS and Smithfield own about a fifth, maybe even a fourth of the protein processing in this entire country. That’s just wrong.” (JBS is Brazilian-owned.)

Rollins was also asked about the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown threatening farmers’ ability to hire workers. She said there would be “no amnesty” and suggested Americans on Medicaid who are subject to new work requirements as a result of the recent tax bill passage could fill the gap. Those requirements will be phased in starting in 2027. (Link to this post.)

But information on the event replaced a page on the USDA website that previously led to details on the agency’s season-long annual Friday farmers’ market, which typically runs outside its Washington, D.C., headquarters from May through October, with around 30 farms and food vendors represented each week.

Former Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue visits the USDA Farmers Market in July of 2019. (Photo credit: Tom Witham, USDA)

In March, the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), which typically runs the Friday market, posted a call for vendors for the 2025 season on Instagram. But while a listing in its own directory says the market is open from May to October, it never opened. A USDA email address provided as a contact within the directory no longer exists.

Nearly 100 AMS employees based in D.C. accepted a Trump administration resignation offer, which was intended to cut staff across the government, and according to two USDA employees who asked to remain anonymous due to the risk of retaliation, most of the staff working on the Friday market were among them.

An agency spokesperson said the suggestion that staffing had anything to do with the discontinuation of the market is “incorrect,” but they did not answer detailed questions about whether the Friday market is officially cancelled, or whether farmers will face a gap in sales due to the closure. Instead, they provided an emailed statement.

“As we approach the 250th anniversary of America, USDA is uniquely positioned to celebrate America’s farmers and ranchers,” it said. “The agency is proudly continuing the long tradition of hosting a farmers’ market at the agency through the Great American Farmers Market.”

After a grand opening celebration on Aug. 3, the event will feature themed days including a MAHA day focused on nutrition and wellness and a day showcasing farmers from around the country, with more specific details to follow. (Link to this post.)

Kennedy traveled to Oklahoma for an event where Republican governor Kevin Stitt signed a waiver eliminating soda and candy from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and an executive order directing state agencies to take artificial food dyes out of meals.

In Louisiana, Governor Jeff Landry signed a similar SNAP waiver and a piece of legislation dubbed the “MAHA Bill” that goes much further. In addition to restricting food dyes in school meals and requiring QR-code labeling for certain additives, the bill mandates restaurants include disclaimers on their menus or in another clearly visible location if they cook with canola, soybean, corn, sunflower, or other seed oils.

That provision is likely to stoke controversy because the scientific consensus around seed oils is that they are not universally harmful (and in some cases are healthier than animal-based options), but that consensus is now at odds with the actions and rhetoric of the federal government’s top health official.

Kennedy’s travel follows earlier trips to West Virginia, Utah, Arizona, and other states to support similar bills. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has partnered with him to get soda and other unhealthy foods out of SNAP, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture is now maintaining a map showing where waivers have been approved.

On Instagram on July 4, Kennedy said “a new American revolution” is underway to combat chronic disease. “We’ve just gotten started here at HHS to rebuild a food and medical system that are worthy of your trust,” he said. “I’m inviting you to join the revolution too by making healthy choices for you and your family.”

However, on the same day, many advocacy groups criticized the administration and Republicans in Congress for making it much harder for low-income Americans to do just that, by reducing access to SNAP benefits and eliminating SNAP-Ed.

“There is overwhelming evidence that demonstrates these legislative and budgetary actions will have harmful consequences to public health and none of these actions gets us closer to improving the health and nutrition security of Americans, which the Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Agriculture share as common goals,” Wylecia Wiggs Harris, Chief Executive Officer of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, said in a statement in response to the signing of the One Big Beautiful Bill. (Link to this post.)

July 3, 2025 – After a long night of convincing ultra-conservative and moderate holdouts to vote with their party, followed by a nearly nine-hour, impassioned speech staged by Representative Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), Republicans passed their massive tax bill, complete with sweeping changes to food assistance and many other provisions that will have profound impacts on the food system. President Trump is expected to quickly sign the bill.

“We are going to make this country stronger, safer, and more prosperous than ever before and every American is going to benefit from that,” Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said right before lawmakers cast their votes, as his Republican colleagues whooped and whistled in celebration.

The bill includes the biggest-ever changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the nation’s largest hunger-relief program. Expanded work requirements are expected to lead to 5 million Americans losing their grocery benefits, while a $65 billion cost-shift to states could lead to states cutting benefits or discontinuing SNAP altogether. Cuts to healthcare could compound the struggle low-income Americans will face in putting food on the table, with 11.8 million people expected to lose Medicaid coverage and 4.2 million losing Obamacare (Affordable Care Act) insurance plans. Farmers rely disproportionately on those plans.

“Pregnant women, children, seniors, single mothers, the disabled, and the low-income Americans among us receiving Medicaid and SNAP will have the peace of mind of knowing that we’ve made these safety nets stronger with our reforms,” Johnson said.

During his record-breaking speech on the floor, Jeffries read letters from families who rely on food aid and farmers in states around the country, calling the bill “an assault” on healthcare, nutritional assistance, children, veterans, farmers, and everyday Americans. “Millions of Americans, our fellow Americans, are at risk of going hungry,” he said.

While the majority of Americans will see slightly lower taxes, the tax breaks in the bill will disproportionately benefit the wealthiest families. Families in the lowest income brackets will see their resources significantly reduced, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The bill includes $67 billion for commodity farm payments, but Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee pointed to the fact that farms and other sectors of the food chain will also be hit by the SNAP cuts as families’ purchasing power dwindles. They estimate the cuts will lead to a $25 billion drop in farm revenue over 10 years. SNAP is also responsible for close to 250,000 grocery jobs.

“Today marks a grave turning point for our country, one which leaves rural communities and farmers behind and places us on the road toward increased hunger, less prosperity, and fewer opportunities for working families,” said Angie Craig (D-Minnesota), the top Democrat on the committee. Craig said the inclusion of SNAP cuts and some farm bill provisions in the bill will also make it harder to pass a farm bill, leaving other farm programs stuck in limbo.

The bill could also affect farmers and the broader food system by allocating historic resources toward the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants, which is already impacting food and farm workers. It includes $121.5 billion in new funding for hiring and training more Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, expanding detention centers, and building the border wall. It will also prevent some immigrants in the country legally, including refugees and asylum seekers, from accessing food aid and healthcare assistance.

Finally, the bill will deal a huge blow to the transition to renewable energy at a time when farmers are increasingly confronting the impacts of climate change. It will eliminate Biden-era tax credits for solar and wind farms and other renewable infrastructure projects unless they come online before the end of 2027, a provision that will stop many projects because they often take years to get permits, raise funds, and construct. (Link to this post.)

Rubio said that the work USAID did was not serving American interests. “Moving forward, our assistance will be targeted and time limited,” he wrote. “We will favor those nations that have demonstrated both the ability and willingness to help themselves and will target our resources to areas where they can have a multiplier effect and catalyze durable private sector, including American companies, and global investment.”

On USAID’s last day in operation, a study published in The Lancet estimated that between 2000 and 2021, the agency’s work saved close to 92 million lives, about a third of them children under five. Researchers estimated the current funding cuts could lead to an additional 14 million deaths around the world.

While most of the lives were saved by reducing the incidence of diseases like AIDS and malaria, the study also mentioned nutritional deficiencies. During the 2024 fiscal year, USAID spent around $5 billion on food assistance, about $2 billion of which was used to purchase commodity foods from American farmers.

Food for Peace was USAID’s marquee program, and has long had bipartisan support in Congress. In February, a coalition of Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate introduced legislation to move the program to the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In June, a draft of a House appropriations bill included that change, although Food for Peace’s budget was cut in half. Lawmakers are expected to start working to move the appropriations process along again after the tax bill process is over. The State Department, which has absorbed some pieces of USAID’s programming, was unable to provide comment by press time on the current status of Food for Peace.

But questions remain about whether the USDA has the right international infrastructure to administer the program, especially when the agency has also lost more than 15,000 staff members since January. In May, the agency also began canceling some grant contracts within the international food aid program it already runs.

On USAID’s last day, former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and U2 frontman Bono sent video messages to employees thanking them for work they characterized as lifesaving and reflective of American strength. (Link to this post.)

An updated version released by the Senate earlier today keeps most of the changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) proposed earlier. The bill will limit future increases in SNAP benefits; eliminate the popular SNAP-Ed program that teaches healthy eating habits; and make certain groups of non-citizens, like refugees, ineligible for benefits.

Most significantly, it will subject new groups to the most stringent work requirements, shift administrative costs to states, and shift benefit costs—up to 15 percent starting in 2028—to states, based on metrics that measure errors in payment administration.

Those changes are expected to push millions of Americans out of the program, while other provisions in the bill will likely kick as many as 11.8 million low-income people off of Medicaid and 4.2 million off of Obamacare insurance plans.

“Under this legislation—which cuts nearly $1 trillion from essential health programs like Medicaid and SNAP—millions of hard-working people will lose healthcare coverage and food assistance under the heavy burden of new punitive governmental red tape,” said Richard E. Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, in a statement. “By its very design, the bill will make our country sicker, put children at risk of going hungry, and make it harder for families to afford basic necessities—all to further enrich wealthy individuals and corporations.”

At the final hour, Republicans carved out some exemptions within the changes to SNAP in order to get Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to vote for the bill. The bill as previously written would have hit Alaskans the hardest because of the way changes were designed; Now, Alaska will be exempt from, or have more time to implement, some of the changes. On social media, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) pointed to the deal as Republican hypocrisy. She forced a vote to push back on the exemptions on the floor, but it did not succeed.

The bill also includes an estimated $67 billion in new funding for commodity farm subsidy programs. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) was expected to offer an amendment to limit payments within those programs—a longtime goal of his—but was talked out of it by Senator John Boozman (R-Arkansas), according to Politico.

“Passage of this legislation is critical to delivering the promises made to the American people by President Trump,” Boozman said in a statement after the bill passed. “We make common sense reforms to SNAP to ensure the program operates efficiently, is accountable to the taxpayers, and helps those who truly need it. There is also good news for hardworking farmers, ranchers, and producers who, for too long, were forced to operate under outdated policies.” Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins celebrated the vote, calling it “a desperately needed win for our farmers,” by posting an image of her face next to President Trump’s on Instagram.

Klobuchar, however, pointed to the fact that reduced SNAP spending will hurt farmers, as it will deprive them of customers. “These cuts also mean farmers, who are already operating on razor-thin margins, will see billions in lost revenue and rural, independent grocers will be in jeopardy,” she said in a statement.

The bill now heads back to the House, where it’s still unclear whether Republicans, who are divided on many issues and have the narrowest of margins, have the votes to pass it. While Trump has pushed to sign the bill by July 4th, he wavered on that deadline this morning. (Link to this post.)

The first relates to Bayer’s petition for the court to hear a case that the agrichemical giant hopes could end the more than 100,000 filed lawsuits that claim individuals have developed cancer due to the use of its marquee weedkiller, Roundup. (Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup.) Instead of deciding yes or no on the petition, the court asked the Solicitor General, the federal government’s Supreme Court lawyer, to weigh in on the case first. That pushes the final decision on whether the court will hear the case to the next session, which starts in the fall.

“We see this request as an encouraging step and look forward to hearing the views of the government,” Bayer CEO Bill Anderson said in a statement on the decision. In the meantime, according to the statement, the company will continue to work to get state laws passed that protect them from future Roundup litigation. So far, they’ve been successful in Georgia and North Dakota.

The other case involved the U.S. pork industry in its second attempt to ask the court to overturn California’s animal welfare law known as Proposition 12. Prop. 12 is controversial because its requirements for housing mother pigs approved by California voters apply to pork producers in other states, if they want to sell their meat in California. The law has been the subject of ongoing attempts by the pork industry to stall or overturn it, but more than a year after it went into full effect, Civil Eats’ reporting found that many large producers have already complied with the law, and Prop. 12 may also be helping smaller producers reach new markets.

Today, the Supreme Court denied the Iowa Pork Producers’ Association’s petition to take up the case once again. In 2022, the court heard a different case brought by the National Pork Producers Council challenging Prop. 12, and their 2023 ruling left the law in place. The pork industry is also lobbying Congress to pass legislation that would overturn the law. (Link to this post.)

Kyle Kunkler starts today as the deputy assistant administrator for pesticides in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. He will be working alongside Nancy Beck, a former chemical industry executive.

“Mr. Kunkler has a wealth of experience in the agricultural sector, and the president made a great choice in selecting this highly qualified individual to advance EPA’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment,” an EPA spokesperson said in an email responding to Civil Eats’ questions.

Kunkler most recently worked as director of government affairs, with a focus on pesticides, for the American Soybean Association. He lobbied members of Congress on pesticide policy and other farm topics as recently as earlier this year. At its 2020 annual meeting, CropLife America, the trade association that represents the country’s largest agrichemical companies, presented Kunkler with its “Rising Star Award.”

It’s not uncommon for pesticide-industry veterans and lobbyists to work at the EPA and other federal agencies, but President Trump has repeatedly vowed to “drain the swamp.” And Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,  a longtime critic of pesticide use, has railed against industry influence within the federal government and promised specifically to reduce chemical exposures as part of his Make America Healthy Again movement.

In a press release, Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook said Kunkler’s appointment represents a clear contradiction. “The appointment of Kyle Kunkler sends a loud, clear message: industry influence is back in charge at the EPA,” he said. “It’s a stunning reversal of the campaign promises Trump and RFK Jr. made to their MAHA followers—that they’d stand up to chemical giants and protect children from dangerous pesticides.”

In response to those accusations, the EPA spokerson accused previous administrations of having a revolving door with industry and being rife with ethics violations. “Every Trump political appointee works with the career employees in the EPA ethics office to ensure all applicable ethics obligations are addressed,” they said.

Last week, CropLife America President and CEO Alexandra Dunn also sent Kennedy a letter asking him to retract what she called “misleading and alarmist” statements about pesticides made in the MAHA Report and offering 17 policy recommendations to support the pesticide industry. Dunn was an administrator in the same EPA office in charge of chemical oversight during Trump’s first term. (Link to this post.)

Toxic algal blooms are a regular occurrence in Lake Erie as a result of excess nutrients used on farms, particularly concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), escaping into waterways. These blooms pose a risk to human and animal health, as the toxins generated contaminate drinking water and deplete the lake of oxygen, killing off fish.

The EPA selected four Michigan and Ohio grant recipients, including the Ohio Department of Agriculture, the Nature Conservancy, Lenawee County Soil and Water Conservation District, and the Regents of the University of Michigan.

Each of the projects selected has set forth initiatives to mitigate nutrient runoff by creating professional development and employment opportunities, as well as providing technical assistance and resources to farmers.

“By implementing edge of field practices, like adding vegetated buffers or two-stage ditches, farmers can help make the Western Lake Erie Basin more resilient while further protecting their fields from short-term threats, including flooding and drought,” Jessica D’Ambrosio, The Nature Conservancy Ohio’s agriculture director, said in a statement.

The funding was provided through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI), a program that began in 2010 to accelerate efforts to protect and restore the Great Lakes. Since its inception, more than $5 billion has been appropriated for the GLRI.

While the EPA has been slashing funding for many other programs since March—cancelling almost 800 grants—the GLRI appears to be untouched, continuing business as usual. (Link to this post)

The moves are happening in the midst of a widespread immigration crackdown that is affecting food and farm labor. As raids sweep up undocumented farmworkers and cause others to skip work in fear, the DOL is working alongside the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to make it easier for farmers to use the H-2A program, according to Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins.

Advocacy groups said the possibility of more guest workers being recruited quickly means protections are needed now more than ever. “Now is the time to strengthen worker protections in the deeply flawed H-2A agricultural visa program, not leave workers vulnerable to abuse and exploitation,” the Centro de los Derechos del Migrante (CDM) wrote in a statement on the decision.

As the program has ballooned in size over the last decade, multiple reports, including from CDM, have found that H-2A workers are particularly vulnerable to wage theft, health and safety violations, and other abuses because their housing, transportation, and ability to legally work and live in the country are all tied to their employers.

The rule finalized a year ago—Improving Protections for Workers in Temporary Agricultural Employment in the United States—made small changes intended to address those risks. It prohibited retaliation against workers who engaged in workforce organizing activities and protected their right to have guests visit employer-provided housing. It required more transparency in the recruitment process, mandated employers share more details of job requirements up-front, and prohibited them from confiscating worker passports or other immigration documents.

But the Biden-era rule was already on hold in 17 Republican states after those states sued and a judge blocked the DOL from enforcing it. In its announcement suspending the rule, the DOL cited legal uncertainty and inconsistency as a reason for its decision. “A temporary, nationwide suspension of enforcement ensures clarity and consistency while existing litigation over the legality of the 2024 Final Rule continues, and the Department considers further regulatory action,” wrote Donald M. Harrison, acting administrator of the Wage and Hour Division, in a bulletin.

But CDM sees the action as an affront to workers. “Farmworkers who participate in the H-2A visa program have fought for years—even decades—for strengthened protections against retaliation, fraud, and trafficking,” they wrote. “And now the Trump administration is dismissing them and their hard-won protections.” (Link to this post.)

“Putting American Farmers First means cutting the millions of dollars that are being wasted on woke DEI propaganda,” Rollins said in the press release.

The announcement did not provide details on the 145 grants terminated, such as who the recipients were or what kind of work they were funding, aside from citing three examples identified by single-line descriptors. Those examples added up to just over $3 million, although the USDA said the whole list totals “a maximum savings of $148.6 million.” On X, Rollins thanked the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for its help, and the office responded by citing two more examples, without details, that added up to less than $700,000.

The USDA did not respond to a request for full details on the terminated grants. However, Civil Eats’ reporting has found that one grant cited in the announcement was most likely a $2.5 million award to the nonprofit Agroecology Commons through the Land, Capital, and Market Access Program.

In March, the agency publicized its cancellation of a different small grant to the same group, based on the nonprofit’s support of BIPOC and queer farmers. This larger grant termination is a much bigger hit, since the organization was using the funds to purchase land and create a commons for up to 10 “BIPOC, LGBTQIA, and landless farmers,” and the money was supposed to fund more than half of the the group’s staffing capacity over the next three years.

“It’s a seismic blow, but at least we know and can start the next steps,” said Leah Atwood, Agroecology Commons’ director of partnerships.

In early June, the organization sued the USDA alongside other groups that lost funding. Now, their legal team is amending the complaint to reference the likely recent cancellation. (Agroecology Commons has not yet received an official termination letter, so as of right now, the legal team told Civil Eats that “the amended complaint will make reference to the Secretary’s stated intention to terminate a grant that resembles a grant Agroecology Commons has, and that officially terminating such a grant would be unlawful in the way that other terminations at issue in the suit are.”)

Agroecology Common’s leadership said that while Rollins framed the cancellation as a victory for American farmers, their project was contributing to a more diverse, resilient farm landscape through land access and farmer training at a time when young and new farmers are desperately needed.

The Land, Capital, and Market Access Program, created initially out of the Biden-era American Rescue Plan, was championed by the National Young Farmers Coalition. Its members are now pushing to get a permanent version authorized in the next farm bill, and the measure has bipartisan support.

Last week, when Rollins announced the terminations of contracts based on DEI criteria, the coalition posted an image on Instagram in response that read, “Hey USDA, Young, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ producers ARE American farmers.”

At this point, it is unclear whether other grants in the same program will also be canceled, given that all of them specify serving underserved groups, including Black, Indigenous, and immigrant farmers. As a result, the other awardees are left in limbo, said Amanda Koehler, the Young Farmers’ land policy associate director, leaving them fearful that their awards are next.

“The consequences of the funding freeze and uncertainty have already been devastating for LCM awardees and projects,” she said. The termination of this funding will further harm the livelihoods of young, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and other underserved producers—and poses a serious threat to the future of our farm and food system.”

Koehler added that her last day at Young Farmers is this Friday, as the organization is cutting 15 staff positions “due to executive branch funding instability and dips in philanthropic giving.” (Link to this post.)

This post has been updated to reflect the exact status of Agroecology Commons’ grant award.

June 23, 2025 – One of the most controversial provisions related to food and agriculture in the Republicans’ “One Big Beautiful Bill” is now off the table.

Late Friday, Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that plans to shift a significant portion of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefit costs onto states violated a Congressional rule. MacDonough also axed a provision that would have made certain groups of non-citizens, such as refugees, ineligible for benefits. (Undocumented immigrants are already ineligible.)

Republican lawmakers had hoped federal dollars saved in the SNAP shift would offset some of the billions that would go to tax cuts. Analysts warned, however, that it would also mean millions of Americans would lose access to food aid, and would be a major budgetary challenge for states.

The so-called Byrd Rule determines what lawmakers can and can’t include in the process of budget reconciliation, which they are currently using to move their tax bill without the threat of a Democratic filibuster. The nonpartisan parliamentarian is responsible for evaluating each provision to make sure it complies with the rule.

It is unclear how the Senate Agriculture Committee will proceed, as Republicans across Congress are under immense pressure from President Donald Trump to cut spending in order to pay for the extension of tax cuts for wealthier households and increased spending for military, immigration enforcement, and commodity farms. Congress was aiming to get the bill to the president by the July 4 holiday.

“We are continuing to examine options that comply with Senate rules to achieve savings through budget reconciliation to ensure SNAP serves those who truly need it while being responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars,” Senate Agriculture Committee Chair John Boozman (R-Arkansas) said in a statement.

The committee’s plan to tighten work requirements, which would ultimately push many people out of the program, was not found to violate the rule.

As the process continues, Democrats in Congress will be paying close attention. Since the suite of cuts was first proposed, they have been fighting back on several fronts. They’ve held press conferences, shadow hearings, and roundtables to draw attention to the potential impacts of cuts on American families, farmers, and rural economies.

Last week, Senate Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) and Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) sent a letter to Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) urging him to change course on the food assistance provisions.

“While Republicans’ proposed cuts to SNAP will still be devastating to families, farmers, and independent grocers across the country, we will keep fighting to protect families in need,” Klobuchar said in a statement following the parliamentarian’s decision. “Instead of a rushed partisan process, Republicans should work with us to lower costs for Americans and pass a bipartisan Farm Bill that works for all farmers and rural America.” (Link to this post.)

Now, some Republicans in Congress are quietly pushing back on those efforts.

The House Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee responsible for funding the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) submitted a report to explain decisions made in their draft funding bill earlier this month.

“The Committee is concerned that state legislative activity to ban FDA-approved food and color additives threatens both the FDA’s unified, science-based federal food safety system and the interstate commerce of agricultural, food, and beverage goods,” they wrote on page 83 of the report.

The committee members said they were reaffirming “the essential role FDA plays in determining the safety of food and color additives in the nation’s food and beverage supply.” They also requested that the agency provide a report to the committee detailing the additives FDA is reviewing, including safety concerns.

The language suggests that there may be tension within the party around how exactly the regulation of food dyes should happen, which could impact whether Kennedy is able to eventually get the additives out of the food supply.

While Kennedy has made the issue one of the FDA’s top priorities, his recent announcement on the phaseout of food dyes depends entirely on companies voluntarily removing the dyes from their products. Since then, a handful of companies have committed to doing so. Kraft Heinz announced this week it will remove artificial dyes from its products, including Jell-O and Kool-Aid, and General Mills agreed to remove dyes from its products by 2027. However, many companies who made similar commitments about a decade ago, when attention to food dyes’ health impacts was similarly high, reneged on those promises once attention waned.

Because the FDA has declined to outright ban the dyes—with the exception of Red Dye No. 3, which the Biden administration banned—states have moved to fill the gap with their own laws.

In April, in response to the agency’s announcement asking industry to voluntarily remove the dyes, Consumer Brands, the trade organization that represents the country’s biggest food companies, issued a statement defending the additives’ safety. The statement also included many of the same points included in the Appropriations Committee report, including concerns about a “state patchwork” of different laws. “Consumer Brands has long asked HHS and FDA to reestablish themselves as the country’s leading regulatory authority, and we appreciate that the administration has reasserted their leadership in response to the myriad of state activity in the food regulation space,” it read. (Link to this post.)

During the pandemic, legislators allowed the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to waive requirements that mandated all WIC-eligible members of a family—including infants and children—be enrolled in person. Virtual appointments have continued since, but the provision is set to expire in September of 2026. An average of 6.2 million people, including millions of children, rely on WIC to fill nutrition gaps during critical stages of development each year.

“In 2025, or any year for that matter, no mother should have to take three buses, miss work, or find childcare just to keep her benefits, and no child should wait weeks for the nutritional support that they need right now,” said Representative Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania), who co-sponsored the bipartisan bill with Representative Suzanne Bonamici (D-Oregon). “The MODERN WIC Act brings this critical program into the 21st century by making it work better for the real lives of today’s families.”

WIC, which provides healthy foods and formula to low-income mothers and their children and is linked to improved health outcomes, has historically enjoyed support on both sides of the aisle.

But the push to maintain virtual certification for easier enrollment comes at a time when the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have also proposed cutting WIC benefits for fruits and vegetables. Experts who participated in today’s briefing said this move would undermine recent progress in helping low-income families eat healthier.

During the Biden administration, as part of a plan to help more eligible families take advantage of WIC, the USDA revised the WIC food package to cover more options at the grocery store. In the process, the agency raised the amount of the cash value given to participants for fruits and vegetables to about $26 per month for children and $50 for mothers.

“The extra support made a huge difference in my home,” said Jehimy Benitez, a young mother who used WIC benefits to help feed her daughter, Allison, who attended the briefing with her. “It meant I didn’t have to choose between nutritious foods and other necessities, and then I could bring fresh produce home for my daughter and teach her what it means to be healthy.”

The Trump administration’s discretionary budget request for 2026 proposed rolling back this benefit to a level set in 2014, adjusted for inflation. That would mean a decrease to $10 per month for children and $13 per month for mothers.

During the appropriations process in early June, Republicans in Congress included a smaller cut, but advocates said that would still hurt families.

“Participation [in WIC] has grown pretty significantly in the past couple of years, including about a 15 percent increase in child participation, which is a really exciting step forward for the program, and we want to make sure that no one is turned away,” said Nell Menefee-Libey, senior public policy manager at the National WIC Association. “We are concerned that the recently proposed House Agriculture Appropriations bill does not provide sufficient funding to meet that standard, such that every person who seeks WIC services and is eligible will receive them.” Congress has until October 1 to finalize appropriations. (Link to this post.)

According to a request for proposals posted last week, the campaign will be the first in a series launched by the agency, with others touching on physical fitness and “spiritual growth.” Research shows diets higher in ultra-processed foods are linked to higher risk of diabetes and other chronic diseases, and that connection will be the focus of the first campaign. More than 36 million Americans—about 11 percent of the population—have type 2 diabetes, and rates among children and teens have been rising.

“The campaign’s creative content will turn heads, create viral moments on social media, and—above all else—inspire Americans to take back their health through eating real food,” the request reads. Contractors have until June 26 to submit their proposals for consideration. The request does not include what the winning contract would earn, but NBC News reported the campaign is expected to cost upwards of $20 million.

In 2010, First Lady Michelle Obama launched a national campaign called Let’s Move, which emphasized healthy eating and physical activity as a solution to combat rising rates of childhood obesity and chronic disease.

In May, Kennedy said the health harms caused by processed foods would become a “central focus” of the agencies under his purview, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The MAHA Commission Report, which was found to cite nonexistent research studies and misrepresent the results of others, also put ultra-processed foods front and center.

The request is likely to draw criticism for its emphasis on “how Americans can take personal responsibility for their health” at a time when the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are attempting to cut funds for healthcare and food assistance for low-income Americans. The administration has also slashed funds for research and bringing whole, healthy foods from local farms into schools and food banks. In April, the country’s leading ultra-processed foods researcher left NIH after he said HHS wanted him to tweak messaging to fit Kennedy’s preconceived narrative on processed foods.

The request for proposals also tells contractors the campaign should “popularize technology like wearables as cool, modern tools for measuring diet impact and taking control of your own health.” That directive is likely to draw scrutiny, given MAHA star Casey Means, Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, is the co-founder of Levels Health, a company that sells wearable glucose monitors (along with an associated subscription). (Link to this post.)

“This bill takes a commonsense approach to reforming SNAP—cutting waste, increasing state accountability, and helping recipients transition to self-sufficiency through work and training. It’s about being good stewards of taxpayer dollars while giving folks the tools to succeed,” Chairman John Boozman (R-Arkansas) said in a statement.

The Senate’s plan keeps many of the House’s changes to SNAP, including eliminating the popular SNAP-Ed program that provides nutrition education to low-income families, barring refugees and asylum seekers from accessing benefits, and requiring that future changes to the Thrifty Food Plan be cost-neutral.

However, there are other slight differences in the Senate bill. Compared to the House version, the age limit for the strictest work requirements is 64 rather than 65; parents will be required to work if their children are 10 or older, rather than 7 or older; and states would need to pay for 15 percent of the program’s costs, rather than the 25 percent proposed by the House.

Policy analysts at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) predicted those costs are still too high for many states to take on and would likely result in states having to cut food assistance.

“Despite differences around the edges, the Senate proposal mirrors the misguided priorities and harmful impacts of its House counterpart: millions of people would lose some or all of the food assistance they need to afford groceries, all to help to pay for trillions in tax cuts skewed to the wealthy,” CBPP Vice President of Food Assistance Ty Jones Cox said in a statement.

In a document released with the text of the bill, Senate Republicans called the claim that millions would lose food assistance “false,” but did not provide clear evidence to the contrary.

The Senate’s bill also increases spending on farm bill programs including commodity payments, crop insurance, and conservation programs. Like the House bill, it would incorporate additional money from the Inflation Reduction Act into conservation funding, but strip the funding of its original designation for climate-smart practices.

The future of the bill remains uncertain. The Senate is aiming to get all of the components together and vote before the July 4 holiday. The changes are significant enough that it will then have to be passed again by the House before President Trump can sign it into law. The House passed their version by the narrowest of margins, and there are several other provisions that many Republicans still disagree on. (Link to this post.)

June 16, 2025 Update:  On Thursday, June 12, an ICE official directed agents to “hold on all work site enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and operating hotels.” Soon after, United Farm Workers put out a statement questioning whether the guidance would be followed.

June 11, 2025 – As protests against the Trump administration’s arrests of immigrants continue in Los Angeles and spread to other cities, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol officers are pressing into produce fields in California, meatpacking plants in the Midwest, and restaurants in the South.

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times reported that agents were sweeping across Tulare, Ventura, and Fresno counties in California, among other sites, targeting