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Food and Agriculture

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Resources and Updates

 

 

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​Documents & Links

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This chapter explores the connections between agriculture and food, first by considering issues of food, nutrition and public health and then by exploring the impact of climate change on food security. 

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​Note that the previous link, Chapter 10, Food Safety addresses updates to food safety regulation. See Chapter 3, Agriculture and the Environment for additional issues related to climate change.

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What is food?
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I am sorry to report the passing of a longstanding leader of food system thought and reform, Joan Gussow:

 

Relevant Reports

 

Local Food

 

August 6 Update: 

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April 30, 2025 Update: 

  • The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) published a blog with its analysis of the gov't spending cuts, including the cuts to the local food programs; See, USDA Programs Freeze: What We Know, NSAC (Apr. 30, 2025)

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March 17, 2025 Update: 

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March 14, 2025 Update:

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​Nutrition & Heath
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Dietary Guidance

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The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA): Current Status, Cong. Res. Serv. In Focus Rep. IF12963 (Apr. 10 , 2025).

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Release of the 2025 Dietary Guidance Scientific Report (released in Dec. 2024; comment period until Feb. 2025) (report to be used by the USDA and HHS in formulating the Dietary Guidance for 2025-2030)

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"Make America Healthy Again" 

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"To fully address the growing health crisis in America, we must re-direct our national focus, in the public and private sectors, toward understanding and drastically lowering chronic disease rates and ending childhood chronic disease.  This includes fresh thinking on nutrition, physical activity, healthy lifestyles, over-reliance on medication and treatments, the effects of new technological habits, environmental impacts, and food and drug quality and safety.  We must restore the integrity of the scientific process by protecting expert recommendations from inappropriate influence and increasing transparency regarding existing data.  We must ensure our healthcare system promotes health rather than just managing disease."

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  • The order directed the new commission to deliver a report to the President in 100 days addressing ten specified issues and to deliver a "Make Our Children Healthy Again" Strategy that suggests the appropriate restructuring of the Federal Governments response to the childhood chronic disease crisis. . ." 

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MAHA Assessment Report (May 2025)

 

The MAHA Assessment Report (May 30, 2025)

 

  • The Assessment Report was reportedly corrected for the most egregious errors, but it still contains data that is exaggerated and/or not supported by the citations provided. There are numerous dead links to the sources cited, and some support the general concern but provide statistics that are different from those claimed. The errors undercut the credibility of the report, even when there is general scientific agreement that some of the problems that are raised exist and must be addressed. The problems are perhaps most apparent in the controversial section on the "overmedicalization" of children. 

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The United States lags well behind other wealthy Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries on numerous indicators of child wellbeing (OECD, 2020, 2022). This analysis ranks the United States near the bottom of dozens of wealthy nations for infant mortality, low-weight births, childhood poverty, and several education and school success indicators. The United States ranked 36th out of 38 countries evaluated in the 2020 UNICEF report Worlds of Influence: Understanding What Shapes Child Well-Being in Rich Countries, which focused on children’s mental wellbeing, physical health, and academic and social skills (Gromada et al., 2020). The United States ranks lowest among OECD countries for child physical health, including rates of childhood obesity (Fryar, Carroll, & Afful, 2020; Gromada et al., 2020). Additionally, the OECD 2022 Child Well-Being Dashboard ranks the United States well below average on life satisfaction among children, with only 31% of 15-year-old youth reporting high satisfaction with their life as a whole (OECD, 2022).

 

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Analysis of the MAHA Strategy Report

 

The MAHA Strategy Report White House (Sept. 9, 2025)

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The MAHA Strategy Report generated a lot of commentary. The list below attempts to provide a mixture of objective analysis and a variety of different perspectives.

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Other Relevant Announcements

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Regulatory Actions and Analysis
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  • ​The FDA extended the comment period on the Biden administration's proposed rule for front of pack labeling; Comments will be accepted through July 15, 2025;

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  • Proposed rule on Front-of-Package Nutrition Labeling

90 Fed.Reg. 5426 (Jan. 16, 2025) (proposed rule to be codified at 21 C.F.R. pt 101).

Announcement of proposed rule: Constituent Update (Jan. 14, 2025)

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  • Order revoking the authorized uses of the food coloring FD&C Red No. 3 in food and ingested drugs (compliance date of Jan. 15, 2027 for food; Jan. 18, 2028 for drugs).

Order (Jan. 15, 2025); 90 Fed. Reg. 4628 (Jan. 16, 2025) (final amendment to order)

Announcement, FD&C Red No. 3

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  • Final rule published updating the definition of "healthy"

89 Fed. Reg. 106,064 (Dec. 19, 2024) (final rule codified at 21 C.F.R. pt. 101) (effective Feb. 25, 2025, compliance date Feb. 25, 2028).

Announcement of new rule; links to infographics, fact sheets, etc.

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Food Insecurity
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The MAHA Report was criticized for failing to reference some of the most serious problems impacting child health in the U.S. Public health professionals rank poverty as among the most important, 

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Consider the following excerpt from: Launching Lifelong Health by Improving Health Care for Children, Youth, and Families, Chapter 4, Children in the United States: Demographics, Health, and Wellbeing, Consensus Study Report, National Academies of Sciences (2024):

 

Poverty

Income level can have a significant impact on the health and well being of children, as it impacts the capacity of their families to meet basic needs and can introduce high levels of family stress that impact important relationships and social interactions in a child’s life. Family income influences where a child lives, what they eat, and what child care settings and schools they are able to attend. Living in poverty leaves children vulnerable to environmental, health, educational, and safety risks.

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As noted, children in the United States experience high rates of poverty, substantially higher than in almost all other industrialized countries (National Academies, 2019a, 2023g). According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United States is ranked 6th worst out of 41 countries for childhood poverty outcomes (Ingraham, 2014). Among children living in poverty in the United States, approximately three-quarters are children of color; two-thirds live in working families; and many live in single-parent households, primarily with their mothers (Haider, 2021; Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2022a,b). More than 2 million children live in “deep poverty” (having family income below one-half of the poverty line; National Academies, 2019a). The highest rate of poverty of any age group is children under age 5 (Children’s Defense Fund, 2023). Children in the South experience higher poverty rates than in other regions of the country. In 2022, Hispanic children were the largest group of children living in poverty, followed by Black, Asian, and White children (see Figure 4-2; Shrider & Creamer, 2023). Poverty rates among immigrant children, especially Hispanic children, are the highest, with child poverty rates twice as high as among immigrant families as among nonimmigrant families (Acevedo-Garcia et al., 2021). The U.S. Department of Education indicated a median estimated poverty rate of nearly 14% for children ages 5–17 in U.S. school districts in 2022 (Lui, 2023). This average hides the massive variation across districts, with the poverty rate ranging from just 3.1% in some districts to as high as 42.4% in others. . . .

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In 2021, child poverty levels fell dramatically—by nearly half—with the help of pandemic-era government programs and cash assistance not typically seen in other years. However, the end of these pandemic-era social safety net programs led to a doubling of the supplemental poverty measure rate for children from 2021 (5.2%) to 2022 (12.4%), returning to prepandemic levels and affecting about 9 million children (Shrider & Creamer, 2023).

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Food security intersects with economic status—children living in households with annual incomes below the official poverty line have higher rates of food insecurity, with rates varying between rural and urban areas (Carson & Boege, 2020; Economic Research Service, 2023a; Marshall et al., 2022). In 2022, approximately 7.3 million children lived in food-insecure households, and the number of food-insecure households with children (insecure at least some point during the year) increased from approximately 6% in 2021 to almost 9% in 2022 (Rabbitt et al., 2023a,b). A growing body of evidence associates the negative consequences of food insecurity with children’s health and developmental outcomes (Wight et al., 2014). For example, children in households experiencing food insecurity have rates of lifetime asthma diagnosis and depressive symptoms that were 19.1% and 27.9% higher, respectively, compared with their food-secure counterparts (Thomas, Miller, & Morrissey, 2019).

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Housing also affects children’s health outcomes. Housing that is inadequate, crowded, or too costly can pose serious problems for children’s physical, psychological, and social wellbeing (Breysse et al., 2004; Frederick et al., 2014; Krieger & Higgins, 2002; Kushel et al., 2006). In 2021, 39% of U.S. households with children had one or more of three housing problems: physically inadequate housing, crowded housing, or housing cost burden greater than 30% of household income (FCFS, 2023b). During 2022, an estimated 97,800 children were homeless at a single point in time, and 10% of these children were unsheltered (FCFS, 2023b).

Historically marginalized people and their families are disproportionately impacted by homelessness. Black and Hispanic youth face greater risks, spending more time homeless than their White counterparts (Gonzalez et al., 2021). Among youth aged 13–25, American Indian and Alaska Native, Black, and Hispanic youth experience higher rates of homelessness (11%, 7%, and 7%, respectively) than White, non-Hispanic youth (4%; Gonzalez et al., 2021). The intersection of marginalized identities exacerbates these inequities, with LGBTQ+-identifying Black youth facing especially high rates of homelessness.

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Budget Issues 

 

Budget Resolutions from Congress will have a significant impact on food security and public health funding, as cuts to the food assistance programs are under discussion. This is an ongoing story to watch:

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  • From the Bipartisan Policy Center:  "The Senate Budget Committee introduced a budget resolution for fiscal year (FY) 2025 and passed it out of committee on an 11-10 party line vote on February 12. If approved by both the House and Senate, it will unlock a reconciliation process that enables major tax-and-spending legislation to fast track and bypass the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster rule with a simple majority." See, What's in the FY2025 Senate Budget Resolution, Bipartisan Policy Center (Feb. 13, 2025).

 

  • Republican House Budget Proposal Passes Out of Committee (Feb. 13, 2025)

$4.5 trillion in tax breaks are paid for (in part) by a reduction of $230 billion from food assistance programs and $880 billion in cuts from Medicaid and health insurance under the Affordable Care Act;  See, e.g., House GOP panel passes budget blueprint with $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and steep spending reductions, NBC News (Feb. 13, 2025)

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Withdrawal from International Organizations and Elimination of Aid

 

While Food Farming & Sustainability limits its topics to domestic issues, the Trump administration's drastic reductions to U.S. international food assistance must be considered. Below are some of the many resources available:

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Cuts to International Aid

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Reports and Analysis
 
The Congressional Research Service has excellent reports summarizing the federal nutrition programs​. Listed below are only those published since January 2025. Others can be found at www.Congress.gov.
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Climate Change Developments​
 
For specific reference to President Trump's actions with respect to Climate Change, see the Trump Administration Actions page.
 
Additional environmental updates are found in the updates for Chapter III, Agriculture and the Environment page.
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  • Farmers Legal Action Group, Inc. (FLAG) has published a Farmers’ Guide to Carbon Contracts. 

"It is designed to help farmers understand carbon market contracts and make an informed decision about whether to agree to a carbon contract. In a carbon market contract, a farmer agrees to adopt certain farming practices that are expected to keep carbon in the ground or draw carbon from the air into the soil. Under the contract, farmers are paid to adopt these practices. The details for how the carbon is captured by farming practices, how farmers are paid, and other important requirements are set out in the carbon market contract. This Guide looks closely at those carbon market contracts from the farmer’s perspective. Farmers, farm advocates, farm attorneys, and others are welcome to consult, download, print, or share the Guide for free.

Farmers’ Guide to Carbon Markets – February 2025

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​In 2024, there were 27 confirmed weather/climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each to affect United States. These events included 1 drought event, 1 flooding event, 17 severe storm events, 5 tropical cyclone events, 1 wildfire event, and 2 winter storm events. Overall, these events resulted in the deaths of 568 people and had significant economic effects on the areas impacted. The 1980–2024 annual average is 9.0 events (CPI-adjusted); the annual average for the most recent 5 years (2020–2024) is 23.0 events (CPI-adjusted).

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The Trump administration has canceled future Billion Dollar weather analysis going forward. The following statement is posted on the website: "In alignment with evolving priorities, statutory mandates, and staffing changes, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) will no longer be updating the Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters product."

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Understanding NOAA's "Billion Dollar Disasters," Cong. Res. Serv. In Focus Rep. No. IF12944 (Mar. 17, 2025)

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Websites​

 

General Legal Resources

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Food, Agriculture & Climate Resources​

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What is food?
Climate Change
Map of 2024 Billion dollar disasters
Proposed front of pack label

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Nutrition & Health
Food Insecurity
Obesity

2010 - present

2010 - present

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