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food security
The GOP Is Taking Food From Kids to Give Billionaires a Tax Break
Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” will result in the largest cut to SNAP in history, at $186 billion through 2034.
Jul 24, 2025
What do Louisiana, West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Alabama have in common? For one thing, they’re red states. For another, they’re poor states. Each has among the top 10 highest percentages of residents on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps.
And finally, every one of their Republican lawmakers voted for U.S. President Donald Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill”—which will result in the largest cut to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in history, at $186 billion through 2034.
The bill doesn’t just cut federal SNAP spending. It also, for the first time, shifts much of that burden to the states. So state governments will need to raise taxes, cut spending, or further slash benefits to meet these added expenses. Others may eliminate their SNAP rolls entirely.
SNAP offers taxpayers a tremendous return on investment. “One study estimates that every SNAP dollar invested in children returns $62 in value over the long term,” the Center on Policy and Budget Priorities reports.
Whether we live in red states or blue states, all of us need to speak out against this cruelty.
So GOP lawmakers aren’t making these cuts because we can’t afford SNAP. They’re doing it to offset some of their deficit-busting tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy. Taking food from kids to give billionaires a tax break? Talk about Robin Hood in reverse.
In an open letter to congressional leaders, 23 state governors—including the leaders of historically red states like North Carolina, Kansas, and Kentucky—call these SNAP cuts “unrealistic” and warn they will “result in too many Americans forced to survive rather than thrive.”
Red states will be among the hardest hit, but it’s a truly national problem. In 2023, the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that 13.5% of U.S households were “food insecure,” meaning they have a “limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods.” SNAP benefits currently serve more than 40 million Americans, almost half of them children.
Between cuts, burdensome new work and reporting requirements, and the cost shifting to the states, the “Big Beautiful Bill” could cause over 22.3 million families to lose most, if not all, of their SNAP benefits, according to the Urban Institute. That includes over 3.3 million children.
Studies show that work requirements don’t result in more employment—they only result in eligible people losing benefits because of the onerous reporting requirements.
Children whose families receive SNAP benefits also qualify for free and reduced school lunch and summer Electronic Benefits Transfer programs. But millions will lose this qualification under Trump’s new law, leaving kids hungry at school as well as at home. And children who are U.S. citizens but who have parents without a Social Security number will be prohibited from receiving food under this bill.
Children aren’t the only demographic at risk of going hungry. The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) found that 55% of non-elderly adult SNAP recipients in 2023 were women, and one-third of them were women of color. Over half were single parents.
The NWLC also found that SNAP recipients are more likely to report “excellent or very good” nutrition than those who don’t receive benefits in low-income communities, pointing to the difference these benefits make for health. Pregnant mothers and kids in early childhood with access to SNAP also see improved long-term health outcomes.
“Do you know what it’s like to hold two master’s degrees, be called ‘Reverend,’ and still need food stamps?” said Reverend Regina Clarke at a rally led by Reverend William Barber’s anti-poverty group Repairers of the Breach. Clarke is among the demographic of single parents who are SNAP recipients. “When you strip away someone’s food security, you strip away their strength to lift others.”
But lifting our voices and our communities is exactly what we need to do. Whether we live in red states or blue states, all of us need to speak out against this cruelty. Low-income kids and families shouldn’t be going hungry so billionaires can claim another tax break.
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The International Finance Corporation’s Dubious Defense of Factory Farming
Instead of funding industrial agriculture the IFC should help small-scale farmers move to agroecology and regenerative farming which can boost yields, reduce the use of expensive inputs, and improve livelihoods.
Apr 30, 2025
The International Finance Corporation’s website brands many of the well-founded criticisms of industrial animal production as “myths.” This reflects the regrettably polarized debate between those who believe that industrial agriculture is needed to feed the growing world population and those who, like me, argue that a far-reaching transformation of our food system is needed.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) website states that it is a myth that industrial animal production is bad for food security. The truth, however, is that factory farming diverts food away from people; it is dependent on feeding grain—corn, wheat, barley—to animals who convert these crops very inefficiently into meat and milk. For every 100 calories of human-edible cereals fed to animals, just 7-27 calories (depending on the species) enter the human food chain as meat. And for every 100 grams of protein in human-edible cereals fed to animals, only 13-37 grams of protein enter the human food chain as meat.
The scale of this is massive. International Grains Council data show that 45% of global grain production is used as animal feed, while 76% of world soy production is used to feed animals. The inefficiency of doing this is recognized by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), which states that it is “essential to fight food insecurity and malnutrition… Reducing the use of much of the world's grain production to feed animals and producing more food for direct human consumption can significantly contribute to this objective.” I calculate that if the use of cereals as animal feed were ended, an extra 2 billion people could be fed even allowing for the fact that if we reared fewer animals we would need to grow more crops for direct human consumption. My figure is very cautious; other studies calculate that ending the use of grains as animal feed would enable an extra 3.5-4 billion people to be fed. Moreover, industrial livestock’s huge demand for these cereals pushes up their price, potentially placing them out of reach of poor populations in the Global South. So, sorry IFC, but it really is not a myth to say that industrial animal production is bad for food security.
To dismiss the harsh suffering endured by industrially farmed animals as a myth is extraordinary
The IFC website dismisses as a myth the argument that industrial animal production is bad for the environment. However, factory farms disgorge large amounts of manure, slurry, and ammonia that pollute air and watercourses. When ammonia mixes with other gases it can form particulate matter; this is a key component of air pollution, which can lead to heart and pulmonary disease, respiratory problems including asthma, and lung cancer.
Industrial livestock’s huge demand for cereals as feed has been a key factor fuelling the intensification of crop production. This pivotal link between the livestock and arable sectors is often not recognized. With its monocultures and high use of chemical pesticides and nitrogen fertilizers, intensive crop production leads to soil degradation, biodiversity loss, and overuse and pollution of water. In short, it erodes the key fundamentals—soils, water, and biodiversity—on which our future ability to feed ourselves depends.
Arjem Hoekstra (2020) calculates that animals fed on cereals and soy (industrially farmed animals) use 43 times as much surface- and groundwater and are 61 times as polluting of water as animals fed on grass and other roughages. Its adherents claim that factory farming saves land by cramming animals into crowded sheds. But in reality it eats up huge amounts of cropland for feed. European Union studies show that feed production accounts for 99% of the land use of the pig and broiler sectors. It is feed production—not the tiny amount of space given to animals on the farm—that makes factory farming so land-hungry.
The contention that industrial systems undermine the socioeconomic potential of small-scale farmers in the developing world is also branded a myth by the IFC. The World Bank, however, takes a different view. Its 2024 report Recipe for a Liveable Planet states, “The global agrifood system disproportionately and detrimentally affects poor communities and smallholder farmers who cannot compete with industrial agriculture, thereby exacerbating rural poverty and increasing landlessness.” Instead of funding industrial agriculture the IFC should help small-scale farmers move to agroecology and regenerative farming which can boost yields, reduce the use of expensive inputs, and improve livelihoods.
Also swatted aside as a myth is the mountain of scientific evidence that industrial livestock production results in poor animal welfare. To dismiss the harsh suffering endured by industrially farmed animals as a myth is extraordinary. In its own Good Practice Note on animal welfare the IFC lists what are commonly recognized to be the key characteristics of factory farming—confinement in narrow stalls, overcrowding, barren environments, painful procedures, hunger, and breeding for high yields leading to health disorders—and identifies them as “welfare risks” that need to be tackled. But now, in a remarkable volte-face, the IFC airily dismisses these problems as a myth.
IFC’s position stands in sharp contrast to UNEP, which states that “intensive systems deprive animals of some of their most basic physical and psychological needs.” World Bank economist Berk Özler has written about the value of policies under which low-income countries can grow without causing massive increases in suffering among farmed animals. He writes, “Perhaps many low-income countries can leapfrog the stage of industrial animal farming, towards something more sensible.”
I urge the IFC to recognize that industrial animal agriculture is destructive—destructive of food security, the environment, small-scale farmer livelihoods, and the well-being of animals.
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Cutting Conservation Funding Endangers our Food System
The Trump administration is gutting USDA funding that helps small farms preserve local heritage breeds that boost the biodiversity and resilience of U.S. livestock.
Apr 09, 2025
As part of the Trump administration’s overhaul of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, funding for several programs, including conservation contracts and local food purchasing for schools, was cut or frozen.
The lack of funding of these and uncertainty for other programs is already having a chilling effect on farmers and our food systems, and the impacts have been immediate and wide-ranging. These programs support critical conservation initiatives in agriculture—from assisting local farms and sustainable agriculture research to farmer technical aid. These local programs also support smaller-scale farmers to maintain local or heritage breeds such as Galloway cattle or Tamworth pigs that are not suitable for large-scale, industrial agriculture.
As a result, farms and livelihoods throughout the country are threatened. These programs provide vital support for U.S. agricultural infrastructure and long-term sustainability including the diversity of food available to the public. The link between biodiversity and food security is well known—vibrant biotic life supports soil fertility, pest control, pollination, water quality, and sustainable agriculture. Genetic biodiversity in our foods is also important—domesticated plants and animals that are genetically diverse are less likely to succumb to the same diseases or pests, and many have adapted to a range of environmental and climatic conditions. The more genetically diverse our food system is, the less vulnerable it is to collapse.
Local breeds are living genetic repositories. They are the result of long-term histories and cannot be simply made in a laboratory. They are the future of our food security.
For this reason, conservation efforts must include protecting domestic animal breeds to establish living genetic banks for future food security during times of abrupt climate change. Unlike plants that can be propagated from seeds stored in vast seed banks, the most efficient way to maintain biodiversity in domesticated livestock is by keeping herds of local or heritage breeds, since sperm cryopreservation is expensive; susceptible to damage or loss; and limited to rich, industrialized nations and communities. Breed conservation can occur on a local level and doesn’t need to be expensive—it’s been successfully done in the past.
Almost 100 years ago, Texas longhorns—the iconic emblem of the state of Texas—almost went extinct. At the time, American tastes in meat favored fattier cattle breeds and the lean, grass-fed longhorns were unpopular, difficult to transport in railroad cars due to their big horns, and not economically viable for ranchers. This breed already had a long history in the area and was particularly well adapted to the hot, arid climate of southern Texas. In the 1920s when the breed was on the brink of extinction, U.S. Forest Service employees established a protected herd at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma, and a small group of ranchers established other small herds in Oklahoma and Texas, including in Texas state parks. It was through the efforts of this small group of people that the breed was kept alive. As American tastes in meat changed, Texas longhorns became economically popular once again.
Today, they are highly valued for their lean meat and their specific climatic adaptation. They are also living genetic repositories—their specific genetic adaptations are now used to help create new breeds of cattle for dealing with future climate change such as those predicted for several parts of the southern United States and elsewhere.
According to data collected by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, Texas longhorns are one of over 8,700 breeds of domesticated animals used for food production on the planet today. Most are part of the “big five”: cattle, sheep, chickens, goats, and pigs. Over 8,000 of these breeds are local—recorded in only one country and most of them are specific to particular areas or regions like Texas longhorns, Gulf Coast sheep in Florida and Louisiana, and Mulefoot pigs in Missouri.
Many of these breeds, however, are also vulnerable to extinction—they are not as profitable and farmers focus on a few breeds to maximize products for national and global markets. There are estimates that over 100 livestock breeds have gone extinct in the last 15 years, and 29.54% of existing livestock breeds worldwide are at risk of extinction, while for the majority of breeds we lack data on their status, size of population, or likelihood for survival for the future.
Why are local breeds important? They are the result of centuries and even millennia of adaptation to their environments through human management and natural selection pressures. They are living gene banks of biodiversity and have special traits in comparison with industrial livestock—some are resistant to parasites or diseases; feed on different forage; or are highly fertile or long-lived. Others thrive in hot or humid environments such as Gulf Coast sheep that don’t have wool on their bellies, legs, or heads.
Despite many years of research, current information on these breeds is sorely lacking. There is very limited genetic data on most of the economically important animal breeds on the planet, and the pressures of industrialized agriculture are pushing farmers to focus on the few breeds with the current highest economic rewards. But this comes at a cost—today’s industrial farming strategies are not sustainable for an unknown future. Local breeds are living genetic repositories. They are the result of long-term histories and cannot be simply made in a laboratory. They are the future of our food security.
Many species are on the brink of extinction and need conservation help, and many are perhaps more photogenic or emblematic than cows or sheep. However, livestock breeds need this help too if we want to secure genetic diversity in our foods. This conservation doesn’t need to be expensive—dedicated farmers and conservation groups should be financially supported in maintaining local breeds. If the federal government is turning its back on these initiatives, state and local governments need to help fill the gap. Small investments today will pay dividends in the future to keep our food systems resilient.
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