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food security
Inspired by Seattle Program, Jayapal Bill Would Help US Families Buy Fruits and Veggies
"As families struggle to keep food on the table, Congress must prioritize work on efforts to lower costs and help Americans stay afloat," said the Washington Democrat.
Jul 02, 2026
As Americans face rising grocery prices under President Donald Trump and rally behind progressive policies and primary candidates, US Rep. Pramila Jayapal on Thursday introduced a bill that shows what kind of proposals could become reality with more Democrats like her in Congress.
Inspired by a program in her own district in Washington state, the chair emerita of the Congressional Progressive Caucus introduced the Fresh Bucks for Fresh Produce Act, which would create a pilot program at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) that gives households earning 80% or less of their area's median income $60 per month to buy fruits and vegetables.
The USDA pilot would be modeled on Seattle's Fresh Bucks initiative, in which enrolled households "experience a 31% higher rate of food security and consume at least three daily servings of fruits and vegetables 37% more often than those assigned to a program waitlist," according to University of Washington (UW) research published last August.
"I would classify both of those numbers as pretty large," study co-author Jessica Jones-Smith a professor at UW and University of California, Irvine, said at the time. "We don't routinely see interventions that work that well. It's a pretty big impact on diet in terms of what we can do from a policy perspective and expect to make a difference in food insecurity."
In Seattle—generally ranked as an expensive but livable metropolis—a single person living within city limits on a monthly income of $7,070, or $84,850 a year, can apply for the program. For a family of four, it's $10,095 per month, or $121,150 annually. In January, the city the welcomed over 4,500 more local households off its waitlist and increased monthly benefits from $40 to $60.
Those enrolled in Seattle's program can buy "fresh fruits and vegetables at supermarkets, and fresh, frozen, canned, and dried fruits and vegetables (with no added fats, sugars, or salt) at farmers markets and independent grocers" that accept Fresh Bucks cards.
Adam Porter, who directs the Meals on Wheels program at the Seattle-based Sound Generations, said Thursday that "older adults across King County are facing impossible choices as grocery prices continue to rise. Seattle's Fresh Bucks program has had a substantial impact on our clients' health and quality of life: We have seen firsthand how a targeted produce benefit can increase health equity, improve food security, and keep food dollars circulating locally.
"A USDA pilot modeled on that success would be a meaningful step toward healthier households and stronger community food systems nationwide," Porter continued. In addition to his organization, groups endorsing Jayapal's bill include the Center for Biological Diversity, Coalition for Organic and Regenerative Agriculture, Farm Action Fund, Food & Water Watch, National Education Association, Southern Poverty Law Center, White Center Community Development Association (WCCDA), and over a dozen more.
"In White Center and historically underinvested communities across King County, we see every day how rising grocery costs continue to strain working families, seniors, immigrants, and households already navigating increasing housing and living expenses," said WCCDA executive director Aaron Garcia. "Access to healthy, culturally relevant food should not be determined by income—it should not be considered a luxury."
"At WCCDA, we believe thriving communities require systems that make healthy food accessible, affordable, and attainable—and that investments in food access are investments in community health, economic stability, and opportunity," Garcia said. "We strongly support Congresswoman Jayapal's leadership in advancing innovative solutions that respond to the realities families face today while strengthening local food systems and neighborhood businesses that give us our vibrancy."
"Expanding the proven Seattle Fresh Bucks model through a federal pilot offers an opportunity to increase food security, support local producers and retailers, and help communities across the country build healthier, more resilient futures," he added.
Jayapal has celebrated recent primary wins by leftists in New York, and on Thursday, with the November midterms just four months away, she called out her Republican colleagues—who are trying to hang on to their narrow majorities in both chambers of Congress after using them to pass cuts to federal food and healthcare programs while giving more tax breaks to the rich.
"As families struggle to keep food on the table, Congress must prioritize work on efforts to lower costs and help Americans stay afloat," said Jayapal, who is joined in sponsoring the bill by Democratic Reps. Alma Adams (NC), Nanette Barragán (Calif.), Chris Deluzio (Pa.), Shomari Figures (Ala.), Jahana Hayes (Conn.), Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC), Andrea Salinas (Ore.), Adam Smith (Wash.), and Shri Thanedar (Mich).
"While Republicans in Congress enacted legislation to raise food prices and are hell-bent on cutting food assistance, Seattle is once again leading the way with the Fresh Bucks program, which is successfully keeping people fed with nutritious food and reducing hunger," she said. "We must pass this legislation to expand the program nationwide and get families in every corner of the country healthy produce they can afford."
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It's Time for an All-Out Food Fight With Trump
How can ordinary grocery shoppers organize and become part of the movement that is endeavoring to protect society against Trump’s authoritarian juggernaut?
Dec 14, 2025
Hunger has a funny way of concentrating the attention.
The cost of food and cutbacks in the provision of food for those who need it have been drivers of mass protest throughout much of history:
- One of the events initiating the French Revolution was the Women's March on Versailles, which began among women in the marketplaces of Paris protesting the high price and scarcity of bread. Their demonstrations quickly became intertwined with the activities of those who were seeking an end to autocracy and had just issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
- The 2008 Egyptian general strike over rising food costs provided inspiration for the overthrow of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak three years later.
- In 2022 in Sri Lanka, rising food prices among other grievances led to protests that culminated in the overthrow of the ruling regime.
Recent months have seen the emergence of a powerful movement-based opposition to President Donald Trump and MAGA, manifested in the 7 million participants in No Kings Day and the unprecedented on-the-ground opposition to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and National Guard occupations of American cities. At the same time, the price of food for Americans of every class has soared: A survey this summer by the Associated Press and NORC found the cost of groceries has become a major source of stress for just over half of all Americans—outpacing rent, healthcare, and student debt.
What are sometimes belittled as “pocketbook issues” like the cost of food, housing, and medical care have become critical issues for a majority of Americans. So far, the hundreds of millions suffering from inflated prices have not found a way to organize themselves and fight back. Nor has the movement-based opposition taken up their cause. But a rarely remembered consumer boycott half a century ago indicates how such self-organization against high food prices might emerge.
“America’s Largest Protest”
Ann Giordano, 33, described herself as “just a housewife.” She recalled that she was never particularly conscious of food prices; her Staten Island kitchen didn't have enough shelf space for her to buy in large quantities. But one day when she had put the groceries away there was still space left on the shelf. She vaguely wondered if she had left a bag of food at the store. Next time she came home from shopping, she looked in her wallet and concluded that she had accidentally left a $20 bill behind. When she went back to the supermarket and found out how much her food really cost, she suddenly realized where the shelf space had come from and where the money had gone.
It was early spring in 1973. Inflation was rising, food prices were soaring, and millions of shoppers nationwide were having similar experiences. Mrs. Giordano called some of her friends and discussed the idea of a consumer boycott—an idea that was springing up simultaneously in many places around the country in response to rising food prices. Soon a substantial network of women was calling homes all over Staten Island, spreading word of the boycott. They called a meeting at a local bowling alley to which over one hundred people came on two days' notice. They named themselves JET-STOP (Joint Effort to Stop These Outrageous Prices) and elected captains for each district. Within a week they had covered the island with leaflets. picketed the major stores, and laid the basis for a highly effective boycott.
Mrs. Giordano and her friends were typical of those who gave birth to the 1973 consumer meat boycott, "a movement which started in a hundred different places all at once and that's not led by anyone.” As a newspaper account described it:
The boycott is being organized principally at the grassroots level rather than by any overall committee or national leadership. It is made up mainly of groups of tenants in apartment buildings, neighbors who shop at the same markets in small towns, block associations, and—perhaps most typical—groups of women who meet every morning over coffee. All have been spurred into action by the common desire to bring food prices back to what they consider a manageable level.
The 1973 consumer meat boycott was undoubtedly the largest mass protest in American history. A Gallup poll taken at the end of the boycott found that over 25% of all consumers—representing families with 50 million members—had participated in it. Large retail and wholesale distributors reported their meat sales down by one-half to two-thirds. The boycott was strongest among what the press referred to as "middle income" families—those with incomes around the then-national average of $10,000 to $12,000 a year. It represented, in the words of one reporter, "an awareness that, for a whole new class of Americans like themselves, push has finally come to shove.”
In low-income neighborhoods, sales fell less during the boycott, largely because, as retailers pointed out, the residents, who couldn't afford much meat at any time, had been cutting back for weeks due to high prices. As one Harlem merchant said, “How much can these people tighten their belts when they don't have too much under their belts in the first place?”
Some advocates of the boycott made the dubious argument that it would bring meat prices down by reducing the demand for meat. Most participants, however, saw the movement as a protest, a way of communicating to politicians and others what they felt about the rising cost of living.
President Richard Nixon responded by putting a freeze on meat prices, but his move was met by scorn among many boycotters, who felt that prices were already far too high ("They locked the barn door after the cow went through the roof," commented one housewife).
“We Ain’t Buying It!”
The meat boycott did not prove to be an effective tactic for combating high prices. Lacking a further strategy for meeting its participants’ needs and failing to hook up with the other mass insurgencies of the time, the movement soon lost momentum. Participants stopped coordinating their activity and returned to more individual strategies. But it did show the tremendous capacity of ordinary people to organize themselves on a massive national scale around issues of mutual concern—in this case the price of food.
Recent months have seen the emergence of the consumer boycott as a powerful vehicle for combating the Trump regime and undermining its “pillars of support.” Today’s boycotts are far more effectively targeted on specific institutions and realizable demands. For example, when the “Tesla Takedown” challenged Elon Musk’s role demolishing federal agencies and jobs, sales plunged and company stocks fell 13% in three months. A boycott campaign against Target initiated in January by the local Black community in Minneapolis over its reversal of its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies has now cut sharply into its sales, helping lead to its stock falling 33%, a $20 billion loss in shareholder value, and replacement of its CEO. When Disney took late-night host Jimmy Kimmel off the air over comments he made following the murder of Charlie Kirk in September, the Working Families Party helped put together a toolkit that explained how to cancel a Disney subscription. The Wall Street Journal reported that customers ditched Disney+ and Hulu at double the normal rates in September. Disney brought Kimmel back within days, and Hulu soon followed suit.
The 1973 meat boycott illustrates the way what are sometimes dismissed as “pocketbook issues” can be drivers of self-organization and massive outpourings of public discontent.
Today’s boycotts are also much better aligned with other forces. For example, in the days following Thanksgiving, major organizations that had backed the millions-strong national No Kings and MayDay2025 days of action, including Indivisible, 50501, and MayDayStrong, swung behind the boycotts of Target, Amazon, Home Depot, and other major corporations. Some national coordination was provided by a group that called itself “We Ain’t Buying It.”
This action is taking direct aim at Target, for caving to this administration’s biased attacks on DEI; Home Depot, for allowing and colluding with ICE to kidnap our neighbors on their properties; and Amazon, for funding this administration to secure their own corporate tax cuts.
These groups and many others are backing the boycott in support of striking Starbuck’s workers under the slogan, “No contract, no coffee!”
Like the Tesla Takedowns, these boycotts are coordinated with and often spearheaded by demonstrations and other forms of direct action at physical locations. And they are finding ways to stimulate other forms of pressure on their targets: The Amazon protest group Athenaforall, for example, is encouraging local groups to demand an end to local contracts with Amazon, permission for Amazon expansions, and public subsidies for Amazon.
Today’s boycott actions are better targeted and better allied than the 1973 meat boycott, but so far, they have not drawn in much of the population that is directly harmed by Trump and his corporate backers. The 1973 meat boycott shows that pocketbook issues, such as inflation and most notably food prices, can be a basis for self-organization and action beyond the electoral arena among the wide swath of people they affect.
The 1973 meat boycott illustrates the way what are sometimes dismissed as “pocketbook issues” can be drivers of self-organization and massive outpourings of public discontent. Such examples from the past are unlikely to provide us the specific programs or tactics we need to meet today’s food crises. But they do demonstrate the power that people can mobilize when they are driven by food deprivation.
Food Facts
The US currently has two overlapping food crises. One is the elimination of food programs for the poor. According to the Center for American Progress:
Project 2025 and the Republican Study Committee budget envisioned a transformative dismantling of federal nutrition assistance programs. In January, the Trump administration chaotically froze federal funding, leaving farmers reeling and nonprofits serving the needy worrying about steady access to support from SNAP and Meals on Wheels. In March, the administration cut more than $1 billion of funding from two programs that supply schools and food banks with food from local farms and ranches. These cuts affected schoolchildren and small farmers in all 50 states.
Despite the end of the government shutdown, millions face cutoff of food assistance right now. The GOP’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” passed earlier this year, cuts SNAP by roughly 20%. The cuts may affect people in every state. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the addition of new work requirements alone will cause 2.4 million people to lose benefits in an average month.
There is also another food crisis that affects everyone—poor and less poor—the fast-rising cost of food.
As you may have noticed, the price of food in American supermarkets has soared. As surveys indicate, the cost of groceries has become a major source of stress for American consumers.
Many consumers compare food prices now to five years ago. According to the Department of Agriculture, five years ago the average cost of groceries for a family of two working adults and two children ranged between $613 and $1,500 per month. In 2025, such a family is spending between $1,000 and $1,600 per month at the grocery store.
Food prices have continued rising through Trump’s presidency. In September 2025, banana prices were up 7% from a year before, ground beef had risen 13%, and roasted coffee rose 19%, according to the most recent Consumer Price Index (CPI) data available. (At that point the Trump administration stopped releasing CPI data—perhaps on the theory that no news is good news, or that what you don’t know won’t starve you.) As of September, the average cost of a pound of ground beef was $6.30, according to Federal Reserve data—the highest since the Department of Labor started tracking beef prices in the 1980s and 65% higher than in late 2019. The average retail price of ground roast coffee reached a record high of $9.14 per pound in September, more than twice the price in December 2019 when a pound of ground coffee cost just over $4.
Discontent over inflation was a principal cause of Trump’s 2024 election victory. It was also a principal cause of the Republican rout in 2025. But there is little public confidence that either Democrats or Republicans will rectify it. And neither has much in the way of a program to fix it—beyond each blaming the other.
The Fight for Food
In the 1973 meat boycott, households with 50 million members found a way to protest high food prices without waiting for elections. Today, the hundreds of millions of victims of exorbitant food prices may be enraged, but they have not yet found a way to organize themselves and fight back. Nor has the movement-based opposition that has challenged Trump’s galloping autocracy yet found a way to address food and other affordability issues. Food deprivation presents an opportunity for the movement to defend society against Trump’s depredations to bring a new front—and a new constituency—into that struggle.
While food inflation has multiple causes, our current food crises are in considerable part a result of actions by Trump and MAGA’s would-be autocracy. For example, Trump’s tariffs, a significant cause of rising food prices, represent an unconstitutional usurpation of the exclusive authority of the legislative branch to levy taxes. The violent attacks by ICE on immigrant workers—especially on farm workers—have driven workers from the fields, leading to farm labor shortages and rising food prices. And of course the cuts in SNAP and other food support programs make food immensely more expensive for tens of millions of people. While long-term solutions to food prices and food security will require major reforms in agricultural and other policies, reversing Trump’s tariff, anti-immigrant, and anti-SNAP policies could help a lot right now.
The anti-autocracy movement has the opportunity to raise the issues of food and other consumer prices as a fundamental part of the way MAGA autocracy is hurting ordinary people. The message can be: The destruction of democracy is hurting you. This can open a way to the convergence of “pocketbook” concerns and the “No Kings” struggle for democracy. The movement-based opposition can serve as an ally to help people organize themselves and fight for themselves—as households with 50 million members did in the 1973 meat boycott.
While food inflation has multiple causes, our current food crises are in considerable part a result of actions by Trump and MAGA’s would-be autocracy.
The 1973 meat boycott grew out of the daily life conditions of millions of people; mass response to today’s food crises will similarly depend on the experiences, feelings, reflections, discussions, and above all experimental action of those suffering their consequences. But one of the limits on the meat boycott’s success was the difficulty it had formulating concrete demands and a program which could actually realize its objectives. Today, there are proposals “in the wind” to bring down food prices that are well worth discussing and testing. They include:
End all tariffs on food: Trump’s tariffs contribute significantly to the high cost of meat, coffee, bananas, and other groceries—tariffs on Brazilian beef imports are more than 75%, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. Whatever the Supreme Court decides about current challenges to the constitutionality of Trump’s tariff programs, he will almost certainly try to continue his tariff powers using different legal justifications—and the impact on consumers will continue. Yet his recent reduction of some tariffs on food shows how politically vulnerable he is on this issue—and indicates that pressure could force even more reductions.
The Yale Budget Lab recently estimated that tariffs will cost households almost $2,400 a year. In a recent poll, three-quarters said their regular monthly household costs have increased by at least $100 a month from last year. Respondents identified the tariffs as the second biggest threat to the economy. Only 22% supported Trump’s tariffs. A demand to end all tariffs on food might win quick and massive support—and find allies among the public officials and corporate leaders who are turning against Trump’s tariffs. Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada recently introduced the No Tariffs on Groceries Act, saying, “Donald Trump lied to the American people when he promised to bring prices down ‘on day one.’ His reckless tariffs have done the opposite, raising grocery costs and making it harder for hardworking families to put food on the table.”
Restore all food programs: The hunger-producing cuts in nutrition programs like SNAP are immensely unpopular. In October, Republican Senator Josh Hawley, of all people, introduced two bills to reinstate Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits and critical farm programs during the government shutdown. Despite the end of the government shutdown, cuts in SNAP and other nutrition programs are burgeoning. A campaign to cancel all cuts in all food programs would have wide popular support and could be spearheaded by those who have lost or will lose their benefits. Legislation to do so was introduced in Congress in late November.
Provide free school meals: Free school lunch programs represent a widely accepted form of support for all families—without demeaning means tests. In Colorado voters just passed statewide ballot measures which would raise $95 million annually for school meals by limiting deductions for high income taxpayers. The measures will support Healthy School Meals for All, a state program that provides free breakfast and lunch to all students regardless of their family’s income level. Excess receipts can be used to compensate for the loss of federal SNAP funds. Nine states and many cities already provide free meals for all students. Such programs can directly reduce the money families have to pay for food.
Expand SNAP to all who need it: A proposal by food insecurity expert Craig Gunderson would provide SNAP benefits to all those with incomes up to 400% of the poverty line. If benefits were also expanded by roughly 25%, it would reduce food insecurity by more than 98% at a cost of $564.5 billion. While such a program is not likely to be instituted all at once, the demand to expand SNAP eligibility could win wide popular support and directly benefit tens of millions of people. According to Gunderson, states can and have set higher eligibility thresholds of up to 200% of the poverty line. Given the wide public outrage over the soaring wealth of the wealthy, surely a tax on high-income people to pay for such a program could win popular support.
Support community gardens, local farms, and food mutual aid: The Trump administration has eliminated two programs that provided schools and food banks $1 billion to buy food from local farms. This has directly impacted food banks, schools, and farmers by cutting off a key market for local produce and reducing the amount of fresh food available to those in need. People don’t have to wait for government programs to start growing their own food to fight hunger—in fact, they are doing so already, for example, through community gardens. But state and municipal programs can provide essential support for expanding these efforts.
Open public grocery stores: New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has proposed a network of city-owned grocery stores focused on keeping prices low, rather than on making a profit. They would buy and sell at wholesale prices, centralize warehousing and distribution, and partner with local neighborhoods on products and sourcing.
“Don’t Starve—Fight”
Historically it has often been hard to find the levers of power to affect food prices. The 1973 meat boycott was powerful enough to bring about token action by President Richard Nixon. But it was unable to parlay participation by families with 50 million members into an effective way to reduce food prices. Around the world food riots have often been more successful in bringing down governments than in bringing down the price of food.
Targeted boycotts have recently proved effective where they could seriously affect a powerful target—witness the Tesla Takedown causing Elon Musk to withdraw from his DOGE disaster and Disney’s rapid rehiring of Jimmy Kimmel. Targets might include food companies that have supported Trump.
Today’s boycotts are highly effective at generating new and creative tactics: Consider the anti-ICE activists in Los Angeles, Charlotte, and elsewhere who swelled long lines to buy 17-cent ice scrapers, then again swelled long lines to return them—to send a message to Home Depot “to scrape ICE out of their stores.”
A movement against the failure to bring down high food prices could be a natural ally for the emerging movement to defend society against Trump and MAGA.
Boycotts are only one vehicle that could be used for food protests. Local demonstrations and “hunger marches” can be vehicles for dramatizing the issue and mobilizing people around it. Food banks, unions, churches, and other local institutions are in a strong position to initiate such actions. There is no way to know in advance what actions will achieve traction, but that is a good reason to start “testing the waters.”
Under public pressure, many states are stepping up to replace SNAP funding to compensate for federal cuts. A special session of the New Mexico legislature, for example, authorized $20 million weekly to provide state nutrition assistance benefits to the 460,000 New Mexicans who rely on SNAP.
But states will only be able to fill in for the federal government for a limited period of time. The New Mexico program, for example, only provides funding through the week of January, 19, 2026. At some point, even Republican governors and legislators may well begin demanding “re-federalization” of food programs.
Such a dynamic can be seen in the federalization of relief in the early days of the Great Depression. The entire American establishment, led by President Herbert Hoover, abhorred the idea of federal help for the poor and hungry, maintaining it was exclusively the responsibility of local governments and charities. But “hunger strikes” and other protests, often under the slogan “Don’t Starve—Fight!” created disruption and fear of social upheaval. In response, many cities and states created emergency relief programs, but soon many of them were on the verge of bankruptcy. Once-conservative city and state leaders began trooping to Washington to ask for federal support. As Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven put it, “Driven by the protests of the masses of unemployed and the threat of financial ruin, mayors of the biggest cities of the United States, joined by business and banking leaders, had become lobbyists for the poor.”
Under such pressure, the Hoover administration developed a program of loans to states to pay for relief programs. With the coming of the New Deal, this became an enormously expanded program of federal grants. The New Deal also began to buy surplus commodities from farmers and distribute them to families with low income.
While the details are different, this basic dynamic of pressure from people to cities and states to the federal government is still relevant today. Pressure to expand local and state programs is not an alternative to federal programs, but a step to forcing their expansion.
One weakness of the 1973 meat boycott was its isolation from the other burgeoning movements of the time, including the civil rights movement; the movement against the Vietnam War; and the large-scale wave of strikes, many of them wildcats. This made it less powerful than it otherwise might have been. A food movement today would have the opportunity for powerful alliances. Like consumers, farmers are being devastated by Trump’s tariffs and would benefit from expanded food programs. Like food consumers, farmers are also being hurt by the ICE policies driving farm workers away from the fields.
Food inflation might seem to be a middle-class issue, but poor people spend a substantially higher proportion of their total income on food, so rising food prices affect them even more. In 2023, the fifth of the population with the lowest incomes spent nearly 33% of their income on food; the highest-income fifth spent barely 8%. The rising cost of food means the poor can buy even less with whatever small funds they have. So low-income and better-off food consumers are natural allies.
High food prices were an important reason for Donald Trump’s election; he promised to reduce prices on “day one” of his presidency. Spooked by rising consumer anger at high food prices, on December 6 Trump established two task forces to investigate "whether anti-competitive behavior, especially by foreign-controlled companies, increases the cost of living for Americans.” An accompanying fact sheet stated, “President Trump is fighting every day to reverse Biden's inflation crisis and bring down sky-high grocery prices—and he will not rest until every American feels the relief at the checkout line.” The task forces are instructed to report their findings to Congress within 180 days and present recommendations for congressional action within a year.
A movement against the failure to bring down high food prices could be a natural ally for the emerging movement to defend society against Trump and MAGA—what I have called “Social Self-Defense.” Conversely, the emerging movement-based opposition to Trump and MAGA has everything to gain by encouraging the development of a movement that allows millions of people to fight, not starve.
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We Need Legally Enforceable Rights to Fight Poverty and the Housing Crisis
Ratifying the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights would end the US’ back-and-forth dance with domestic poverty.
Sep 05, 2025
Our law school clinic’s weekly presence in eviction court, where we represent struggling renters, provides us with a front-row seat to a galling tragedy: widespread poverty in the richest nation in the world.
Sometimes, the biggest problem that our clients face is that their rental house or apartment is in unsafe or unhealthy condition, with mold and rodents running rampant and heat that does not work. There is a law to address this problem, and a government program to enforce that law.
Sometimes, the landlord’s ledger is wrong, and our clients made payments that are not accounted for. There is a government process for dealing with that, too.
But more often, our clients’ core problems are that they simply cannot afford the cost of survival. And our government usually has no answers for that.
For example, our client Sandra’s rent swallows well over half of her home healthcare worker salary, and she recently needed to pay for an expensive car repair because that is her only transportation to work. William’s disability check actually totals less than the rent he owes each month. The meals that Rochelle skips have not prevented her lights from being turned off for nonpayment, and she has been unable to afford her blood pressure medication.
Sandra, William, and Rochelle all qualify for government-subsidized housing. But they are among the 3 of every 4 eligible households who don’t receive it due to the programs being so underfunded. They and their families also struggle to get consistent access to food and healthcare.
Like Sandra and Rochelle, most of our clients in eviction court have jobs. But those jobs are in food service, home healthcare, and retail. Those industries, despite being some of the country’s top employers, don’t pay wages high enough for workers to be able to afford life necessities, especially with rents increasing far more quickly than wages.
The suffering we see in eviction court can be traced directly to the lack of enforceable economic rights in the US.
That is why, along with 3.6 million other US households that are sued for eviction every year, Sandra, William, and Rochelle face losing their homes. The Census Bureau says there are 17 million-plus people living in households that are currently behind on their rent. That means the number of Americans living on the verge of eviction equals the total populations of Michigan and Massachusetts combined. Over 43 million Americans live in poverty, a number that aligns with the number of Americans who are living with food insecurity. One in three adults each year skip getting healthcare, including filling prescriptions, because they can’t afford it.
There is no law that addresses this crisis.
Yet.
The United States should fill the gaping hole in our nation’s human rights structure by following the lead of the rest of the world and ratifying the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, aka the ICESCR.
ICESCR Will End Our Toxic Anti-Poverty Dance
As Sandra, William, and Rochelle can attest, the United States does not do enough to alleviate poverty. And when we do take positive action, it is routinely scaled back at a later date. We take one step forward; two steps back.
The ICESCR will fix that.
The ICESCR is a global treaty that requires all ratifying nations to fulfill economic rights, including the right to housing, the right to healthcare, and the right to an adequate standard of living. Essentially, the ICESCR protects the human right to survive in a decent and healthy manner. The ICESCR has been in force for nearly 50 years, and has been ratified by virtually every nation in the world, 172 nations in all, including all but one nation in North America or Europe.
That lone holdout is the United States.
The suffering we see in eviction court can be traced directly to the lack of enforceable economic rights in the US. Of course, the US does have some anti-poverty government programs like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP aka Food Stamps), Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, and subsidized housing. But, as we saw this summer with the passage of the devastating so-called Big, Beautiful Bill, which will strip healthcare and food assistance from millions, the essential needs these programs address are funded at the whim of the current Congress and administration.
This is not a new phenomenon. The historic and lifesaving New Deal social programs of the 1930s and 1940s were slashed during the Reagan era of the early 1980s and then again in the 1990s by the Clinton “end welfare as we know it” legislation. During the first years of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021 and 2022, we took a significant step forward, expanding social programs that reduced poverty to historic lows. Then, this summer, Republicans in Congress and President Donald Trump lurched backward, pushing through the largest safety net cuts in history.
Someday, domestic political power will shift. When that happens, we will likely restore some of the program cuts. But those gains will merely set the stage for the programs to be scaled back in years to come.
Unless US progressives commit to a post-Trump agenda that includes ratifying the ICESCR. Then, the challenge of meeting basic needs will be transformed from a political and budgetary wrestling match into a question of human rights. The next time basic healthcare and food and shelter are under attack, there will be a legal foundation from which to push back. We will stop this toxic one-step forward, two-steps backward anti-poverty dance, once and for all.
The US Public Wants the ICESCR
The US is often characterized as possessing an individualist, free market-favoring political culture, which cuts against the widespread adoption of the economic rights contained in the ICESCR. Yet many economic rights are already deeply woven into the fabric of US society. Consider the overwhelming popularity of our nation’s Social Security program, and the well-established roots of our nation’s system of free primary and secondary education, which align with the ICESCR Articles 9 and 13.
In addition to the right to education, fully half of state constitutions contain provisions that address welfare, poverty, or public health. A number of states and cities have adopted some version of a Homeless Bill of Rights or similar legal commitments to the right to housing. The rights to clean water and air, sometimes known as “Green Amendments,” are recognized in the state constitutions or statutes of California, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Hawaii, Montana, and in several municipal ordinances. In 2021, the state of Maine enshrined the right to food in its constitution.
When we take the step to full ratification, the ICESCR will bring a new and much-needed level of national enforceability for the rights that the US public already supports.
Americans are ready to make these rights nationwide and enforceable. Public opinion polls in recent years show strong majorities in support of recognizing and enforcing housing and healthcare as human rights, and insisting that the government should do more to address food insecurity. These views pair with deep popular concern about the US’ wealth inequality and support for raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Americans similarly endorse a government jobs guarantee that lines up with the ICESCR Articles 6 and 7.
Given religion’s powerful influence on US culture and values and the commitment to economic justice that is shared among all major religions, the support for economic rights among the US public should not be surprising. When we take the step to full ratification, the ICESCR will bring a new and much-needed level of national enforceability for the rights that the US public already supports.
The ICESCR Has Deep US Roots
Since the first moment of its existence, the US has affirmed the importance of economic rights. The inalienable rights held to be self-evident in the Declaration of Independence include “life” and “the pursuit of happiness,” both of which are obviously unattainable without shelter, food, healthcare, etc.
Founding father Thomas Paine called for the redistribution of land and wealth via progressive taxation, social security-style old-age pensions, support for families with young children, full employment, and a basic income. Alexander Hamilton interpreted the Taxing and Spending Clause in Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution (“The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect taxes... to provide for the General Welfare of the United States”) broadly enough to fulfill Paine’s vision of a government that meets unmet economic needs. Hamilton’s fellow Constitution framer James Madison stated that the new nation needed laws to “raise extreme indigence toward a state of comfort.”
The US’ most consequential step taking the US toward a comprehensive set of enforceable economic rights was the New Deal of the mid-1930s, which featured social security, unemployment insurance, public housing, and the federal backing of home purchases, along with multiple programs that provided government-paid employment to millions. President Franklin Roosevelt followed up on the New Deal by articulating a historic vision for fully enforceable economic rights for all. In 1944, Roosevelt used the occasion of his annual State of the Union address to call for a “Second Bill of Rights” to supplement the civil and political rights already protected by the US Constitution. Roosevelt outlined multiple distinct economic rights, including living-wage employment, housing, healthcare, and education.
Roosevelt’s declaration served as the blueprint for the post-World War II international human rights structure. That structure’s foundation is the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, all of which explicitly or implicitly reference Roosevelt’s human rights language.
Regrettably, the post-war US backed away from international recognition of economic rights: In 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed the ICESCR and submitted it to the US Senate for consent to ratification, but the Senate has never acted on it. Still, the domestic legacy of Roosevelt’s economic rights vision lived on. The 1960s’ Great Society and War on Poverty programs of President Lyndon B. Johnson established the Medicare and Medicaid programs, along with Food Stamps, now known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP. Those lifesaving programs endure, along with widespread government-imposed price controls on human necessities like rental housing, electricity, water, and healthcare.
We Can Afford the ICESCR
In his book, The Ends of Freedom: Reclaiming America’s Lost Promise of Economic Rights , Rutgers University economist Mark Paul lays out the economic rights that together would create what he calls the “well-being state,” including access to housing, healthcare, and a basic income. Given the outsize power held by wealthy individuals and corporations, Paul does not minimize the political challenge of enshrining these rights in US law. But he is unconcerned about the process of paying for economic rights. “The financing?” Paul asks. “That’s the easy part.”
That may seem glib, but Paul stands on solid ground. “Anything we can actually do, we can afford,” insisted John Maynard Keynes. Other nations’ success at ensuring economic rights have proved Keynes correct, as did the US’ economic boon period in the mid-20th century, a time of deficit spending and marginal income tax rates as high as 90%.
By shifting the conversation on housing, healthcare, and income needs from the language of charity or budgetary choices to that of enforceable rights, advocates will widen the window of political possibility to include full realization of all basic human needs.
Tax policy reform is one of several avenues that Paul and others cite as the source for funding a historic expansion of economic rights in the US. Elected officials like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and economists like Thomas Piketty, Peter Diamond, and Emmanuel Saez have proposed back-to-the-future top marginal tax rates of 70% or more, still lower than the 1950s’ US rate—when we also had significantly higher government spending. As Sanders says, “I’m not much of a socialist compared to Eisenhower.” Or Franklin Roosevelt, for that matter, who proposed a top tax rate of 100%, essentially capping annual income at the equivalent of $500,000 in current dollars.
Economists like Piketty and Nobel Prize laureate Joseph Stiglitz and US politicians like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) call for significant wealth taxes that would raise billions annually. We can also free up funding to fulfill economic rights by slashing US war spending, which at over $1 trillion annually is more than the next nine countries combined.
Ratifying the ICESCR Will Be Transformative
If the US does ratify the ICESCR, how do we know it will comply with the promises contained in the treaty? That is a legitimate question, since signing off on a covenant does not necessarily translate into compliance with its terms.
But a system of ICESCR-specific accountability exists in the international arena. Robust reporting requirements are placed on ICESCR countries, which means a ratifying United States will be expected to quickly present a plan to achieve full realization of the promised economic rights and then to demonstrate tangible steps toward completion of that plan.
Of course, plans don’t feed or house people. But the ICESCR’s terms and compliance process would provide US anti-poverty advocates with a platform for using the treaty review process and the national legislative systems to enforce its promises. And it adds in the power of the courts. US litigation to enforce the ICESCR would follow existing US precedent, including rulings that reinforced their states’ constitutional rights to education and structural injunctions targeting the need for shelter for unhoused persons, healthcare access, and nutrition benefits.
The prospects are enticing. We caught a glimpse of what could be during the early years of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the US responded to the crisis with Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act stimulus checks, extended unemployment benefits, an expanded child tax credit, rental assistance, maximized food stamps, expanded Medicaid coverage, increased childcare support, and a national eviction moratorium. Economic support programs did the unthinkable: Poverty rates actually dropped to a record low during a pandemic.
By ratifying the ICESCR, we can make those temporary improvements permanent—and then improve on them. The language that became the 14th and 15th Amendments and the Civil Rights Act helped frame the abolitionist and civil rights movements and their goals. ICESCR can do the same for anti-poverty advocacy in the US. By shifting the conversation on housing, healthcare, and income needs from the language of charity or budgetary choices to that of enforceable rights, advocates will widen the window of political possibility to include full realization of all basic human needs.
Those legally enforceable rights would change the lives of our clients Sandra, William, Rochelle, and the millions of others who struggle alongside them.
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UN Human Rights Chief Says 'Famine' in Gaza May Constitute 'War Crime' by Israel
"The famine declared today in Gaza," said Volker Türk, "is the direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government."
Aug 22, 2025
United Nations human rights Chief Volker Türk on Friday accused the Israeli government of causing widespread starvation in Gaza that he said may constitute a war crime.
Shortly after the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) officially declared that conditions in Gaza constituted a famine, Türk laid the blame for the humanitarian disaster directly at the feet of Israel.
"The famine declared today in Gaza... is the direct result of actions taken by the Israeli Government," he said. "It has unlawfully restricted the entry and distribution of humanitarian assistance and other goods necessary for the survival of the civilian population in the Gaza strip."
Türk noted that the Israeli military had "destroyed critical civilian infrastructure and almost all agricultural land, banned fishing, and forcibly displaced the population," all of which resulted in the starvation crisis in Gaza.
"It is a war crime to use starvation as a method of warfare, and the resulting deaths may also amount to the war crime of willful killing," Türk continued. "Israeli authorities must take immediate steps to end the famine in the Gaza Governorate and prevent further loss of life across the Gaza strip. They must ensure immediate entry of humanitarian assistance in sufficient amounts, and full access to UN and other humanitarian organizations."
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that the IPC report confirmed that the starvation in Gaza is a "man-made disaster, a moral indictment—and a failure of humanity itself."
"Famine is not about food; it is the deliberate collapse of the systems needed for human survival," Guterres emphasized. "As the occupying power, Israel has unequivocal obligations under international law—including the duty of ensuring food and medical supplies of the population... No more excuses. The time for action is not tomorrow—it is now."
The IPC report emphasized that, as bad as the situation in Gaza currently is, it is projected to get even worse in the coming weeks.
"Between mid-August and the end of September 2025, conditions are expected to further worsen with famine projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis," the IPC stated. "Nearly a third of the population (641,000 people) are expected to face catastrophic conditions (IPC Phase 5), while those in emergency (IPC Phase 4) will likely rise to 1.14 million (58%). Acute malnutrition is projected to continue worsening rapidly."
The Gaza Health Ministry has estimated that 272 people in Gaza, including 112 children, have so far died from severe hunger as a result of the Israeli blockade. Additionally, international charity Save the Children earlier this month said that 43% of pregnant and breastfeeding women who showed up to its clinics in Gaza last month were malnourished, which represented a threefold increase since March, when the Israeli military imposed a total siege on the enclave.
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Why Mamdani’s City-Owned Grocery Stores Are an Idea Whose Time Has Come
Rather than accepting that small rural towns and historically marginalized communities go without proper access to affordable and quality food in the pursuit of corporate profit, public ownership reframes the conversation by directly addressing market failure.
Aug 08, 2025
Zohran Mamdani’s surprise win in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City was powered by a focus on affordability. One of his more innovative proposals to help address the city’s growing cost of living crisis is to open a city-owned grocery store in each borough that expands access to good-quality food for residents at an affordable price.
Contrary to the public outcry from critics, city-owned grocery stores are not a novel or radical idea in the United States. The United States military already operates a network of publicly owned grocery stores; rural communities in Kansas have successfully experimented with municipally owned supermarkets; and big cities are exploring their potential and charting plans.
City-owned grocery stores are a promising solution for communities who suffer from the hunger and food insecurity that comes from living in food deserts, urban or rural neighborhoods with limited access to healthy and affordable groceries.
Food deserts exist in part because of misaligned profit motives for private sector grocery companies. Large corporate retailers like Kroger and Whole Foods do not bother to invest in certain communities because, despite demand, low-income neighborhoods lack the infrastructure and purchasing power to sustain their for-profit business. Instead, retailers concentrate or relocate their grocery stores to areas where they can expect a higher rate of return, like wealthier suburban neighborhoods.
That profit incentive creates a harmful cycle that perpetuates a phenomenon known as “supermarket redlining” that leaves thousands of communities underserved.
The real return on investment is improved health outcomes, stronger neighborhoods, greater accountability to your constituents, and the elimination of food deserts for the more than 53 million people who currently live in them.
New York City is home to more than two dozen neighborhoods that are classified as food deserts. These localities are predominantly Black and Hispanic and rely on both bodegas and dollar stores for their grocery needs, creating “food swamps” where unhealthy food options vastly outnumber nutritious ones.
Mamdani’s proposal seeks to fill the void left by the market. He is offering city-owned grocery stores as a public option to low-income residents in neighborhoods that the private sector has abandoned. If elected, Mamdani has pledged to allocate $60 million to support his grocery pilot program with a focus on expanding accessibility and guaranteeing affordability rather than turning a profit. Complaints about profitability are overblown given that public sector grocery stores can manage costs with the elimination of price markups via property tax, rent, and licensing fee exemptions.
The projected savings for consumers from this program has resonated with New Yorkers. Food prices in the Big Apple have increased by more than 25% since 2019. The same cannot be said for workers’ wages, which have stagnated and failed to keep up with grocery costs.
Mamdani’s detractors point to several challenges of running an effective city-owned grocery store. For example, local governments may lack operational expertise or find it difficult to purchase food from wholesalers at a competitive price. But these challenges are not insurmountable.
The Rural Grocery Initiative at Kansas State University provides one-on-one support to new grocery stores—from initial feasibility studies and market research to employee training and operational management—through a statewide healthy food initiative.
“The grocery industry was once thought of as a multigenerational industry where the business was passed down from parents to their kids,” the program’s director Rial Carver told Inequality.org in a recent interview. But with the increased market concentration by a handful of dominant corporate players, “there are grocers [now] entering the business without generational knowledge. The need for technical assistance is great, and we do anything we can to support them.”
State and local governments and institutions can spearhead or partake in programs that assist municipal grocery stores with market expertise, technical support, and state initiatives like Colorado’s Community Food Access Program that help retailers access food at lower prices.
Military commissaries are an excellent example of how storefront collaboration can keep prices competitive. By having their network of stores share suppliers, they are able to maintain prices 25-30% lower than retail stores.
In North Dakota, three grocery stores along with two other entities came together in 2021 to form the Rural Access Distribution (RAD), a purchasing cooperative. One of the goals of the cooperative is for the businesses to collectively purchase food in bulk in order to reap the benefits of wholesale prices. “There is also a restaurant [and] a school district that has bought into the purchasing co-op,” added Carver. “They see the benefits of buying into that wholesaler. It can serve other business types too.”
Mamdani’s city-owned grocery stores can adopt a similar strategy with other New York grocers, forming or joining a consortium, to pool their resources together to purchase food in high volume to access cheaper wholesale prices.
The St. Paul Supermarket, a grocery store owned and operated by the city of St. Paul in Kansas, is a successful example of a city-owned shop. After the retirement of Joe and Sue Renfro, the city government decided to purchase it. The grocery store is now in its 12th year of operation as a city-owned enterprise. The secret, according to the city, is broad community support and an effective leadership team, plus a commitment from the city to continue to provide financial support.
Public groceries do not have to be uniform. They can take on different organizational structures depending on the desires of community stakeholders, the level of support from residents, and local governments. Models range from worker-owned cooperatives and nonprofits to public-private partnerships where operations are outsourced.
For example, the city of Atlanta is planning to open two municipally-owned grocery stores in partnership with the organic food market Savi Provisions later this year to tackle food insecurity. The stores will be more than just a place to shop for groceries; they will also be a community and cultural hub with workshops and classes.
Rather than accepting that small rural towns and historically marginalized communities go without proper access to affordable and quality food in the pursuit of corporate profit, public ownership reframes the conversation by directly addressing market failure. City-owned grocery stores also have the potential to generate new debates on the high levels of market concentration in the industry and revive the enforcement of the Robinson-Patman Act to reverse price discrimination of wholesalers towards smaller and municipal grocers.
It is possible that Mamdani’s city-owned grocery stores may run at an economic loss in the first few years, but public options are not designed to make a profit. They are designed to provide adequate access to groceries at an affordable price to customers.
The real return on investment is improved health outcomes, stronger neighborhoods, greater accountability to your constituents, and the elimination of food deserts for the more than 53 million people who currently live in them. City-owned grocery stores are a step towards transforming food access and full-service groceries from a privilege into a community right.
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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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Why Guaranteed Income Is the GOAT
Minnesota's three-year-old Guaranteed Income for Artists pilot program offers a small yet mighty payment that has unlocked creative freedom and opened new opportunities that ripple through our communities.
Nov 21, 2024
If you were driving by a remote stretch of Minnesota County Highway 210—connecting Wahpeton, North Dakota and Fergus Falls—you would see a massive billboard depicting a painting of three goats. It looks out of place—colorful and vibrant on a desolate stretch of highway mostly used by westbound truckers and locals. On the top left-hand corner of the billboard rests a stark reminder to anyone looking up: "In rural we tend to the herd."
My wife and I share a farm with Edith, Willa, and Milagro—our three goats and the willing subjects of the billboard—and 10 laying chickens, two inside dogs, and three outside cats. As a recipient of Minnesota's three-year-old Guaranteed Income for Artists pilot program, I was inspired to create the billboard as a tribute to the state's guaranteed income pilot, which tends to the community and is changing the lives of artists like myself.
Since moving to Otter Tail County in 2017, I've deepened my connection to the land and the rhythms of rural life. I am attuned to the changing of the seasons, and the serene landscape outside my windows becomes inspiration for paintings in my home studio. Living in a rural setting provides the space I need to get into the creative flow. And the quiet, slower pace of life has unlocked the creative freedom to make my large-scale narrative paintings.
As policymakers and community leaders consider implementing guaranteed income programs, I hope they look to Minnesota's example.
But making a living as an artist in rural Minnesota is no easy feat. It often requires having many different income streams to stay on top of student loans, car payments, and grocery bills. So, when I received an email telling me I had been chosen by lottery to participate in a new pilot providing guaranteed income for rural artists, I breathed a sigh of relief.
The program is set to expand, soon providing no-strings-attached $500 monthly payments to 100 artists for five years—far exceeding typical 12-18-month pilots. This growth cements its position as the nation's longest-running guaranteed income pilot focusing on both urban and rural creators. For me and my fellow artists, this small yet mighty payment has unlocked creative freedom and opened new opportunities that ripple through our communities.
As Minnesota finds itself in the national spotlight following Gov. Tim Walz's candidacy for Vice President, our state's innovative approaches to social and economic policy are garnering renewed attention. As of 2024, 10 states have introduced legislation attempting to ban guaranteed income programs. The misplaced fear stems from ideological and economic concerns about the effects of guaranteed income even though more than a dozen studies have shown that it leads to higher employment rates, housing and food security, and more family time.
When artists have the freedom to create and engage, we become catalysts for positive change that benefits entire communities. Take Jess Torgerson, a multidisciplinary artist and community organizer in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. Before the guaranteed income program, Jess was working 60 hours a week. Now, she has partnered with another artist to create sculptures from found materials, simultaneously making art and ridding her community of unwanted waste. Then there's Torri Hanna, a fiber artist. The program helped Torri and her daughter improve their living situation and stabilize her yarn store business. Torri, too, has expanded her community involvement, working with the local senior center to create art for downtown storefront windows.
Recent data from the program shows its remarkable impacts. Participants reported a decrease in financial stress, an increase in their ability to pay for basic needs, and an increase in their ability to take on creative and community projects they wouldn't have otherwise pursued. The success of Minnesota's program is part of a larger movement, with over 100 pilot programs across the United States testing the impact for different groups of people. Programs like the Works Projects Administration coming out of the New Deal made it possible for artists to make a living and beautified our nation's infrastructure. We have a history to look back on in guiding public investments in artists—we already know that investing in artists pays back manifold.
In my community, we understand the value of tending to the herd—and we've all taken an important lesson from Edith, Willa, and Milagro, who sit in formation with their backs to each other so that they can share body heat, and each can observe a different direction to keep an eye out for threats. Our communities are strengthened when we tend to each other with the same dedication. This, to me, is what guaranteed income does for artists. It says, "We've got your back."
As policymakers and community leaders consider implementing guaranteed income programs, I hope they look to Minnesota's example. Include artists in your pilots. Recognize the unique value they bring to your communities. Understand that by supporting artists, you're nurturing the creativity, resilience, and interconnectedness that make our communities thrive. In Minnesota, we know that the strength of the herd depends on how well we tend to each individual. We know our rural parts of the state enable our strong urban centers to thrive. As you consider the future of your own communities, look out for each other. Share your warmth. Face different directions, but always stay close and connected.
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Reimagining Conservation Post-Cop16: The Case for a Universal Basic Income
The recent COP16 underscored the need for inclusive conservation strategies in Latin America, where social conflicts and environmental vulnerabilities intersect. A Universal Basic Income could be the answer.
Nov 13, 2024
The recent 16th Conference of Parties (COP16) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP16, has highlighted the urgent need to rethink conservation strategies, particularly in Latin America, where the convergence of social conflict and environmental vulnerability creates a complex, high-stakes landscape.
The global environmental crisis, manifesting in the accelerated loss of biodiversity, is exacerbated by deep socio-economic inequalities. Yet communities most affected by environmental degradation are often those that can play a crucial role in its protection. Traditional approaches are no longer sufficient; conservation efforts must be both innovative and inclusive. Therefore, it is vital that communities are included in the formulation of policies that impact their lives. And to take an active role in conservation, they require support through financing mechanisms tailored to their specific needs.
The intersection of conservation and social justice is not merely an ideal; it is an urgent necessity that we must embrace to achieve a sustainable future for all.
In this regard, Universal Basic Income (UBI) emerges as an essential tool for empowering vulnerable communities and promoting equitable conservation strategies. It is not merely about mitigating environmental impacts; these actions also strengthen community resilience and contribute to peace, helping to prevent conflicts. However, the true potential of UBI is only fully realized when supported by financing mechanisms such as Cap and Share.
A Model of Climate Justice
The Cap and Share model generates socio-economic equality through emission reductions and biodiversity protection. And by redirecting these resources towards UBI, we can create a virtuous cycle in which vulnerable communities benefit directly from conservation actions.
Cap and Share enables communities to receive regular, unconditional payments, providing them with crucial financial security. This not only alleviates pressure on natural resources but also facilitates active community participation in the conservation of their surroundings. UBI is not simply economic assistance; it is a model of climate justice that ensures those most affected by climate change receive direct support, empowering them to become agents of change.
Colombia Pilot Project
In Colombia, where the intersection of urgent environmental challenges and violent conflict is particularly evident, a pilot project implementing UBI could be pivotal. This initiative would provide regular income to affected communities, offering them economic relief and the opportunity to engage in conservation practices. Such a project would not only generate immediate benefits for the communities involved but also serve as a vital case study for scaling UBI initiatives across similar contexts. The evidence gathered from this pilot could demonstrate the effectiveness of UBI in reducing poverty, enhancing food security, and fostering peaceful sustainable practices, thereby making a compelling case for broader implementation.
Global evidence suggests that regular income from UBI can have significant positive effects on food security and community autonomy. Communities receiving cash transfers can diversify their income sources and improve their agricultural practices, thereby reducing pressure on ecosystems. In Colombia, this could mean a reduction in practices that contribute to deforestation, as communities empowered by financial security are more likely to invest in sustainable land management.
Armed conflict in Colombia has left deep scars on the country’s social and environmental fabric. Displaced communities and areas of high ecological degradation serve as constant reminders of the interconnectedness of social and environmental issues. Restoring the environment and reducing inequalities must be tackled together to achieve lasting peace. Implementing UBI, supported by Cap and Share, could be a crucial step toward rebuilding the relationship between communities and nature, creating a foundation for sustainable development.
A Sustainable and Equitable Future
As we look forward, it is essential that the conversation around inclusive financing does not stall. Every dollar allocated to conservation should be seen as an investment in the communities that care for our most precious ecosystems. Both international and national actors must recognise the importance of these initiatives and collaborate to ensure that vulnerable communities have access to the resources they need.
The implementation of UBI, alongside mechanisms like Cap and Share, not only offers an economic solution but also addresses the root causes of social and environmental injustice. In doing so, we not only protect biodiversity and ecosystems but also build more just and resilient societies, capable of facing present and future challenges. The intersection of conservation and social justice is not merely an ideal; it is an urgent necessity that we must embrace to achieve a sustainable future for all.
Concluding this chapter of COP16, it is clear that the path to effective conservation must be inclusive. Promoting dialogue around financing mechanisms that empower vulnerable communities is essential to ensure that conservation strategies are fair and effective. Only by doing so can we strengthen the resilience of our communities and contribute to a more equitable world, where nature and humanity coexist in harmony. A pilot project in Colombia can provide the necessary evidence to scale these initiatives, offering a replicable model on a larger scale, which can be advocated in upcoming scenarios such as COP29 and COP30.
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