June 26, 2019 2:00 PM EDT
This spring, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) released a groundbreaking new study showing that kids and schools alike have benefited enormously from new school nutrition standards adopted over the course of the last seven years. This is the first comprehensive assessment of how schools across the nation have fared since the standards were first rolled out in 2012-2013.
But if you missed the press release, it’s because there wasn’t one. Read more >
February 25, 2019 11:28 AM EDT
The average US supermarket carries more than 30,000 items. With all that choice, you’d think it would be easy to make day-to-day food-buying decisions that are good for people, animals, and the planet. But a trip to a virtual supermarket in a new online feature shows why that isn’t necessarily true, and what it will take to make real change in our food and farming system. Read more >
December 4, 2018 5:04 PM EDT
Just a week after the Council of the District of Columbia advanced a bill that would transition the city to all renewable energy sources by 2032, it scored a big win on another forward-looking policy issue: putting healthy, local, and sustainable food on the plates of many of its youngest residents. Read more >
December 20, 2017 3:27 PM EDT
We’ve been talking a lot about the federal legislation known as the Farm Bill, a major law governing key US food and agriculture programs that’s up for re-authorization during 2018. And while most of the dozen sections or “titles” of the 2014 Farm Bill are deep in the weeds of agriculture, the title governing nutrition programs is actually the largest, and by a long shot. It accounts for approximately 80 percent of the bill’s spending, and its programs are among the most important resources in the federal safety net. Read more >
May 23, 2017 12:26 PM EDT
Today, the Trump administration released a budget proposal for FY 2018 that would drastically reduce funding for SNAP—the largest nutrition assistance program in the federal safety net—by a full 28 percent over the course of the next ten years. This amounts to a $193 billion dollar cut from a program with a yearly budget of less than $75 billion. Read more >
