The Republican budget passed earlier this month took a chainsaw to several foundational pillars that prop up the U.S. food system: public spending for those facing hunger; under-paid immigrant workers; and a Farm Bill coalition of rural and urban policymakers. The immediate impact will reverberate throughout the food system in the next few years, but the long-term implications are equally alarming.
The Republican budget slashed nearly $190 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Access Program (SNAP), the nation’s leading anti-hunger program. It dramatically boosted funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), targeting farm and food processing workers. And the decision to break apart pieces of the Farm Bill and insert SNAP and farm commodity subsidies into the general budget threatens the future of the nation’s largest farm and food legislation.
The cuts will not only hit food systems, but the rural communities where much of our food production and processing occurs. On top of the cuts to SNAP, there were massive reductions for Medicaid that are expected to hit rural hospitals and healthcare particularly hard. The budget also included major cuts to renewable energy projects that were driving new jobs in rural areas, particularly programs supporting wind and solar projects around the country. While touted as an effort to rein in spending, the Republican budget projects to increase the debt by more than $3 trillion in the coming years.
For farm programs, the new budget adds $50 billion subsidies for growing commodity crops (corn, soy, wheat, cotton, rice), including loopholes to allow larger farms to receive higher payments. The additional public funding for the largest farms will likely accelerate the trend of farmland consolidation, with fewer, larger farms dominating production and less access to farmland for new or beginning farmers.
It is hard to overstate the impact expanded ICE enforcement will have on U.S. food production. Much of the food system relies on immigrant labor, from meatpacking plants to farm fields to dairies. ICE raids have already affected farmworkers in the fields of California and Washington, meatpacking workers in Nebraska and Iowa, and dairies in New Mexico and Vermont. The fear looming over farming communities has already had its own impact, forcing many farmworkers into hiding as harvest season approaches. Additional ICE funding for detention centers will mean more targeting of food system workers, often held in deplorable, inhumane conditions. As we head into harvest season, we can export more reports of disruptions in the food supply and potentially price spikes.
Our current food system is deeply vulnerable to the swings of the Trump administration’s chaotic trade policy. The Republican budget includes increases in agriculture trade promotion subsidies that could help blunt retaliatory tariffs from other countries targeting U.S. agriculture exports. The administration claims that addressing the agriculture trade deficit (the U.S. imports $58 billion more than it exports) is the goal, yet the budget bill will likely do the opposite. Beginning in first Trump administration in 2019 and picking up in 2022, the U.S. has had an agricultural trade deficit that largely reflects increasing imports of fruits, vegetables and seafood (though the U.S. also has a beef trade deficit), as most of U.S. farmland follows Farm Bill commodity programs to produce corn, soybeans, wheat and cotton. The targeting of farmworkers by ICE could further limit U.S. production of fruits and vegetables, and potentially meat and dairy. Trump’s ongoing trade blow-ups with major agriculture export partners China, Mexico, and Canada are already hurting exports.
Left behind with an uncertain future are Farm Bill programs on credit, rural development, energy, local food systems, and conservation programs. Republican Agriculture Committee Chairs have promised to pass a “skinny” Farm Bill this fall that covers these stranded programs. But it will be much more difficult to gain congressional support (from both parties) now that SNAP and commodity program subsidies are completed.
The Republican budget will ripple through future farm policy, the food system workforce, anti-hunger initiatives and rural economies in the years to come. Many of these costs will be borne by state and county-level governments. The vulnerabilities of the current food system are many and its foundational pillars were already shaky. If there is a movement to push back against the immediate harms of the Republican budget, it needs to be more than a return to “business as usual.” It’s time to consider building a new foundation, one in which food and farm workers are paid fairly, everyone can access healthy food, rural communities prosper, and farmers can rely on fair markets rather than subsidies.
