School nutritionists are raising alarms about the future of school meals for children, as recent and potential cuts by the Trump administration loom.
On Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced cuts to two programs that allowed schools and food banks to acquire food from local farms, a move that experts warn could jeopardize vital connections between schools and local agricultural communities.
Shannon Gleave, president of the School Nutrition Association, expressed her concerns to the Scripps News Group, emphasizing the importance of these relationships for schools and local farmers.
“I would like to express how much this has impacted our schools, how many relationships have been built, having our students seeing where their food comes from. It’s not only fresh fruits and vegetables, we’ve got fish coming from Massachusetts. We’ve got shrimp coming from Alabama. We’ve got local beef from schools in Wisconsin,” she stated.
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In defense of the cuts, the USDA claimed that the changes were a result of a Biden administration program. It argued that the funds allocated were leftover from the early pandemic period when Congress provided additional resources to school districts for meal programs.
“As we have always said if we are making mistakes, we will own those mistakes and we will reconfigure. But right now, from what we are viewing, that program was nonessential, that it was a new program, and that it was an effort by the left to continue spending taxpayer dollars that were not necessary,” USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said in an interview on Fox News earlier this week.
The recent cuts add to a growing list of fears for school nutritionists.
This week, over 800 nutritionists from across the United States lobbied lawmakers to protect the current funding formula for school lunches, which allows many schools to provide free meals.
Gleave highlighted the broader implications of financial changes, expressing concern that cuts to school meals could emerge as a means to fund President Trump’s proposed tax cuts – which might be included in a bill expected to pass this spring.
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“I am a firm believer that students cannot achieve academic success without a full stomach,” she noted.
Across the nation, over 95,000 schools and institutions serve lunches to 29.6 million students each day, including 20.4 million free lunches.
The decisions Congress makes in the coming weeks regarding school meal funding will likely affect each school district differently, given the variations in funding levels across states.
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