March 13, 2025

Trump freezes $1 billion in food aid and continues to screw over farmers.

USDA cancels $1B in local food purchasing for schools, food banks. States have been notified that they will not receive 2025 funding for schools to buy food from nearby farms.

Roughly $660 million that schools and child care facilities were counting on to purchase food from nearby farms through the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program in 2025 has been canceled, according to the School Nutrition Association.

And while feeding hungry people is obviously woke that damage it does to farmers is just another in a long line ot policies that has hurt the american farming industry. Now that Trump has decided to levy tariffs on our friends to the north and south it gets worse. But don’t worry, he assured farms they would be ok and they would have fun:

To the Great Farmers of the United States: Get ready to start making a lot of agricultural products to be sold INSIDE of the United States. Tariffs will go on external product on April 2nd. Have fun!

Thank you Dear Leader! Sounds good, right? Well there are a few problems:

• In 2024, the U.S. exported $176 billion in agricultural products to a total of 189 countries and territories. Nearly half (47%) of our agricultural exports went to only three countries: Mexico, Canada and China. AFB
• Agricultural exports are also important the broader U.S. economy. On average, _{$2.09 of domestic economic activity} is created for every $1 of U.S. agricultural exports. This translates to jobs as well, with USDA estimating that over 6,000 jobs are created for each $1 billion in agricultural exports — equaling approximately 1.25 million jobs in 2022. AFB
• We produce more food than we use: The US agricultural system currently produces enough food to feed 136% (95% CI: 129–144%) of its population. NIH
• One of the huge tasks of USAID (other than being a foot in the door for CIA) is to get rid of surplus grain. The United States makes way too much grain but also wants a surplus of it in case of emergency. One of the ways they keep this going is buy buying it off the farmers and taking it to places where there isn’t food. n 2020, the federal government bought around $2 billion worth of food aid from American farmers. NPR
• American farms import 95% of their potash from Canada. The U.S imports 90 per cent of the potash its farmers need annually and 85 per cent of it comes from Canada. Almost half of the product out of Saskatchewan in 2023 went to the U.S. market. The OEC valued the international trade at US$3.66 billion. National Post
• Trumps tariffs in decimated farmers income in his first term. The Trump administration gave more taxpayer dollars to farmers harmed by the administration’s trade policies than the federal government spends each year building ships for the Navy or maintaining America’s nuclear arsenal, according to a new report. A National Foundation for American Policy analysis concluded the spending on farmers was also higher than the annual budgets of several government agencies.

At least now we know that the “have fun” is directed at his rich cronies that will buy up all the small farms when they go belly up due to these policies. The best part of all of this is farmers voted for this. Republicans voting against their own best interests.. truly a tale as old as time.

#ehc.today/draft

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