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    I grew up on American food. Trust me, it’s the last thing Europe needs | Alexander Hurst

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    All over European media, the take seems to be similar – that the EU is “under pressure” to conclude some sort of deal with the US in order to avoid Donald Trump’s 9 July deadline for the unilateral imposition of broad tariffs. What might be on the table in the attempt to secure that? In early May, the EU trade commissioner, Maroš Šefčovič, was already suggesting that a deal to increase purchases from the US could include agricultural products – a possibility that seems to remain even though Šefčovič later clarified that the EU was not contemplating changing its health or safety standards.Since I have failed to Abba (“Always be boldly acronyming”) and don’t have anything as good as Taco (“Trump always chickens out”) – coined by the Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong – at the ready, I’ll simply reach for the easy line: opening the door even slightly to more US food imports into the EU would leave a bad taste in all our mouths. Trump’s hostage-taking approach to trade should not be rewarded, certainly not with something that hits as close to home as food does.“The European Union won’t take chicken from America. They won’t take lobsters from America. They hate our beef because our beef is beautiful and theirs is weak,” declared the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, in April. Laughter aside, every time I go back to the US I become a vegetarian for the duration of my trip – even though US grocery store vegetables are themselves generally big, blemish-free and bland. Why? Call me paranoid, but I simply don’t want to ingest the same growth hormones that Lutnick’s “beautiful” meat probably contains traces of and that are banned in the EU.Growing up in Ohio, I experienced the full force of US food culture. It was the 90s, which meant that margarine was most definitely in and butter was out; an example that highlights how processed everything took root, including – in my vegetarian family – highly processed meat alternatives. The people around me meant well, but how do you fight a system that, from top to bottom, was designed to push high fructose corn syrup into practically everything (and most worryingly into school lunches)?To be fair, all of this has since generated a domestic backlash, but there’s an intense amount of momentum behind it still: almost without fail, I find that the standard sugar level in the US soars far beyond what I now find appealing. Even in places I wouldn’t expect to find added sugar at all, like pizza.And why would the Trump administration’s full-scale savaging of the US government’s administrative and regulatory capacity, including the Food and Drug Administration, increase anyone’s trust that what US regulation does exist is actually being followed?Some of you are perhaps rolling your eyes, thinking: Alexander Hurst, a naturalised French citizen, has gone full “chauvin”; converts are the worst. Except it’s not just me. There is an entire internet subgenre of content extolling the virtues of French butter, or involving Americans who come to France and realise that this is what peaches, or strawberries, really taste like.Beyond the question of whether or not Europeans want to eat US agricultural output, a hypothetical trade deal would involve hugely negative climate impacts. The distance that food travels already accounts for 20% of global agriculture-related emissions pollution, and Europe’s share in imported agriculture emissions is already high. We need to be reducing it, not adding to it through foodstuffs carted unnecessarily across the Atlantic.How can we ask European farmers to accelerate their transition to regenerative agriculture (which offers the potential to drastically reduce agriculture emissions) if, at the same time, they are being undercut by US producers who face far lower regulatory standards?“Europe already produces and grows everything it could possibly need. The last thing we want to see circulating is hormone-pumped beef or chlorinated poultry,” says Lindsey Tramuta, the author of The Eater Guide to Paris. “Even beyond the goods themselves, there’s the issue of distance: why bring food over from the US if Europeans can get their needs met from much closer to home?”Yannick Huang, who manages the Vietnamese restaurant Loan in Paris’s Belleville neighbourhood, agrees. “At a time when we’re trying to do organic, local, it’s pointless to want to import anything from the US,” he told me. Huang, who is obsessive about ingredient quality, only serves French beef. To him, US agriculture comes tainted with the connotation of “GMOs and other problems”.Hold on, you might say. Isn’t it inconsistent to oppose Trump’s tariffs while also promoting food protectionism? Fair point: it’s hard to find a “one size fits all” approach to globalisation. It has harmed some workers in wealthy economies while also reducing the gap between low-income nations and high-income ones. No country on Earth has a fully self-contained advanced semiconductor manufacturing supply chain, and in sectors where globalisation has become excessive, it might be even more economically harmful to roll back. None of that, though, means that things that have resisted becoming fully global should all of a sudden be opened up – food most of all.Ramzi Saadé is a Lebanese-Canadian chef whose Paris restaurant, Atica, is dedicated to a fiercely regional approach to haute cuisine. But taking his diners on a voyage of discovery doesn’t mean his food has to go on one too; despite focusing on first Basque, and now Corsican cuisine, he sources almost all of his ingredients from the area surrounding Paris. For a lamb dish involving 13 different elements, only the nepeta, a Corsican herb, had travelled, he said. “Is my role today to bring you Japanese culture via wasabi flown to Paris?” Saadé asked. “No, my role is to explain to you that it’s grated this way and put on fish for this reason, and I can do that with wasabi from France.”I couldn’t help but think that it’s actually far more interesting to do it his way – to interpret a cuisine rather than attempt to transpose it.We are what we eat. A cuisine is a medium of communication; it is, indelibly, tied up with the stories we tell about who we are. Perhaps that’s why it’s so disturbing to see food held hostage, or weaponised, in the pursuit of economic or geostrategic goals.Europe’s intense and varied regionality is an enormous part of how it eats and therefore what it is. Opening the market to mass penetration by US agriculture would, little by little, nibble away at that richness. It’s the kind of proposition that, if it ever makes it out of the kitchen, should be sent back straight away.

    Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe columnist More

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      I grew up on American food. Trust me, it’s the last thing Europe needs | Alexander Hurst

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      All over European media, the take seems to be similar – that the EU is “under pressure” to conclude some sort of deal with the US in order to avoid Donald Trump’s 9 July deadline for the unilateral imposition of broad tariffs. What might be on the table in the attempt to secure that? In early May, the EU trade commissioner, Maroš Šefčovič, was already suggesting that a deal to increase purchases from the US could include agricultural products – a possibility that seems to remain even though Šefčovič later clarified that the EU was not contemplating changing its health or safety standards.Since I have failed to Abba (“Always be boldly acronyming”) and don’t have anything as good as Taco (“Trump always chickens out”) – coined by the Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong – at the ready, I’ll simply reach for the easy line: opening the door even slightly to more US food imports into the EU would leave a bad taste in all our mouths. Trump’s hostage-taking approach to trade should not be rewarded, certainly not with something that hits as close to home as food does.“The European Union won’t take chicken from America. They won’t take lobsters from America. They hate our beef because our beef is beautiful and theirs is weak,” declared the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, in April. Laughter aside, every time I go back to the US I become a vegetarian for the duration of my trip – even though US grocery store vegetables are themselves generally big, blemish-free and bland. Why? Call me paranoid, but I simply don’t want to ingest the same growth hormones that Lutnick’s “beautiful” meat probably contains traces of and that are banned in the EU.Growing up in Ohio, I experienced the full force of US food culture. It was the 90s, which meant that margarine was most definitely in and butter was out; an example that highlights how processed everything took root, including – in my vegetarian family – highly processed meat alternatives. The people around me meant well, but how do you fight a system that, from top to bottom, was designed to push high fructose corn syrup into practically everything (and most worryingly into school lunches)?To be fair, all of this has since generated a domestic backlash, but there’s an intense amount of momentum behind it still: almost without fail, I find that the standard sugar level in the US soars far beyond what I now find appealing. Even in places I wouldn’t expect to find added sugar at all, like pizza.And why would the Trump administration’s full-scale savaging of the US government’s administrative and regulatory capacity, including the Food and Drug Administration, increase anyone’s trust that what US regulation does exist is actually being followed?Some of you are perhaps rolling your eyes, thinking: Alexander Hurst, a naturalised French citizen, has gone full “chauvin”; converts are the worst. Except it’s not just me. There is an entire internet subgenre of content extolling the virtues of French butter, or involving Americans who come to France and realise that this is what peaches, or strawberries, really taste like.Beyond the question of whether or not Europeans want to eat US agricultural output, a hypothetical trade deal would involve hugely negative climate impacts. The distance that food travels already accounts for 20% of global agriculture-related emissions pollution, and Europe’s share in imported agriculture emissions is already high. We need to be reducing it, not adding to it through foodstuffs carted unnecessarily across the Atlantic.How can we ask European farmers to accelerate their transition to regenerative agriculture (which offers the potential to drastically reduce agriculture emissions) if, at the same time, they are being undercut by US producers who face far lower regulatory standards?“Europe already produces and grows everything it could possibly need. The last thing we want to see circulating is hormone-pumped beef or chlorinated poultry,” says Lindsey Tramuta, the author of The Eater Guide to Paris. “Even beyond the goods themselves, there’s the issue of distance: why bring food over from the US if Europeans can get their needs met from much closer to home?”Yannick Huang, who manages the Vietnamese restaurant Loan in Paris’s Belleville neighbourhood, agrees. “At a time when we’re trying to do organic, local, it’s pointless to want to import anything from the US,” he told me. Huang, who is obsessive about ingredient quality, only serves French beef. To him, US agriculture comes tainted with the connotation of “GMOs and other problems”.Hold on, you might say. Isn’t it inconsistent to oppose Trump’s tariffs while also promoting food protectionism? Fair point: it’s hard to find a “one size fits all” approach to globalisation. It has harmed some workers in wealthy economies while also reducing the gap between low-income nations and high-income ones. No country on Earth has a fully self-contained advanced semiconductor manufacturing supply chain, and in sectors where globalisation has become excessive, it might be even more economically harmful to roll back. None of that, though, means that things that have resisted becoming fully global should all of a sudden be opened up – food most of all.Ramzi Saadé is a Lebanese-Canadian chef whose Paris restaurant, Atica, is dedicated to a fiercely regional approach to haute cuisine. But taking his diners on a voyage of discovery doesn’t mean his food has to go on one too; despite focusing on first Basque, and now Corsican cuisine, he sources almost all of his ingredients from the area surrounding Paris. For a lamb dish involving 13 different elements, only the nepeta, a Corsican herb, had travelled, he said. “Is my role today to bring you Japanese culture via wasabi flown to Paris?” Saadé asked. “No, my role is to explain to you that it’s grated this way and put on fish for this reason, and I can do that with wasabi from France.”I couldn’t help but think that it’s actually far more interesting to do it his way – to interpret a cuisine rather than attempt to transpose it.We are what we eat. A cuisine is a medium of communication; it is, indelibly, tied up with the stories we tell about who we are. Perhaps that’s why it’s so disturbing to see food held hostage, or weaponised, in the pursuit of economic or geostrategic goals.Europe’s intense and varied regionality is an enormous part of how it eats and therefore what it is. Opening the market to mass penetration by US agriculture would, little by little, nibble away at that richness. It’s the kind of proposition that, if it ever makes it out of the kitchen, should be sent back straight away.

      Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe columnist More

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      F.D.A. Looks to A.I. to Enhance Efficiency

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      With a Trump-driven reduction of nearly 2,000 employees, agency officials view artificial intelligence as a way to speed drugs to the market.The Food and Drug Administration is planning to use artificial intelligence to “radically increase efficiency” in deciding whether to approve new drugs and devices, one of several top priorities laid out in an article published Tuesday in JAMA.Another initiative involves a review of chemicals and other “concerning ingredients” that appear in U.S. food but not in the food of other developed nations. And officials want to speed up the final stages of making a drug or medical device approval decision to mere weeks, citing the success of Operation Warp Speed during the Covid pandemic when workers raced to curb a spiraling death count.“The F.D.A. will be focused on delivering faster cures and meaningful treatments for patients, especially those with neglected and rare diseases, healthier food for children and common-sense approaches to rebuild the public trust,” Dr. Marty Makary, the agency commissioner, and Dr. Vinay Prasad, who leads the division that oversees vaccines and gene therapy, wrote in the JAMA article.The agency plays a central role in pursuing the agenda of the U.S. health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and it has already begun to press food makers to eliminate artificial food dyes. The new road map also underscores the Trump administration’s efforts to smooth the way for major industries with an array of efforts aimed at getting products to pharmacies and store shelves quickly.Some aspects of the proposals outlined in JAMA were met with skepticism, particularly the idea that artificial intelligence is up to the task of shearing months or years from the painstaking work of examining applications that companies submit when seeking approval for a drug or high-risk medical device.“I don’t want to be dismissive of speeding reviews at the F.D.A.,” said Stephen Holland, a lawyer who formerly advised the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on health care. “I think that there is great potential here, but I’m not seeing the beef yet.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      RFK Jr’s report calls farmers the ‘backbone’ of the US – but Trump’s cuts hurt them

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      Independent and organic farmers say chaos created by the Trump administration’s cuts has hurt their businesses, even as the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, praises small farms and regenerative agriculture.The split-screen for small and organic farms – which one farmer described as the administration “talking out of both sides of their mouth” – comes on the heels of the release of the “Maha” report. The White House document mentions farms, farmers and farming 21 times, and argues conventional agriculture has led to more ultra-processed foods.“Reading that report, it’s like a small-scale organic farmer’s dream,” said Seth Kroeck as he slammed the door on his 1993 F350 truck. Kroeck owns the organic Crystal Spring Farm, 331 acres (135 hectares) in Brunswick, Maine. “But then at the same time, [secretary of agriculture] Brooke Rollins’s name is on this – she’s proposing to cut two-thirds of the agriculture budget.”Kroeck had just finished planting 2,500 brussels sprouts and one-10th of an acre of specialty peppers. He still needed to fix a flat on a piece of farm equipment that day. He said small-scale farmers have promoted local, organic and whole foods for decades.While Kroeck is presumably the kind of farmer Kennedy would laud, all he finds is frustration with the administration, and actions that will “undoubtedly” make food more expensive.“We’re dealing with two personalities with our government,” said Kroeck.As conventional farmers decry the Maha report’s criticism of agricultural chemicals such as atrazine and glyphosate (the active ingredient in RoundUp), some organic and independent farmers have found that the meager government support they depend on has been upended by an administration that claims it wants to support them.“Farmers are the backbone of America – and the most innovative and productive in the world,” the report, led by Kennedy, argued. “We continue to feed the world as the largest food exporter. The greatest step the United States can take to reverse childhood chronic disease is to put whole foods produced by American farmers and ranchers at the center of healthcare.”But by March, the administration had already cut a total of $1bn in programs that supported small farms that grow locally produced fruits and vegetables. For instance, they cut a program that helped tribal food banks provide healthy food and ended a $660m program that brought fresh local foods to school cafeterias. In just one example of impact, the cut quickly ended fruit and vegetable snacks in New York City schools.“This is a huge deal for small farmers,” Ellee Igoe told the New Lede publication in March. Igoe is a co-owner of Solidarity Farm in southern California. “We’re growing healthy food and providing it to local communities. And they are cancelling contracts without real reason. Out here, it feels like it is very politically motivated.”In just one example of direct impact to Kroeck, the Trump administration fired most of the staffers at Kroeck’s local Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) office, an arm of the US Department of Agriculture that provides technical assistance to farmers, including on-site visits. The staff shrank from six to one – only the director remains.“In my book, she’s a superwoman, but how long is that going to last?” said Kroeck. “And what farmer is going to want to take on new contracts when it’s going to take her months and months and months just to return a call?”Kroeck also criticized the Maha report for including apparently invented scientific references.“The citations in the report seem to be made up by ChatGPT – this is crazy,” said Kroeck, who said he’s not a cheerleader for occupants of ivory towers, but “we do have to have some standards”.Groups such as the Organic Trade Association have largely echoed Kroeck’s sentiments, noting that this is what the organic movement has been saying all along and they need money.“We’ve long known that health begins on the farm and encourage the administration to invest in meaningful policies that expand access to organic for consumers,” said co-CEO Matthew Dillon in a statement to the Guardian.While some organic farmers say their relationship with the government has always been tenuous, small farmers say chaos has only worsened that relationship. Coastal wild blueberry farmer Nicolas Lindholm said at least a portion of the funding he was expecting for the year – to mulch his blueberries with wood chips – was “dead in the water”.“My wife and I have an organic wild blueberry farm here on the coast of Maine,” said Lindholm.“Over the past five months, we had applied for three different funding programs – all different – and finalized them through December and into January – and as of February all three of them were basically frozen.” Like many farmers, Lindholm’s needs were time-sensitive: blueberries can only be mulched every two years because of their growing cycle.In addition to direct cuts by the administration, congressional Republicans proposed cuts to food programs that indirectly benefit farmers. House Republicans passed a bill proposing $300bn in cuts to food stamps, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), to fund tax cuts. They have also proposed cuts to a food program that helps new mothers and babies buy fruits and vegetables.The panic within conventional agriculture communities has also been pronounced – with pointed criticism of the report coming before it was even published. Corn and soybeans dominate American cash crops, accounting for $131.9bn in receipts in 2023, versus just $54.8bn in all fruits, vegetables and nuts combined.“It’s no secret you were involved in pesticide litigation before you became secretary,” said Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Republican senator for Mississippi, to Kennedy, leading into a question about the need for glyphosate (the active ingredient in RoundUp), and asking whether Kennedy could be impartial.Kennedy, who went on to pledge he would not put “a single farmer” out of business, said: “There’s nobody that has a greater commitment to the American farmer than we do – the Maha movement collapses if we can’t partner with the American farmer.” More

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      RFK Jr.’s War on Pesticides Riles Farmers and a Republican Senator

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      A health report commissioned by President Trump has been causing angst within the agriculture industry who fear the chemicals will be identified as a driver of childhood disease.Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s long-running crusade against agricultural chemicals ran into pushback on Tuesday from the agriculture industry and a Republican senator, who pointedly instructed Mr. Kennedy not to interfere with the livelihood of American farmers by suggesting certain pesticides are unsafe.The admonition from the senator, Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, came as President Trump was preparing to release a report on Thursday from a commission, led by Mr. Kennedy and named for his movement, to examine the causes of childhood chronic disease.Mr. Trump established the panel to look at a range of potential factors, including chemicals, which Mr. Kennedy has said “pollute our bodies the same way that they pollute the soil.” Mr. Kennedy and his followers in the “Make America Healthy Again” movement have previously singled out the agricultural chemical glyphosate, originally made by Monsanto, which is now owned by Bayer, the German chemical and pharmaceutical giant.The key ingredient in Roundup, the chemical has long been a target of environmental groups. In 2020, Bayer paid more than $10 billion to settle tens of thousands of claims alleging Roundup causes cancer. In 2018, when he was an environmental lawyer, Mr. Kennedy helped win a $289 million judgment against Monsanto, in a case brought by a man who said the company’s weedkillers, including Roundup, caused his cancer.As Mr. Kennedy was testifying Tuesday before members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Ms. Hyde-Smith asserted that “1,500 studies and 50-plus years of review” of glyphosate by the Environmental Protection Agency and “other global health authorities have affirmed its safety when used as directed.” She also suggested in no uncertain terms that the commission had better get its facts straight.“Mr. Secretary, we have to get this right; you have to be 100 percent certain,” Ms. Hyde-Smith said, adding, “Before you start suggesting an initial assessment that the methods in which the farmers provide our food is unsafe, I trust your report will be described as an initial assessment of things to be considered but yet to be determined.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S.-Backed Group Created to Distribute Aid in Gaza Says It’s Ready to Go

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      The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation seeks to create an alternative aid system, but other groups have raised doubts about the feasibility of its plan.A foundation created with backing from the Trump administration to establish a new system for aid to flow into the Gaza Strip said on Wednesday that it had reached agreements with Israel to begin operations in the enclave before the end of the month. It also suggested that Israel had agreed to allow aid into Gaza as the foundation is setting up its operations.The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is meant to create an alternative aid system for the war-torn enclave and to end Israel’s two-month blockade on food and fuel deliveries. Israeli officials say the measure was imposed to pressure Hamas, by reducing the militant group’s ability to access and profit from food and fuel meant for civilians.The blockade has raised alarms from international organizations about the risk of famine and also from some Israeli military officials who said privately that Gazans will face widespread starvation unless aid deliveries are restored within weeks.But some other aid groups have already raised doubts about the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s approach and the plan’s feasibility.The foundation’s general plan, according to two Israeli officials and a U.N. diplomat, had been to establish a handful of distribution zones that would each serve food to several hundred thousand Palestinians. This had led to concerns that vulnerable civilians would be forced to walk longer distances to get to the few distribution hubs, making it harder to get food to those who need it most.In a statement on Wednesday, the foundation for the first time gave an indication of when it would start and said that it had secured several key agreements with Israeli officials. These agreements include allowing aid to flow into Gaza while the foundation sets up the distribution sites, letting the foundation establish sites in more places in the enclave, and creating alternative arrangements for those who cannot reach its locations.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump tariffs to hit small farms in Maga heartlands hardest, analysis predicts

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      The winners and losers of Trump’s first tariff war strongly suggest that bankruptcies and farm consolidation could surge during his second term, with major corporations best placed to benefit from his polices at the expense of independent farmers.New analysis by the non-profit research advocacy group Food and Water Watch (FWW), shared exclusively with the Guardian, shows that Trump’s first-term tariffs were particularly devastating for farmers in the Maga rural heartlands.Farm bankruptcies surged by 24% from 2018 to 2019 – the highest number in almost a decade – as retaliatory tariffs cost US farmers a staggering $27bn.Numbers of farms fell at the highest rate in two decades with the smallest operations (one to nine acres) hardest hit, declining by 14% between 2017 and 2022. Meanwhile, the number of farms earning $2.5m to $5m more than doubled.Losses from the first-term trade war were mostly concentrated in the midwest due to the region’s focus on export commodities such as corn, soy and livestock that are heavily reliant on China. States with more diverse agricultural sectors such as California and Florida experienced lower rates of insolvency and export declines than in previous years, suggesting the trade war played a role, according to Trump’s Last Tariff Tantrum: A Warning.The breakdown in closures suggests that Trump’s $28bn tariff bailout package in 2018-19 disproportionately benefited mega-farms while smaller-scale farms and minority farmers were left behind.The top tenth of recipients received 54% of all taxpayer bailout funds. The top 1% received on average $183,331 while the bottom 80% got less than $5,000 each, according to previous analysis.The number of Black farmers fell by 8% between 2017 and 2022, while white farmer numbers declined by less than 1%.View image in fullscreen“President Trump’s first-term trade war hurt independent farmers and benefited corporations, offering a warning of what is to come without a plan to help farmers adjust,” said Ben Murray, senior researcher at FWW.“Trump’s latest slap-dash announcements will likely further undermine US farmers while benefiting multinationals who can easily shift production abroad to avoid high tariffs. Farmers’ livelihoods should not be used as a foreign policy bargaining chip. Chaotic tariff tantrums are no way to run US farm policy.”The first 100 days of Trump 2.0 have led to turmoil and uncertainty for consumers, producers and the markets, amid an extraordinary mix of threats, confusing U-turns and retaliatory tariffs from trading partners.Trump’s second trade war could prove even more damaging for US farmers and rural communities, as it comes on top of dismantling of agencies, funds and Biden-era policies to help farmers adapt to climate shocks, tackle racist inequalities and strengthen regional food markets. By the end of April, more than $6bn of promised federal funds had been frozen or terminated, according to the National Sustainable Agriculture Association’s tracker.Rural counties rallied behind Trump in 2024, giving him a majority in all but 11 of the 444 farming-dependent counties, according to analysis by Investigate Midwest.Last week, the agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, played down the likely harm to Trump’s farmer base, but said the administration was preparing a contingency bailout plan if farmers are hurt by escalating trade wars. “We are working on that. We are preparing for it. We don’t believe it will be necessary,” Rollins told Fox News. “We are out across the world, right now, opening up new markets.”US farm policy has long incentivized large-scale monocropping of export commodities such as wheat, corn, soy, sorghum, rice, cotton – and industrial animal farming – rather than production for domestic consumption. This globalized agricultural system favors large and corporate-owned operations, while undermining small, diversified farms and regional food systems. It is a system inextricably tied to global commodity markets, and therefore extremely vulnerable to trade wars.The 2018-19 bailout payments were set up in a way that, inadvertently perhaps, “subsidized, encouraged and promoted” the loss of smaller and mid-size farms to the benefit of mega-farms – in large part because the tariffs were implemented without a coherent plan to reform US farm policy and help farmers transition to domestic markets.The number of large farms – those earning more than $500,000 – grew by 18% between 2017 and 2022. “The taxpayers are essentially being asked to subsidize farm consolidation,” the Environmental Working Group said at the time.Trump’s first-term tariffs hit soybean farmers, who are highly dependent on China, hardest, with exports slumping 74% in 2018 from the previous year. The number of soybean farms fell almost 11% between 2017 and 2022 – a significant turn of fortune given the 9% rise over the previous decade. In fact, the only winners after Trump’s trade war were big farms, those harvesting at least 1,000 acres of soybeans, the FWW analysis found.The 2018/19 tariff bailout package was also used to facilitate contracts and commodity purchases. A significant share went to the billion-dollar corporations which already have a stranglehold on the US food system, and rural communities.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionArkansas-headquartered Tyson Foods received almost $29m in federal contracts and purchases between August 2018 and July 2019, while Brazil-based JBS secured nearly $78m. JBS used its market power to undercut competition, winning over a quarter of the total $300m in taxpayer dollars allocated towards federal pork purchases, according to FWW.The two multinationals currently control 40% to 50% of the US beef market, 45% of poultry and, along with two other corporations, 70% of the pork market.Things could be even worse under Trump 2.0, with the president no longer seeming concerned by the markets or the polls.John Boyd Jr, a fourth-generation Black farmer, has been unable to secure a farm operating loan since Trump’s tariffs sent commodity prices tumbling. USDA field offices that help farmers apply for credit and government subsidies, which Black, Native and other minority farmers were already disproportionately denied, are being closed in the name of efficiency.View image in fullscreen“This administration is putting the heads of Black farmers on the chopping block and ridiculing us in public with no oversight and no pushback from Congress,” said Boyd, president and founder of the National Black Farmers Association, who farms soy, wheat, corn and beef in Virginia. “Trump’s tariffs are a recipe for complete disaster, and this time his voters in red states will also get punched in the face.”Trump 2.0 tariffs against China are higher and broader, and also target scores of other agricultural trading partners. China is better prepared, having diversified its import markets to Brazil and other Latin American countries since Trump’s first trade war, while US domestic farm policy has barely changed.“The administration seems completely blind to the harm that was done previously, and in many ways what’s happening now is already worse … The concern is that trades are stalled and nothing’s really flowing,” said Ben Lilliston, director of rural strategies and climate change at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.In late April, China cancelled a 12,000-tonne order of US pork – the largest cancellation since the start of the Covid pandemic, suggesting Trump’s tariff war is already sabotaging trade.“The lesson from last time is we didn’t get the money to the right farmers. But the longer-term lesson is that the US lost credibility in trade. US Secretary Rollins is going overseas to try to open up export markets but they seem to be in deep denial right now about the harm that’s already been done to these relationships,” Lilliston said.A USDA spokesperson said: “President Trump is putting farmers first and will ensure our farmers are treated fairly by our trading partners. The administration has not determined whether a farmer support program will be needed at this time. Should a program need to be implemented in the future, the department’s goal will always be to benefit farms of all sizes.”JBS, Tyson and the American Farm Bureau Federation, a lobby group, have been contacted for comment. More

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      Some Teen Wellness Influencers Are Embracing Views in Line With the ‘MAHA’ Movement

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      The Instagram clip starts with a warning. “If you believe ‘ignorance is bliss,’” it says, “don’t watch this video.” As an influencer slices fruit on a cutting board, a series of provocative claims descend down the screen — about what she says is actually in peanut butter, vanilla flavoring and the rain, among other things.It’s the kind of post that has become common in the online wellness world, where prominent voices often express skepticism of the establishment and an openness to conspiracy theories.But what makes this influencer unusual is her age. She’s only 17, and a high school junior.Ava Noe, a teenager based in the Boston area, has amassed more than 25,000 Instagram followers while criticizing ultra-processed foods and promoting colostrum supplements, mouth tape and beef tallow. Her posts have suggested that iodized salt is “toxic” and described fluoride as “poison.” And her popularity on the platform — where she goes by @cleanlivingwithava — has earned her a paid partnership with a fluoride-free toothpaste company and affiliate work with other brands, including one that sells “non-toxic” skin care products.Ms. Noe, a self-described “crunchy teen,” is just one of a number of young influencers who appeal to other health-conscious kids their age. At times, their anti-establishment viewpoints fall in line with those of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, which has expressed skepticism of the scientific community and large food corporations.The teens’ videos, while at times factually questionable, highlight a desire among some to avoid the chronic illnesses and other conditions that have plagued their elders.Annika Zude, 16, was inspired to start her own health account on TikTok because of how bad ultra-processed foods made her feel, she said. Her father is also an online health influencer.Thalassa Raasch for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in US Politics

      Trump administration’s budget cuts endanger Meals on Wheels: ‘Life and death implications’

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      The Trump administration’s slashes to the Department of Health and Human Services is threatening Meals on Wheels, the popular program dedicated to combatting senior hunger and isolation. Despite decades of bipartisan support, Meals on Wheels now faces attacks from Republicans whose budget blueprint paves the way for deep cuts to nutrition and other social safety-net programs as a way to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy.It’s a move anti-hunger advocates and policy experts warn could have disastrous ramifications for the millions of older Americans who rely on the program to eat each day.“It’s not hyperbolic to say that we’re going to be leaving people hungry and that this literally has life and death implications,” said Nicole Jorwic, the chief of advocacy and campaigns at Caring Across Generations, a non-profit that advocates for ageing Americans, disabled people and their caregivers. “This is not just about a nice-to-have program. These programs are necessities in the lives of seniors all over this country.”While it is still unknown exactly what will be slashed, the blueprint sets the stage for the potential elimination of the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG), a key source of funding for local Meals on Wheels programs in 37 states, and serious cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) and Medicaid, which would increase food insecurity and hardship and steeply increase demand for Meals on Wheels services. The entire staff who oversaw SSBG have already been fired, according to reports.If Congress takes away SSBG funding and weakens other programs, seniors who rely on in-home deliveries or meals in community and senior centers to survive would receive less help as Meals on Wheels community providers would be forced to reduce services, add people to waitlists or turn seniors facing hunger away altogether. Some program operators who are already making tough choices about who to serve due to strained budgets and rising need have said it feels as though they are “playing God”.“We’re talking about lives here so it’s worrisome to me,” said Ellie Hollander, the president and CEO of Meals on Wheels America. “Some of our programs are already operating on razor-thin budgets and are pulling from their reserves. [If funding goes away], it could result in some programs having to close their doors.”In the US one in four Americans is over the age of 60 and nearly 13 million seniors are threatened by or experience hunger. Meals on Wheels America, a network of 5,000 community-based programs that feeds more than 2 million older Americans each year, has been a successful public-private partnership for more than 50 years. The Urban Institute estimates that the number of seniors in the US will more than double over the next 40 years.The Older Americans Act (OAA) nutrition program, which supports the health and wellbeing of seniors through nutrition services, is the network’s primary source of federal funding, covering 37% of what it takes to serve more than 250m meals each year. The exact mix of local, state, federal and private funding of Meals on Wheels’ thousands of on-the-ground community programs varies from provider to provider.Under the orders of the Elon Musk-led unofficial “department of government efficiency” (Doge) and the health and human services (HHS) secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, 20,000 people at HHS have lost their jobs in recent weeks, including at least 40% of the staff at the Administration for Community Living, which coordinates federal policy on ageing and disability. Since many of those staffers helped fulfill critical functions to serving older Americans through the OAA, some Meals on Wheels programs are worried about funding disbursements, reporting data and the loss of institutional knowledge and expertise.HHS has said it will reorganize the ACL into other HHS agencies, although how that would happen is unclear. The co-chairs of the Disability and Aging Collaborative, composed of 62 member organizations that focus in part on ageing and disability, said in a recent statement: “This disruptive change threatens to increase rates of institutionalization, homelessness and long-lasting economic hardships.”Since experiencing multiple strokes that left her cognitively impaired and at risk for falls, Dierdre Mayes has relied on Meals on Wheels Yolo County to deliver meals that are the 64-year-old’s primary source of nutrition. “I’m really thriving off of the meals I get,” said Mayes, a Woodland, California, resident who also receives $20 a month in food stamps, which she uses to purchase cases of water. “The best part about it is I don’t have to go anywhere to get them.” For Mayes and other homebound older Americans, the program is a lifeline.The uncertainty around Meals on Wheels’ future is causing stress for seniors who are worried about how federal cuts, layoffs and tariffs will impact their daily deliveries. The non-profit FeedMore WNY, which serves homebound older adults in New York’s Erie and Niagara counties, said they’ve been hearing from fearful older clients as word of other recent cuts circulated in the news.Catherine Shick, the public relations manager for FeedMore WNY, said they served 4,775 unique Meals on Wheels clients last year and that demand for their feeding programs increased by 16% from 2023 to 2024, a trend they expect to continue. “Any cut to any funding has a direct impact on the individuals who rely on us for food assistance and any cuts are coming at a time when we know that food insecurity is on the rise,” she said. “We need the continued support of all levels of government, as well as the community, to be able to fulfill our mission.”In addition to delivering healthy, nutritious food, Meals on Wheels drivers, who are primarily volunteers, provide a host of other valuable services: they can look for signs of cognitive or other health changes. They can also address safety hazards in the home or provide pet support services, as well as offer crucial social connections since drivers are often the only person a senior may see in a given day or week.Deliveries have been shown to help keep seniors healthy and in their own homes and communities and out of costly institutional settings. Republicans in the House and Senate have said their goal is to reduce federal spending, but experts say cutting programs that help fund organizations such as Meals on Wheels would instead increase federal spending for healthcare and long-term care expenses for older Americans.“If people can’t stay in their own homes, they’re going to be ‘high flyers’ in hospitals and admitted prematurely into nursing homes,” said Hollander, “all of which cost taxpayers billions of dollars annually versus providing Meals on Wheels for one year to a senior for the same cost of being in the hospital for one day or 10 days in a nursing home.”Experts agree that even before the cuts, Meals on Wheels has been underfunded. Advocates and researchers say OAA hasn’t kept up with the rapid growth of the senior population, rising food costs or inflation. One in three local programs already have waiting lists with many programs already feeling stretched to their limits. For more than 60% of Meals on Wheels providers across the country, federal funding represents half or more of their total revenue, underscoring the serious damage that could be done if cuts or policy changes are made in any capacity.“It feels like a continuous slew of attacks on the programs that seniors rely on to be safe, independent and healthy in their own homes,” said Jorwic of Caring Across Generations. “Everything from cuts to Meals on Wheels to cuts to Medicaid, all these things that are being proposed and actively worked on being implemented, are a real threat to the security of aging Americans.” More