{"id":41154,"date":"2025-11-28T07:15:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T15:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=41154"},"modified":"2025-11-28T23:17:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T07:17:16","slug":"as-us-hunger-rises-trump-administrations-efficiency-goals-cause-massive-food-waste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/as-us-hunger-rises-trump-administrations-efficiency-goals-cause-massive-food-waste\/","title":{"rendered":"As US hunger rises, Trump administration\u2019s \u2018efficiency\u2019 goals cause massive food waste"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tevis Garrett Graddy-Lovelace<\/a>, American University School of International Service<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. government has caused massive food waste during President Donald Trump\u2019s second term. Policies such as immigration raids, tariff changes and temporary<\/a> and permanent cuts to food assistance<\/a> programs have left farmers short of workers and money, food rotting in fields and warehouses, and millions of Americans hungry. And that doesn\u2019t even include the administration\u2019s actual destruction of edible food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. government estimates that more than 47 million people<\/a> in America don\u2019t have enough food to eat \u2013 even with federal and state governments spending hundreds of billions of dollars<\/a> a year on programs to help them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, huge amounts of food \u2013 on average in the U.S., as much as 40% of it<\/a> \u2013 rots before being eaten. That amount is equivalent to 120 billion meals a year<\/a>: more than twice as many meals as would be needed to feed those 47 million hungry Americans three times a day for an entire year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This colossal waste has enormous economic costs<\/a> and renders useless all the water and resources used to grow the food<\/a>. In addition, as it rots, the wasted food emits in the U.S. alone over 4 million metric tons of methane<\/a> \u2013 a heat-trapping greenhouse gas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a scholar<\/a> of wasted food<\/a>, I have watched this problem worsen since Trump began his second term in January 2025. Despite this administration\u2019s claim of streamlining the government to make its operations more efficient<\/a>, a range of recent federal policies have, in fact, exacerbated food wastage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
A farmworker raises her hands as armed immigration agents approach during a raid on a California farm in July 2025. Blake Fagan\/AFP via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Immigration policy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Supplying fresh foods, such as fruits, vegetables and dairy, requires skilled workers on tight timelines to ensure<\/a> ripeness<\/a>, freshness and high quality<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration\u2019s widespread efforts to arrest and deport immigrants<\/a> have sent Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Border Patrol and other agencies into hundreds of agricultural fields, meat processing plants and food production and distribution sites. Supported by billions of taxpayer dollars<\/a>, they have arrested thousands of food workers and farmworkers \u2013 with lethal consequences<\/a> at times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dozens of raids<\/a> have not only violated immigrants\u2019 human rights and torn families apart: They have jeopardized the national food supply. Farmworkers already work physically hard jobs for low wages<\/a>. In legitimate fear<\/a> for their lives and liberty, reports indicate that in some places 70% of people harvesting, processing and distributing food stopped showing up to work<\/a> by mid-2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

News reports have identified many instances where crops have been left to rot<\/a> in abandoned fields<\/a>. Even the U.S. Department of Labor declared in October 2025 that aggressive farm raids drive farmworkers into hiding, leave substantial amounts of food unharvested and thus pose a \u201crisk of supply shock-induced food shortages<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Stacks
Food specially formulated to feed starving children is marked for disposal in a U.S. government warehouse in July 2025. Stephen B. Morton for The Washington Post via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Foreign aid cuts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When the Trump administration all but shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development in early 2025, the agency had 500 tons of ready-to-eat, high-energy biscuits<\/a> worth US$800,000<\/a>, stored to distribute to starving people around the world who had been displaced by violence or natural disasters. With no staff to distribute the biscuits, they expired while sitting in a warehouse in Dubai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Incinerating the out-of-date biscuits reportedly cost an additional $125,000<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An additional 70,000 tons of USAID food aid<\/a> may also have been destroyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tariffs<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the late 20th century, as globalized trade patterns grew, U.S. farmers struggled with agricultural prices below their production costs<\/a>. Yet tariffs in the first Trump administration did not protect small farms<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the tariffs imposed in early 2025, after Trump regained the White House, severed U.S. soybean trade<\/a> with China for months. Meanwhile, there\u2019s nowhere to store the mountains of soybeans<\/a>. An October 2025 agreement may resume some activity, but at lower price levels and a slower pace<\/a> than before, as China looks to Brazil and Argentina to meet its vast demand<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the soybeans were intended to feed the Chinese pig industry, not humans, the specter of waste looms<\/a> both in terms of the potential spoilage of soybeans and the actual human food that could have been grown in their place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Bean
Mature soybeans sit unharvested in an Indiana field in October 2025. Jeremy Hogan\/Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Other efforts lead to more waste<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Since taking office, the second Trump administration has taken many steps aimed at efficiency that actually boosted food waste. Mass firings of food safety personnel<\/a> risks even more outbreaks of foodborne diseases, tainted imports<\/a>, and agricultural pathogens \u2013 which can erupt into crises requiring mass destruction, for instance, of nearly 35,000 turkeys with bird flu in Utah<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, the administration canceled a popular program that helped schools and food banks buy food<\/a> from local farmers, though many of the crops had already been planted when the cancellation announcement was made. That food had to find new buyers or risk being wasted, too. And the farmers were unable to count on a key revenue source<\/a> to keep their farms afloat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, the administration slashed funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency that helped food producers, restaurants and households recover from disasters \u2013 including restoring power to food-storage refrigeration<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fall 2025 government shutdown left the government\u2019s major food aid program, SNAP, in limbo for weeks, derailing communities\u2019 ability<\/a> to meet their basic needs. Grocers, who benefit substantially<\/a> from SNAP funds, announced discounts for SNAP recipients \u2013 to help them afford food and to keep food supplies moving before they rotted. The Department of Agriculture ordered them not to, saying SNAP customers must pay the same prices<\/a> as other customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Food waste did not start with the Trump administration. But the administration\u2019s policies \u2013 though they claim to be seeking efficiency \u2013 have compounded voluminous waste at a time of growing need. This Thanksgiving, think about wasted food \u2013 as a problem, and as a symptom of larger problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

American University School of International Service master\u2019s student Laurel Levin<\/a> contributed to the writing of this article.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tevis Garrett Graddy-Lovelace<\/a>, Provost Associate Professor of Environment, Development and Health, American University School of International Service<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tevis Garrett Graddy-Lovelace, American University School of International Service The U.S. government has caused massive food waste during President Donald Trump\u2019s second term. Policies such as immigration raids, tariff changes and temporary and permanent cuts to food assistance programs have left farmers short of workers and money, food rotting in fields and warehouses, and millions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":41155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,277,15306,46,42,295,10,25,118,296,27,4],"tags":[7866,8803,4128,3499,2180,17176,885,891,886,860,6817,2775,1602,2392],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41154"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41156,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41154\/revisions\/41156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}