Georgia recently joined 22 other states in a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They’re pushing back against federal guidelines around school lunch funding as schools open across Georgia.
Grocery stores provide healthy foods, create jobs and offer a place for community connection. "We started calling them front-line and essential workers for a reason," says one food access advocate.
Former Trump administration officials and conservative and libertarian nonprofits have launched lawsuits to block federal relief funds aimed at Black and minority farmers.
A new federal program created by the Biden administration to reverse years of economic discrimination against U.S. farmers of color has ground to a halt.
The U.S. Agriculture Department is sending aid for debt relief to struggling farmers of color beginning this month. But many Black farmers distrust the department after decades of failed promises.
Next month, some Black farmers will be able to access part of $4 billion set aside for debt cancellation. It’s a historic amount of money, courtesy of the American Rescue Plan, aimed at redressing generations of inequity in farm lending by the federal government. But for some, this aid does not go far enough.
Rep. Sanford Bishop, an Albany Democrat and chair of the Agriculture, Rural Development and FDA Subcommittee, raised concerns about food insecurity, which has been exacerbated due to the pandemic.
The House Agriculture Committee on Thursday heard about how Black farmers have faced decades of racial discrimination in their dealings with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Generations of systemic discrimination have decimated the number of Black farmers in the U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack talked with NPR about new funding for debt relief.
When the Trump administration moved two of the Agriculture Department's research agencies to Kansas City, many of the experienced employees left. Fixing this will be tricky for President Biden.