Advocates warn that low-income families may have to cut back on fruits and vegetables starting in April - if Congress allows part of their food benefits to expire.

President Joe Biden's American Rescue Plan bumped up the amount families get to buy fruits and vegetables as part of the Women Infants and Children program, called WIC.

Shannon Whaley - director or research and evaluation for Public Health Foundation Enterprises WIC program, a part of Heluna Health in LA - said unless Congress extends that bump by March 11, benefits go back to $9 a month for kids younger than five.

"For a child to intake all their monthly vegetables, 5 fruits and vegetables a day, a child would need $48 a month," said Whaley. "What the cash-value benefit bump has done is enable the WIC program to provide half of those fruits and vegetables, so $24 a month."

In California, almost a million low-income pregnant women, mothers of newborns and children younger than five depend on WIC.

Brian Dittmeier - senior director of public policy for the National WIC Association - said the benefit helps families afford healthy food, and boosts farmers and retailers in the process.

"Access to healthy foods in early childhood can shape lifelong taste preferences and build healthier diets in the long run," said Dittmeier.

UCLA Fielding School of Public Health Professor of Community Health Sciences May Wang is an expert on WIC. She said in the past, adding more vegetables to the program produced measurable results.

"When WIC had that change in the food package in 2009," said Wang, "we saw a decrease in childhood obesity in the 3- to 5-year-olds."

Kiran Saluja - the executive director for the PHFE WIC Program in LA - said Congress should extend the benefit until September and then make the new rates permanent.

"When Congress goes in," said Saluja, "whether they do an omnibus bill which would take us through September or they do a continuing resolution through September, we want to make sure that this fruit and vegetable benefit continues to stay."

For nearly one in eight Mississippians, monthly SNAP benefits provide a critical lifeline, one now at risk as congressional Republicans propose $230 billion in cuts.

New data confirm the state leads the nation in food assistance reliance, with 13.1% of residents depending on the program, far above the 8.3% national average. Advocates warned the reductions would exacerbate hunger in the nation's poorest state, where one in five children already faces food insecurity.

Rep. Yvette Diane Clarke, D-N.Y., chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, condemned the proposal during a recent news conference.

"These cuts to SNAP will only worsen food insecurity and hardship in Black and brown communities, reduce revenue for local businesses and disrupt our food supply chain," Clarke contended.

Her warning hits hard in Mississippi, where Black households experience food insecurity at more than twice the rate of white households. Among SNAP recipients in the state, 42% are children. Republicans argued the cuts promote fiscal responsibility and work incentives. But critics pointed to Mississippi's nation-leading 18.4% poverty rate and rural job gaps as barriers to stricter work requirements.

The economic ripple effects could be severe. U.S. Department of Agriculture data show every dollar in SNAP benefits generates $1.50 in local economic activity.

Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Ga., is the ranking Democrat on the House subcommittee overseeing nutrition programs.

"SNAP's effects go beyond just the people it feeds but to the farmers and the businesses that provide the food," Bishop explained. "In fact, if the Republicans' cut to SNAP goes into effect, it puts at risk over 285,000 jobs. Real people are going to be hurt."

With Farm Bill negotiations set to begin next month, the outcome could affect 157,000 Mississippi children who rely on SNAP. Democratic leaders vowed to fight the cuts, while Republicans called them a necessary budget adjustment.


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Federal programs supporting local food purchasing by food banks and schools have helped feed communities and support farmers but the Trump administration has cut those programs.

Last fall, the Biden administration announced more than $1 billion for the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement and the Local Food for Schools program, originally designed to bolster local food networks during the pandemic.

BJ Edwards, executive director of the Wyoming Food Coalition, said farmers and ranchers plan seasons and even years in advance, to fulfill those orders and make infrastructure improvements.

"Those are the people I worry about the most," Edwards explained. "The ones that have already invested their time and effort and money in those projects and now they're unsure of what's going to happen."

The cuts mean there will not be another round of funding, like the $500,000 Food Bank of Wyoming received in 2023 to buy roughly 200,000 pounds of locally grown food for distribution. The changes also affect the amount of local food schools can purchase, which grew by 2,000% in the last year, according to the Wyoming Department of Education.

Other programs potentially affected by further USDA cuts are part of the Natural Resource Conservation Service.

Mike Lavender, policy director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, noted because those are more landscape-focused, they could have long-term effects.

"It's not only about the immediate impacts to farm viability and livelihoods," Lavender pointed out. "It's about what the future of the food and farm system looks like, and what opportunities we are or are not creating for growers in the mid- to long-term future."

They include conservation initiatives for grazing lands, wetlands, watersheds, wildlife habitats and forests, as well as agricultural and other easements.


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By Nina B. Elkadi for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Trimmel Gomes for Mississippi News Connection reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration

The cost to feed a family in the United States has increased by 50 percent since the early days of the pandemic in 2020. Wages have not increased at the same rate, causing many families to feel burdened by the struggle to make ends meet. Still, corporations are finding ways to make it by; in fact, corporate profits are higher than ever before, including in the egg industry.

A new report from Food & Water Watch details how egg companies have recorded record-profits in spite of the avian flu outbreak. The report looked at the corporate profits of one of the country’s largest egg producers, Cal-Maine, and found that despite not initially being affected by avian flu, the egg producer jacked up its prices. Even though the American Southeast “remained free of bird flu in its table egg flocks until January 2025 …retail egg prices in the Southeast rose alongside January 2023’s national price spikes.”

Amanda Starbuck, Research Director at Food & Water Watch, tells Sentient that corporations are “profiting off this crisis.” In January, a group of Democratic lawmakers wrote to President Donald Trump asking him to investigate price-fixing in the egg industry.

On March 6, the United States Department of Justice announced it will be investigating Cal-Maine and other corporations for price-fixing. This isn’t the first time the company has been investigated for such actions. In 2023, Cal-Maine and other egg producers were ordered to pay $53 million after being found guilty of price-fixing.

Yet by mid-March, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency announced it was taking aim at the DOJ to begin cutting costs at the agency. Attorney General Pam Bondi has agreed to help with this effort and the agency created a committee to do so: JUST-DOGE. Some of the first cuts being made target consultants on anti-trust cases.

The increase in corporate profits illustrates the ability corporations have to increase their revenue in times of crisis, the Food & Water Watch researchers say. During the second quarter of fiscal year 2025, Cal-Maine experienced record-breaking corporate profits and high dividends for shareholders. If, and when, avian flu abates, these egg producers could keep prices high — unless the federal government intervenes or consumer interest in eggs wanes.

In some regions, like the Midwest, egg production was about the same at the end of 2024 as it was in the middle of 2024. Yet prices for a dozen eggs almost doubled. Without intervention, Starbuck says, corporations do not have an incentive to bring prices back down, assuming market demand stays at least constant.

“Even if we were able to eradicate this disease, prices might go down a little bit, but I don’t foresee us ever going back to the days of a carton of eggs for one dollar,” Starbuck says.

The DOJ investigation is in the “very early stages.” Since the investigation was announced, egg prices have fallen to their lowest levels since December in some parts of the country, a trend largely being attributed to decreased demand and fewer avian flu outbreaks. Just as quickly as they increased prices, egg producers are now, in-part, responding to market conditions driven by consumers feeling the squeeze.


Nina B. Elkadi wrote this article for Sentient.


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