Each week, Food Tank is rounding up a few news stories that inspire excitement, infuriation, or curiosity.
USDA Sets Deadline to Implement SNAP Cuts
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has released a memo announcing that states have until November 1 to implement the changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) required under President Trump’s recently enacted tax and spending legislation.
The “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act (OBBB) contains several provisions that substantially change SNAP eligibility, benefits, and program administration. Approximately 4 million people per month will lose some or all of their SNAP food benefits once the changes are fully implemented, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. Affected groups include families with children, older adults, people with disabilities, young adults aging out of the foster care system, and veterans. OBBB also introduces more stringent work requirements.
OBBB contains no effective dates for the provisions impacting SNAP, leaving the implementation timeline unclear. The USDA memo terminates waivers that have allowed dozens of states to largely suspend SNAP eligibility requirements. It gives the states less than one month to implement OBBB’s changes.
The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) says that state agencies need at least 12-18 months to implement changes of this kind, but they’re being forced to speed up the process without the necessary information or support.
In a statement, the FRAC’s President Crystal FitzSimons said that the hastened timeline “will lead to unnecessary chaos and confusion in the midst of widespread uncertainty, record inflation, and a government shutdown.”
According to a joint statement from the National Association of Convenience Stores, National Grocers Association and FMI – The Food Industry Association, the changes also “represent significant new costs and operational challenges” for food retailers and the customers they serve. Upfront costs to implement the new SNAP purchasing restrictions is approximately US$1.6 billion, according to a recent report from the trade groups.
Government Shutdown Leads to Major Disruptions at USDA
After Republican and Democratic politicians failed to agree how to resolve a budget dispute, the U.S. government shutdown on October 1, 2025. After over a week, Congress remains deadlocked and 750,000 federal employees have been furloughed, or placed on unpaid leave. Others, whose work has been deemed “essential,” are working without pay.
About 42,000 USDA staff are furloughed, according to the agency’s 2025 shutdown contingency plan, including researchers, supervisors, administrators, and those responsible for handling grants, loans, and producing statistical reports. The agency’s workforce has been cut in half and major operations have stopped.
The Trump administration pushed back its plans to roll out disbursement of disaster-assistance payments for farmers impacted by extreme weather events. The Farm Service Agency, which oversees these payments, will also not process any new loans during the shutdown, such as those that provide assistance to farmers during the harvest.
According to Walter Schweitzer, President of the Montana Farmers Union. Without loan processing and crop report verification, farmers are unable to pay their expenses or plan for the future growing season. “If you’re trying to buy land with an FSA loan, you could have that opportunity disappear,” says Zach Ducheneaux, a former Administrator of the USDA’s Farm Service Agency under the Biden-Harris administration.
Vanessa Garcia Polanco, the Government Relations Director for the National Young Farmers Coalition also stresses the reality of the shutdown for farmers. “Young farmers run on tight cash flow,” Garcia Polanco says. “Disruptions like this can tip a season—or a business—over the edge.”
EAT-Lancet Commission Calls for a “Planetary Health Diet” to Cut GHG Emissions
According to the authors of the latest report from the EAT-Lancet Commission, a shift to their Planetary Health Diet can lead to a 15 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Building on its 2019 report, the analysis sets global scientific targets for healthy diets and sustainable food production, and it outlines strategies for addressing the interconnected challenges of human health, environmental sustainability, and food and nutrition insecurity.
The Commission again recommends what it calls a “planetary health diet”—a flexible eating pattern designed to reduce environmental harm while improving nutrition worldwide. The plant-rich diet is designed to be flexible for different geographies and cultures. It recommends doubling the consumption of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes, and reducing animal products. In addition to reducing environmental harm, healthier diets can help avoid roughly 11 million deaths each year, the report finds.
The authors acknowledge that a “substantial” investment is needed to support the transformation of global diets—somewhere in the range of US$200-500 billion per year—but say this price is much lower than the costs of inaction. Without progress on diet, according to the report, the world is at risk of failing to meet the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement.
According to Jess Fanzo, a member of the Commission, the new publication also centers justice in new ways, defining healthy diets as both a human right and a shared responsibility. Fanzo says this focus was “largely absent” in the first report, which came out in 2019.
World First Treaty to Protect International Waters Will Enter into Force
Enough countries have ratified the High Seas Treaty, allowing it to take effect in January of next year. The Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement (BBNJ), commonly known as the High Seas Treaty, is the first legal framework to protect the two-thirds of the ocean that lie beyond national jurisdiction.
The high seas are “the world’s largest crime scene,” according to Johan Berganas, Senior Vice President of Oceans at WWF. The Treaty aims to address overfishing, the threats of the climate crisis, and deep-sea mining. It also seeks to protect marine biodiversity and ensure developing countries will benefit from scientific discoveries made in these waters.
Although the Treaty was first adopted in 2023, 60 countries must ratify for it to be fully implemented. Morocco recently became the 60th country to ratify the Treaty, triggering an 120-day countdown before it becomes a legally binding agreement. 15 more countries have since ratified the Treaty, bringing the total to 75.
Experts welcome the pivotal new era in ocean governance, while raising concerns regarding implementation. Guillermo Crespo, a high seas expert with the International Union for Conservation of Nature commission, worries that some of the world’s biggest players on the high seas have not yet ratified the Treaty. “If major fishing nations like China, Russia and Japan don’t join, they could undermine the protected areas,” Crespo says.
The BBNJ is one the most significant international treaties to enter into force since the Paris Agreement, according to Tom Pickerell, Global Director of World Resources Institute’s Ocean Program. But Pickerell says truly supporting a thriving ocean and protecting marine biodiversity will also require nation action in addition to international cooperation.
Research Backs the Benefits of Zero Budget Natural Farming
Recent research published in Nature Ecology & Evolution finds that agroecological-based farming systems are more effective at curbing food insecurity, improving human well-being, and tackling biodiversity loss than agrichemical-based farming systems.
“Developing agricultural land systems that are simultaneously productive and environmentally sustainable is perhaps the greatest challenge of the twenty-first century,” according to the researchers. To assess whether agroecological approaches constitute sustainable food solutions, the study analyzes the impact of the world’s largest agroecological transition, the zero budget natural farming (ZBNF) program in Andhra Pradesh, South India.
The research shows that the government-incentivized program—which requires fewer inputs, helping producers cut costs—significantly boosts farmers’ economic profits, while maintaining crop yields.
The agroecological approach eliminates chemical inputs, relying instead on natural, locally-sourced materials, producing positive effects on the environment: bird biodiversity improved on plots managed through the ZBNF program, which helps with both pest control and seed dispersal.
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Photo courtesy of Gyan Shahane, Unsplash
