Each week, Food Tank is rounding up a few news stories that inspire excitement, infuriation, or curiosity.
More Schools Adopt Community Eligibility to Address Child Hunger
A new study from the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) finds that a record number of schools used a federal meal service option to tackle child hunger in the 2025-2026 school year. A reported 55,362 schools—2.1 percent more than the year prior—offered school meals through the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which allows high-need schools to provide breakfast and lunch at no charge to all students. Three quarters of eligible schools have adopted CEP, an option FRAC calls a “key step towards Healthy School Meals for All.”
“More schools are demonstrating that offering healthy school meals to every student at no charge is a game changer for children, families, and schools,” says Crystal FitzSimons, President of FRAC.
To maintain progress, FRAC is calling on the administration to reverse cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Program. CEP eligibility is tied to the number of children who qualify for free school meals — a certification process that is based on SNAP participation. FizSimons worries that without action to undo SNAP cuts, “the progress we have made on Healthy School Meals for All could unravel.”
What We’re Missing About the Cyclospora Outbreak
A former U.S. Food and Drug Administration official argues that a number of the Trump-Vance administration’s actions “actively undermine microbial food safety.”
In a recent op-ed in STAT, Susan Mayne, who previously served as Director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, worries that program cuts and policy delays are hurting efforts to monitor and respond to contaminants like cyclospora—the parasite linked to thousands of cases of foodborne illnesses across the country.
Mayne raises several concerns. FoodNet, a national foodborne illness surveillance program, has been updated to track fewer pathogens. Six, including cyclospora, have been eliminated from federal tracking. Efforts to improve traceability along the supply chain, which should have gone into effect by now, were delayed until 2028. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) closed an research facility in Beltsville, Maryland, where labs were working on a number of issues, including cyclospora. The administration also disbanded the National Advisory Committee on Microbiology Criteria in Food, which provided food safety advice to FDA and USDA.
Mayne hopes that the cyclospora outbreak serves as a wake-up call so we don’t force eaters to choose between nutrition and food safety. She writes, “health is made possible when food safety supports consumer confidence in fruits and vegetables.”
The Climate Crisis to ‘Suck Soils Dry’ in Europe
Europe’s record-breaking heatwaves are driving high levels of water evaporation from rivers, lakes, soils, and plants, threatening farmers’ crops. At the same time, extreme wildfires are scorching parts of the region, with Spain and France seeing some of the driest soils.
Although droughts are typically linked to low rainfall, that doesn’t seem to be the case this time, suggesting that extreme heat, made worse by the climate crisis, is to play. Dominik Schumacher, a scientist at ETH Zurich who is behind a new analysis of Europe’s high temperatures, says that this “is our own doing.” He explains that as temperatures climb and air becomes hotter,” it will suck the soils dry.”
The trade association COCERAL estimates that 9 million tonnes of grain will be lost across the region. Additionally, France is expected to see the worst Maize harvest in the last 50 years and Romanian farmers may lose over 1 million hectares of crops.
Mariam Zachariah, a researcher at Imperial College London and another co-author behind the analysis, says, “Without rapid, aggressive emissions cuts, Europe is heading for a future where these scorching, dry summers happen time and time again.”
Reversing Soil Degradation Can Feed an Additional 70 Million People
A new study in Nature Food finds that there are significant food security benefits if we can restore the Earth’s soils.
For the first time, researchers set out to quantify the effects of soil erosion and compaction, soil water deficits, as well as the loss of above ground vegetation cover and soil organic carbon on agricultural yields. Although these trends are threatening food security, there is also a real opportunity.
According to the study, restoring soils by just 10 percent can produce enough food to feed an additional 70 million people. Project Drawdown Senior Scientist James Gerber, a co-author of the study, says that this reversal also “contributes to a virtuous cycle.” When soils are improved, it reduces pressure on the land, helping to avoid emissions from deforestation.
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Photo courtesy of James Baltz, Unsplash
