Policy Document Series · Issue 26 of 35 · April 2026
Ending Hunger. Reforming Agriculture. World-Class School Food for Every Child.
The United States produces more food than it consumes, on more arable land than any country on earth, yet 47.9 million Americans live in food-insecure households — including 14.1 million children. The top 10% of farm subsidy recipients collected 78% of all commodity subsidies. Four companies control 85% of beef processing. This is not a resource failure. It is a policy choice. This platform makes a different one.
The United States produces more food than it consumes, on more arable land than any country on earth. 47.9 million Americans live in food-insecure households — including 14.1 million children. The U.S. food insecurity rate of 12.6% exceeds Germany (4.5%), France (7.5%), Australia (8%), and the UK (9.1%). This is not a resource failure. It is a policy choice.
The Common Good Party's position: every American has a right to adequate food, and every policy lever available to government will be deployed to make that right real. At the center of this platform is a simple proposition — that hunger in a nation of abundance is not inevitable, it is chosen. The subsidy system concentrated 78% of commodity payments in the top 10% of recipients while 50 people on the Forbes 400 richest list collected farm subsidies. Four companies control 85% of beef processing. Agricultural workers excluded from New Deal labor protections by deliberate design still have no federal right to organize. This platform addresses all of it.
The 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act cut SNAP by $185–294 billion over ten years, deepening the hunger crisis for the most vulnerable Americans. Every $1 billion in SNAP generates $1.54 billion in GDP and 13,560 jobs. The cost of inaction is at least $130.5 billion annually in healthcare costs alone — before counting lost productivity, special education, and emergency services. Hunger is expensive. Feeding people is an investment.
This platform responds with ten pillars spanning hunger elimination, a school food revolution modeled on France, farm subsidy reform, antitrust enforcement against agricultural monopolies, full labor rights for farm workers, regenerative agriculture transition, clean food and water protection, food safety modernization, food waste elimination, and rural revitalization.
The failures of the American food system are structural and interconnected — a hunger crisis, a subsidy scandal, corporate monopoly power, worker exploitation, environmental destruction, and a food safety apparatus designed more around institutional turf than public health.
The food waste scandal: The U.S. wastes 30–40% of its total food supply — 63 million tons annually, worth $408 billion, generating methane equivalent to 15 coal-fired power plants. The country that cannot feed 47.9 million people throws away enough food to feed them many times over. This is not a logistics problem. It is a policy failure.
The failures of the American food system were built by specific policy decisions — a racial bargain in the New Deal, a Farm Bill captured by commodity interests, a consolidation wave enabled by weak antitrust, and enforcement agencies systematically hollowed out.
1935–1938
The New Deal's Racial Bargain — Farm Workers Deliberately Excluded
The exclusion of farm workers from the National Labor Relations Act (1935) and the Fair Labor Standards Act (1938) was a deliberately racist design — a condition Southern Democrats imposed to preserve Jim Crow-era exploitation of Black and Brown agricultural workers. Nearly a century later, the legal architecture of that bargain largely persists. Farm workers have no federal right to organize, no federal overtime protection, and children as young as 12 may work unlimited hours — an exemption that exists in no other American industry.
1910–2022
Black Farmer Dispossession — $326 Billion in Stolen Land
Black farmers owned 12.8–16 million acres in 1910. By 2022, just 5.3 million acres — less than 0.5% of U.S. farmland — through a century of deliberate USDA loan discrimination, New Deal AAA design that concentrated support for large white landowners, and state-sanctioned violence. The estimated value of Black farmland lost since 1920: $326 billion. The USDA's documented history of discrimination against Black, Indigenous, and Latino farmers runs from the New Deal to the present.
1980s–Present
The Farm Bill's Commodity Bias & the Consolidation Wave
The Farm Bill has consistently prioritized commodity crops — corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice — over specialty crops, conservation, and beginning farmers. The crop insurance system, with 12 approved companies earning 16.8% annual returns on government-backed underwriting, became a subsidy mechanism for large operations with no conservation requirements. Only 9% of specialty crop farms were insured in 2022, compared to 62% of row crop farms. The Bayer/Monsanto merger ($63B, 2018), JBS and Tyson consolidations, and grocery retail mergers concentrated food system power in ways that harm farmers, workers, and consumers simultaneously.
2025
The OBBBA Cuts — Deepening the Crisis
The 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act cut SNAP by $185–294 billion over 10 years, shifted costs to states, and deepened hunger for the most vulnerable Americans. FDA has completed only 41 of 46 FSMA requirements after 15 years of incomplete rollout. USDA's civil rights enforcement has historically been inadequate — the agency has a documented century-long record of discrimination. The compounding of deliberate historic exclusion with current cuts is not neglect; it is continuation.
The nations with the lowest food insecurity rates treat food not as a commodity but as a right — and back that commitment with institutional architecture. Every model below is operational and documented.
| Country / Model | Key Policy | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| FranceSchool Canteens | 3–4 course fresh meals by certified dietitians; 2-hour lunch; income-based pricing (as low as €1); vending ban since 2005; 50% sustainable sourcing required since 2022 | 75% of French children eat at the school canteen weekly; national model this platform adopts as the American standard |
| BrazilPNAE + Right to Food | Constitutional right to food (2010); National School Feeding Program mandates 30% of ingredients from family farms | Family farmer income increased 23–106% through school procurement — the policy connection this platform builds into Pillars 2 and 3 |
| European UnionFarm to Fork | 25% organic farmland target by 2030; Common Agricultural Policy ties subsidies to environmental performance | EU at 10.8% organic farmland vs. U.S. at less than 1%; CAP conservation requirements drive measurable outcomes |
| FranceFood Waste Law 2016 | Mandatory donation of unsold edible food by large retailers; criminal penalties for destruction | 46,000 tons/year rescued; food bank donations increased 20%+ — model for this platform's Pillar 9 |
| UK / CanadaUnified Food Safety | Single-agency food safety authority (UK FSA, Canada CFIA) with coherent jurisdiction | End the U.S. absurdity where a frozen pepperoni pizza is USDA and a frozen cheese pizza is FDA; single agency produces consistent standards |
The Brazilian precedent matters most: Brazil enshrined the right to food in its constitution in 2010, and its PNAE school feeding program demonstrates that food procurement can serve simultaneously as nutrition policy, small farm income support, and local economic development. The 30% family farm mandate increased family farmer income by 23–106% — turning school meals into an agricultural support mechanism. This platform replicates that connection in Pillars 2 and 3.
The Common Good Party's food and agriculture platform addresses the full architecture of the system — from the right to eat to the right to repair the tractor. All oversight bodies are subject to the Universal Mandatory Duty to Act Standard.
The United States produces enough food to feed every American. Hunger is a distribution and policy failure, not a production failure. This pillar establishes the legal and programmatic architecture to make food security a right, not a privilege.
Economic case: Every $1B in SNAP generates $1.54B in GDP and 13,560 jobs. The cost of hunger: at least $130.5B annually in healthcare costs alone. Feeding people is an investment with a 54% return before counting productivity, education, and emergency services savings.
29.4 million school lunches are served daily in the U.S. School food is the largest public nutrition program in the country. It is also chronically underfunded, often nutritionally inadequate, and stigmatizing. France's model is the standard. Minnesota's first year of universal free meals proved what is possible.
A 2024 JAMA Network Open systematic review found universal free meals associated with increased participation, reduced obesity, reduced suspensions, and improved attendance. Brazil's 30% family farm procurement mandate increased family farmer income by 23–106% — this platform's local sourcing mandate achieves the same dual purpose.
The farm subsidy system was designed to support American farming. It has been captured by agribusiness. 78% of commodity payments go to the top 10% of recipients. Fifty Forbes 400 members collect farm subsidies. This pillar redirects that money to the farms it was supposed to support and addresses a century of deliberate USDA discrimination.
Four companies controlling 85% of beef processing is not a market — it is a monopoly. Cattle ranchers receiving 30 cents of the retail dollar while processors capture the rest is not efficiency — it is extraction. The JBS ransomware attack that shut down beef facilities across six states is not just an economic problem — it is a national security vulnerability.
Farm workers were excluded from federal labor protections in 1935 by a racist bargain. In 2026, that bargain ends. There is no labor in America more dangerous, more poorly compensated, or more legally exposed than agricultural work. That is a policy choice that has been maintained for nearly a century.
Iowa has lost 6.8 inches of topsoil since 1850. The Midwest has lost 57 billion metric tons of topsoil over 160 years. Topsoil forms at 0.5 tons/acre/year; we lose it at 4.63 tons/acre/year. The Ogallala Aquifer is being depleted at 3 to 50 times the recharge rate. This is not an environmental abstraction — it is the destruction of the capital base on which American agriculture depends. Regenerative practices are not charity. They are the condition for farming's survival.
Rodale Institute's Farming Systems Trial (running since 1981) documents that regenerative practices reduce input costs 25–50% and increase profit margins 20–30%. Conservation is not the enemy of farming profitability. It is its foundation.
U.S. agriculture generates 940 billion pounds of manure annually from 24,000 factory farms — twice the sewage of the entire human population — with minimal regulatory oversight. 70% of the nitrogen load to the Gulf of Mexico dead zone comes from agricultural runoff. 55.1% of managed honey bee colonies were lost in 2023–2024. These are not side effects. They are consequences of regulatory choices.
48 million Americans suffer foodborne illness annually. 128,000 are hospitalized. 3,000 die. FDA inspects less than 2% of imported food shipments. A frozen pepperoni pizza is regulated by USDA; a frozen cheese pizza by FDA. This is not a quirk — it is a structural failure that produces gaps, inconsistencies, and preventable deaths.
The U.S. wastes 63 million tons of food annually — 30–40% of total supply, worth $408 billion, generating methane equivalent to 15 coal-fired power plants. Meanwhile 47.9 million Americans go hungry. The policies to close that gap exist. France enacted most of them in 2016.
35% of rural counties are experiencing significant population loss. More than 80% of rural farm counties are depopulating. Rural poverty: 13.6%. Rural child poverty under 5: 20.9% — the highest of any demographic group. Since 2005, 146 rural hospitals have closed. The average age of a U.S. farmer is 58. Rural America is not declining — it is being abandoned by policy.
This platform redirects existing misallocated resources — subsidies concentrated in the top 10%, crop insurance underwriting profits — and pairs them with new investment justified by the staggering cost of the status quo. Hunger costs $130.5B annually in healthcare alone. Every $1B in SNAP returns $1.54B in GDP. School food infrastructure is a 10-year investment with generational returns.
The sequencing prioritizes emergency hunger relief, followed by foundational legislation, then structural reform of the subsidy and antitrust architecture, and finally the long-horizon transformation of school food, organic acreage, and rural communities.
Phase 1 — Emergency
Year 1
Phase 2 — Foundation
Years 2–3
Phase 3 — Structural Reform
Years 3–5
Phase 4 — Long-Term Build
Years 5–10
Phase 5 — Full System
Years 10–20
The arguments against feeding people and protecting farmers tend to benefit the concentrated interests that profit from the status quo. Here is the evidence.
"We can't afford universal school meals."
Hunger costs at least $130.5 billion annually in healthcare costs alone — before counting special education, lost productivity, and emergency services. Eight states have already implemented universal free school meals. Minnesota's first year delivered 102 million free lunches and saved families $268 million. A 2024 JAMA Network Open systematic review found universal free meals associated with reduced obesity, reduced suspensions, and improved attendance. The question is not whether we can afford to feed children. It is whether we can afford not to. The answer, in healthcare costs alone, is already settled: we cannot.
"Subsidy caps hurt farmers."
78% of commodity program subsidies go to the top 10% of recipients. Fifty people on the Forbes 400 richest list received farm subsidies. Subsidy caps do not hurt farmers — they redistribute subsidies away from agribusiness operations to the small and mid-sized farms that the program was designed to support. The EU mandates a 10% redistributive minimum; this platform sets a 40% standard. The 86% of U.S. farms with under $350,000 in gross cash income would be the primary beneficiaries of this reallocation. The farms hurt by subsidy caps are the ones that were never supposed to dominate the program in the first place.
"Breaking up meatpackers will raise prices."
Cattle ranchers currently receive less than 30 cents of every retail beef dollar. Four companies control 80–85% of beef processing, up from 25% in 1971. Concentration has not produced lower prices for consumers — it has produced higher margins for processors and lower prices for producers. The JBS ransomware attack that shut down beef facilities across six states demonstrates that concentration is a national security vulnerability as much as an economic one. Competition is the mechanism for price efficiency, not concentration. Geographic dispersal of processing capacity reduces single-point vulnerabilities and increases producer bargaining power — both of which are good for consumers and farmers simultaneously.
"Environmental regulations hurt farming."
Iowa has lost 6.8 inches of topsoil since 1850, costing $1 billion annually in lost yields. The Midwest has lost 57 billion metric tons of topsoil over 160 years. The Ogallala Aquifer is being depleted at 3 to 50 times the recharge rate. Environmental degradation is not an abstraction — it is the destruction of the capital base on which agriculture depends. Farms that lose topsoil lose productivity. Farms that lose water lose viability. Regenerative practices — cover crops, no-till, extended rotations — reduce input costs 25–50% and increase profit margins 20–30% according to Rodale Institute's Farming Systems Trial, running since 1981. The argument that environmental protection hurts farming assumes that the short-run cost of adoption exceeds the long-run cost of soil and water loss. The data says the opposite.
The following statistics underpin the policy positions in this document. Each is sourced from federal agencies, peer-reviewed research, or established investigative reporting.
Food policy and agriculture intersect with nearly every domain of the Common Good Party platform — from labor rights to climate to racial justice to rural infrastructure.
| #5 | Immigration | Agricultural Labor Standards Act; full NLRA/FLSA coverage for farm workers; H-2A reform — the immigration workforce is the agricultural workforce, and their rights are inseparable. |
| #11 | Climate & Energy | Agricultural carbon payments; CAFO methane emissions regulation; conservation finance for climate-smart practices; Justice40 mandate for underserved farming communities. |
| #13 | Labor & Minimum Wage | NLRA/FLSA full coverage for farm workers; Davis-Bacon prevailing wage on federally funded food infrastructure; $20 federal minimum wage applies to agricultural workers under this platform. |
| #15 | Healthcare & Poverty | Food insecurity as a public health crisis; SNAP as a healthcare investment — the $130.5B annual healthcare cost of hunger is a healthcare problem with a food policy solution. |
| #20 | Corporate Power & Antitrust | Meatpacking antitrust — 85% concentration triggering structural cases; seed concentration; grocery merger review; FTC/DOJ Duty to Act on demonstrably monopolistic agricultural markets. |
| #22 | Racial Justice | Black Farmer Land Restoration Fund ($100B over 20 years); USDA discrimination accountability — the documented century of civil rights violations at USDA is the context for the Black farmer dispossession that this platform addresses. |
| #23 | Indigenous Rights | Tribal food sovereignty; BIA land management; USDA Office of Tribal Relations; food procurement priorities for tribal communities — food sovereignty is a component of the broader Indigenous sovereignty framework. |
| #25 | Infrastructure | Rural broadband BEAD program reaching farms and rural households; water safety and lead pipe replacement in rural communities; rural hospital stabilization requiring healthcare infrastructure investment. |
"The United States produces more food than it consumes. That 47.9 million Americans go hungry is not a resource failure — it is a policy choice. This platform makes a different choice."— The Common Good Party
Sources & Citations