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Farmers brace for cuts to USAID and USDA
Farmers, who already operate under thin margins, said funding cuts to programs like USAID, USDA and a new trade war were concerning.
- Food insecurity affects nearly 1 in 10 New Jersey households, impacting health and academic performance.
- New Jersey is implementing programs like Summer EBT and the Community Eligibility Provision to combat hunger.
- Organizations like C.R.O.P.S. and CUMAC are working to improve access to healthy food and support SNAP benefits applications.
- Increased awareness and reduced bureaucratic barriers are crucial for ensuring eligible families receive available benefits.
New Jersey is known as the Garden State — but for too many families, putting fresh, nutritious food on the table every night remains a challenge. A recent survey from Pew Research Center confirms this, as 90% of U.S. adults say the price of healthy food has risen over the past few years, and more than two-thirds (69%) say higher food prices are making it difficult to eat a healthy diet. Those with fixed or lower incomes have been hardest hit, with 47% reporting difficulty in eating healthy meals compared with only 15% of upper-income adults.
As we recognize World Hunger Day on May 28 — a day for organizations, governments and individuals to come together to highlight the importance of creating a world without hunger — it’s important to recognize New Jersey’s landscape. Food insufficiency, defined as sometimes or often not having enough to eat in the past seven days, affected nearly 1 in 10 New Jersey households in 2024 — and its consequences ripple far beyond the dinner table.
More than 1.3 million people live in an area where regular access to healthy food is hindered by the absence of supermarkets, as well as factors like inadequate public transit and walkability, the prevalence of unhealthy food retailers and high poverty rates — with the worst conditions in parts of Camden, closely followed by Atlantic City and parts of Newark and Paterson. Food insecurity is not just about empty stomachs. The impact leads to numerous health and performance issues: adults are more likely to experience chronic illnesses — 18% more likely than for those in high food-secure households, while children who go to school hungry have a harder time learning, growing and thriving. Furthermore, Black and Latino households are disproportionately impacted in New Jersey, experiencing food insufficiency at more than twice the rate of white households. The issue should be seen for what it really is: a public health emergency that demands change.
New Jersey takes action to combat hunger
Amid this harsh reality, New Jersey is taking action. For example, last summer, nearly 600,000 students in the state received Summer EBT benefits, where families received $120 in grocery benefits to buy food, per child, during the summer when school meals aren’t available. And, during school months, the Community Eligibility Provision allows schools with high poverty rates to provide free meals to all students. In New Jersey, 365 schools adopted CEP during the 2023–2024 school year, reaching more than 156,000 children daily. The number of schools adopting CEP is expected to increase significantly in the current year.
In collaboration with the state’s actions, New Jersey is home to an emerging blueprint for change that is helping to serve the most vulnerable communities. The New Jersey Food Security Initiative — a resident-led, community-centered effort — brings together state agencies, nonprofits, healthcare providers and residents with lived experience to improve equitable access to healthy food. For example:
- C.R.O.P.S. is bridging the gap between local farms and dinner tables in Atlantic City communities, the state’s second most severe food desert. To increase residents’ purchasing power of healthy food, the C.R.O.P.S. Farm Share Program connects consumers to locally grown food and increases the availability of produce to SNAP users. Additionally, C.R.O.P.S supports AtlantiCare’s mobile grocery and Produce Rx program and increases access to SNAP enrollment as part of their effort to support a more sustainable food system in Atlantic City.
- In Passaic County, CUMAC is leading a cross-sector collaborative that wraps supportive services around families to reduce barriers, including providing free support on food-assistance applications, so that eligible individuals receive their SNAP benefits more quickly and with less difficulty than experienced previously. These efforts led to a marked increase in SNAP approval rates of as high as 40 percent increase in approval rates from March 2024 to now.
These efforts provide access to affordable, nutritious food and also are building a foundation for a sustainable future so that every New Jerseyan, regardless of race or ZIP code, has a fair shot at a healthy life.
But to build on this momentum, more community awareness is needed so that qualifying families are receiving the benefits offered to them.
Too many school districts that qualify for CEP still haven’t opted in. Tens of thousands of eligible New Jersey residents are missing out on SNAP, the country’s most effective anti-hunger tool. Bureaucratic barriers such as the lack of multilingual support are still standing in the way. We must close that gap through targeted outreach, simplified applications and protection of recent state-level enhancements that have strengthened SNAP.
No one in New Jersey should have to choose between paying essential bills and buying groceries. No child should struggle to focus in class because they have no access to breakfast. And no parent should have to navigate a maze of red tape just to access the food their family needs. Finding affordable, healthy food should not be a daily challenge, nor should residents have to cross city lines to access it.
If we want to end hunger and food insecurity, we have to start by making sure that those who could benefit, whether families, schools or organizations, know that help is here — and make it as easy as possible to access.
Jacqueline Bavaro is senior program officer of the New Jersey Food Security Initiative at Food Research & Action Center, which launched NJFSI as a collaboration of community organizations, local and state agencies aimed at helping to end hunger and advance health equity in the state through innovative solutions. To learn more, visit njfsi.org
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