The U.S. Department of Agriculture is scrapping a report that tracks food access across the country.
The Household Food Security Reports use data from the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Census Bureau to provide statistics on food security in U.S. households. The USDA has measured the information for nearly 30 years.
In a news release announcing the cancellation, USDA officials said the report “failed to present anything more than subject, liberal fodder.”
“These redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous studies do nothing more than fear monger,” according to the USDA release.
But people working to address hunger say the report helps inform the overall state of food insecurity and therefore, the policy to help solve it.
Clair Babineaux-Fontenot, the CEO of national nonprofit Feeding America, said in a statement that the report has never been a perfect resource, but it's a valuable one that helped to track trends, show experiences and understand how food access programs impact families.
“While neither the USDA report nor any single report that is created will be perfect, these efforts help ensure the information we collect and act on is as accurate and useful as possible,” she wrote in the statement. “As USDA’s report sunsets, there is a risk of losing consistent national benchmarks that have helped guide solutions.”
The most recent version of the USDA report found that 13% of households struggled to get enough food in 2023. That’s an increase from the year before.
Losing insight
Gina Plata-Nino is the SNAP deputy director at national advocacy group Food Research and Action Center. She said the federal report allows people to see how the economy and policies impact the rates of food insecurity in the U.S.
“It's difficult for advocates, for policymakers to understand or to be able to say what is working if you don't have the data to support whatever point or analysis you wanted to make,” Plata-Nino said.
Plata-Nino said the cancellation is even more concerning on top of the Trump administration's recent cuts to SNAP, which food advocates worry will lead to fewer SNAP participants — and less people having access to food.
In Minnesota, food bank Second Harvest Heartland is working to understand the cancellation's impact.
The organization’s CEO Sarah Moberg said in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio that more people will be seeking help at food shelves as the new SNAP policies start to kick in at a local level. While officials are working to make sure people can get emergency relief, she said the hunger relief network cannot backfill the meals lost through SNAP funding reductions.
“And so that truly is where we're going to need to think differently and collectively about how we might fill that in, and policy will play a big role in that,” Moberg said.
Moberg said Second Harvest Heartland conducts its own hunger study in the state.
“We plan to do it every year and so that will give us continued data to help us make smart choices about our programs and offerings,” Moberg said.
The food bank is working to share its methodology with other organizations and with Feeding America at a national level. But Moberg said not all states have the ability to conduct such a study.
Feeding America plans to help its network of food banks across the country compile local data.
Federal employees put on leave
Shortly after the cancellation of the hunger survey, several USDA Economic Research Service employees who worked on the report or related data were put on administrative leave, according to a national labor union.
Laura Dodson, vice president of American Federation of Government Employees of Local 3403, said that includes at least five economists and researchers.
“Why we have raised this to a public issue is that it was not just the five employees who I represent, but they also put on leave every level of administration or management between the employees and the administrator,” Dodson said.
She said the employees were given no information about why they were put on leave, other than it was for “an unauthorized disclosure.” Although Dodson said the employees were not told what the unauthorized disclosure was, she said the title of the meeting they attended was called “follow-up food security.”
In a letter, USDA officials told ERS employees that the leave is not a disciplinary action.
A USDA spokesperson said in a statement to Harvest Public Media that ERS employees are trusted with confidential information.
“An unauthorized disclosure of non-public information shows questionable judgment and any employee willing to break that public trust undermines the integrity of the agency,” the statement read.
Dodson said neither the employees nor the union have information about the status of their members or how long the leave is expected last. She said the union’s goal is to get their members back in their jobs.
“What I think is that using administrative leave to sideline experts is an abuse of power and undermines the mission of public service,” Dodson said. “The American people deserve transparency and accurate data, not retaliation against workers who produce it.”
This story was produced in partnership with Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest and Great Plains. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.
