By Frank Giles
America’s farm and food policy is a complicated business. It is a constantly shifting landscape, especially under President Trump’s tariff-driven approach. To stay up to date on these matters, I recommend following the work of Daniel Munch, economist for the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF). He has spoken at a couple of AgNet Media events and always presents a wealth of information in a way that non-economists can understand.
Giving Growers Markets
His recent Market Intel article — “U.S.-Grown First: Strengthening Federal Food Purchasing” — on the AFBF website is a great dive into farm and food policy. He points out that the federal feeding programs not only benefit the people who receive the food but also help provide a market for growers.
Munch noted: “In fiscal year 2025, the federal government purchased $6.9 billion in U.S.-grown food and agricultural products across multiple agencies, according to USAspending.gov. While that represents less than 1% of total annual at-home food spending by American households, it plays an outsized role in supporting farm demand and market stability.
“The U.S. Department of Agriculture accounted for $3.6 billion, or about 52%, of total federal food purchases. The Department of Defense followed with $2.8 billion (41%), supplying military installations and service members across the globe. The remaining 7% came from other agencies, including the departments of Veterans Affairs, Justice and Homeland Security, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, which uses American-grown food in hospitals, correctional facilities, emergency-response programs and international food aid.”
Fruit and vegetables made up a significant portion (28%) of this spending, following meat, poultry and fish, which made up 35%.
School Spending
According to Munch, the biggest drivers of these federal purchases are school lunch and breakfast programs.
“The National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program serve about 30 million children daily and provided more than 4.86 billion meals in 2024,” said Munch. “By law, participating schools must source domestic foods whenever possible.”
But what does domestic food mean? A “domestic commodity or product” is defined as one produced in the United States or processed here using at least 51% U.S.-grown ingredients (by weight or volume). That leaves a lot of room for foreign-sourced ingredients.
Schools may only purchase foreign items if: 1) the product is unavailable domestically in sufficient quantity or quality or 2) the U.S. product’s cost is significantly higher. Again, this allows more room for foreign-sourced products to come into play.
Munch argues that improved tracking and transparency of where schools are purchasing food would allow federal agencies to get a better handle on where dollars are going and hopefully direct more funds toward benefiting U.S. growers. The same argument goes for other federal feeding programs beyond school meals.
Munch concluded: “These systems work largely as intended, ensuring that taxpayer dollars reinforce U.S. agriculture while feeding millions of Americans each day.
“Still, enforcement and transparency lag in ways that limit their full potential. Strengthening Buy American oversight, tightening the definition of ‘domestic’ and improving documentation of exceptions would help ensure federal nutrition dollars consistently support U.S. farmers. Even modest improvements could redirect millions of federal dollars back into American farms, bolstering both rural economies and national food security.”
Visit is.gd/FederalFoodDollars to read Munch’s full report.
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