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Civil Eats
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The policies shaping your plate change every day. Our team of journalists makes sense of them — clearly, independently, and without corporate influence.

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November 15, 2025 at 3:00 PM
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Senate Takes Step to End Government Shutdown and Extend Farm Bill

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Senate Takes Step to End Government Shutdown and Extend Farm Bill The Senate passed a slate of full- and short-term funding bills Monday night, a significant step toward ending the longest government shutdown in history. The package includes funding for food and agriculture agencies, along with a one-year extension of 2018 farm bill programs. Now all House members are set to return to the Capitol for the first time since the shutdown began. A vote on the package could happen as early as Wednesday afternoon. The package would still need President Donald Trump’s signature, but Trump has so far backed the deal to reopen the government.
November 12, 2025 at 2:30 AM
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States Prepare to Release Full SNAP Benefits as Judge Denies Administration a Stay

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States Prepare to Release Full SNAP Benefits as Judge Denies Administration a Stay Several U.S. states on Friday were preparing to release full food assistance benefits as early as Saturday, despite an attempt by the Trump administration to block a court order to release federal funding. On Thursday, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to release full benefits by Friday for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The nearly 42 million people who rely on SNAP have gone without benefits for about a week, after federal funding dried up due to the government shutdown. The administration quickly appealed the order and filed an emergency stay Friday morning. On late Friday, the appeals court denied the request for a stay, clearing the way for benefits to resume.
November 8, 2025 at 3:00 PM
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November 4, 2025 at 9:02 PM
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November 1, 2025 at 2:00 PM
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States Sue Trump Administration to Release SNAP Reserve Funds

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States Sue Trump Administration to Release SNAP Reserve Funds Democratic leaders from 25 states have sued the Trump administration over its refusal to use contingency funds to support food assistance next month amid the government shutdown. Advocates suggest more legal action could follow. Starting this weekend, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for approximately 42 million people could halt for the first time in the program’s 60-year history. While October benefits had already gone out by the start of the shutdown, state agencies have since started to warn recipients that November benefits will be delayed. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said funding would dry up and that it will not use contingency reserves, arguing it lacked the legal ability to do so.
October 29, 2025 at 6:31 PM
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USDA Says It Won’t Use Emergency Funds to Provide SNAP Benefits During Shutdown

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USDA Says It Won’t Use Emergency Funds to Provide SNAP Benefits During Shutdown The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) says it lacks the legal authority to use contingency funds for food assistance benefits, increasing the likelihood that millions of people will go without aid next month. Earlier this month, the agency told states to postpone sending November benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), due to the government shutdown, which began Oct. 1. As a result, state agencies have begun warning SNAP recipients that benefits will not be available.
October 25, 2025 at 11:01 PM
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States are warning recipients of SNAP that benefits will stop next month if the government remains shut down, potentially impacting millions of individuals that rely on the program. ➡️ buff.ly/gTsKK6J
States Brace for SNAP Funding to Stop During Shutdown
October 24, 2025 at 6:45 PM
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Trump Administration Proposes Staff Cuts In Offices That Manage Grazing and Wildlife

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Trump Administration Proposes Staff Cuts In Offices That Manage Grazing and Wildlife The Department of the Interior (DOI) plans to fire more than 2,000 employees, including people at agencies that handle permits for ranchers who graze cattle on public lands and at agencies that collect and analyze data on agricultural threats to wildlife, water quality, and crop performance. Details of the plans were revealed earlier this week in court documents, after a union that represents government workers sued to stop the firings, which the Trump administration has tried to execute during the government shutdown. The court issued a temporary restraining order, blocking the layoffs while the case continues.
October 24, 2025 at 2:03 PM
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USDA Says Some Farmer Support Offices Will Reopen During the Shutdown

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USDA Says Some Farmer Support Offices Will Reopen During the Shutdown The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said it plans to restart processing farm loans and disaster payments, despite the government shutdown, though previous staffing cuts and legal questions could complicate these efforts. On Tuesday night, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins posted on social media that the USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) could resume core operations as early as Thursday. This includes farm loan processing, payments for Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC), and disaster assistance. The agency also said it plans to roll out $3 billion in previously announced economic aid from the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC).
October 22, 2025 at 10:45 PM
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After more than a century, these shellfish have reappeared along the Damariscotta River. Their return is a boon—and a warning of climate change. ➡️ buff.ly/F4Mgp3R
Wild Oysters Make a Comeback in Maine. But There’s a Climate Catch.
October 19, 2025 at 2:01 PM
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Judge Blocks Firings of Federal Employees, Including Those Leading Key Health Surveys

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Judge Blocks Firings of Federal Employees, Including Those Leading Key Health Surveys A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from following through with mass layoffs during the federal government shutdown, temporarily preserving staff that oversee national nutrition and health surveys. On Oct. 10, the administration sent out reduction in force (RIF) notices to seven agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services. This initially included 1,300 employees from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who direct the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).
October 18, 2025 at 2:02 PM
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Farmers Push Legislators to Keep California Animal Welfare Law on the Books

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Farmers Push Legislators to Keep California Animal Welfare Law on the Books More than 200 farmers from 30 states descended on Washington, D.C., last week in an effort to prevent lawmakers from overturning a California animal welfare law, Proposition 12, and other laws like it. “Opponents of Proposition 12 claim that the law hurts small family farms, and I’m here to tell you that’s just not true,” Trisha Zachman, a Minnesota farmer who sells her hogs to Niman Ranch, said at a rally and press conference at the National Press Club on October 8. “Proposition 12 protects the market for crate-free pork and ensures farms like ours, those who’ve invested in humane systems, can continue to compete.”
October 17, 2025 at 2:03 PM
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At #FarmAid’s 40th Anniversary Festival, Neil Young, who co-founded the organization alongside Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp, demanded Big Agriculture companies and billionaire farmland investors “give us your money” to give to farmers.

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October 16, 2025 at 6:31 PM
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White House Says It Will Fund WIC With Tariff Revenue, But Details Are Slim

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White House Says It Will Fund WIC With Tariff Revenue, But Details Are Slim The White House announced this week that it will use revenue from tariffs to fund a program that helps about 7 million low-income mothers, babies, and young children to access formula and healthy food during the federal government shutdown. The announcement comes just over a week into the shutdown, the point at which experts warned that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) could begin running out of money in some states. In a statement, Georgia Machell, president and CEO of the National WIC Association, welcomed the stopgap measure but said more information is needed on “how much funding this measure provides, how quickly states will receive it, or how long it will sustain operations.”
October 9, 2025 at 9:45 PM
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USDA Rejects Republican Request for a Bipartisan Shutdown Briefing

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USDA Rejects Republican Request for a Bipartisan Shutdown Briefing The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) ignored a Republican request for a bipartisan congressional briefing last week and instead hosted a Republican-only meeting on government shutdown plans, according to three congressional staffers. Despite follow-up requests from the House and Senate Agriculture minority, the USDA has not briefed these staffs, leaving Democrats without full guidance for their constituents. Instead, Senate Agriculture Democrats have opted to submit questions via email.
October 8, 2025 at 12:30 AM
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Trump Administration Eases Application Process and Lowers Wages for Guest Farmworkers

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Trump Administration Eases Application Process and Lowers Wages for Guest Farmworkers The Department of Labor and the Department of Homeland Security made two changes last week to the federal farm guestworker program that will make it easier for farms to bring seasonal workers in from other countries and allow them to pay those workers less. The first change, posted by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Oct. 2, adjusts the H-2A paperwork process to speed up applications with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The changes are part of a larger collaborative effort with the Department of Labor (DOL), the DHS said, to streamline the program “in light of an urgent demand for an authorized agricultural labor force and requests from the regulated community and members of Congress to make the H-2A program easier to use and more efficient for U.S. agricultural producers.”
October 7, 2025 at 8:01 PM
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This Federal Food and Agriculture Work Will Cease During the Shutdown

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This Federal Food and Agriculture Work Will Cease During the Shutdown Under a federal shutdown, the government agencies that regulate and support the food system are now implementing plans to furlough employees and stop work on programs deemed non-essential. President Donald Trump has also threatened to use the shutdown to implement further permanent job cuts at agencies. So far, food and agriculture agencies have not indicated whether they will implement additional reductions in force (RIF) during the shutdown, but other agencies have already begun firing staff. As the shutdown persists, here’s what we know about the work that will—and won’t—get done at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
October 2, 2025 at 2:02 PM
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USDA Ends Program to Help States Fight Monopolies

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USDA Ends Program to Help States Fight Monopolies Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced yesterday what she said will be new efforts to investigate market conditions that have led to high input prices for farmers. However, her announcement comes weeks after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) quietly cancelled a program that helped states tackle anticompetitive markets in agriculture. Then-Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack set up the partnership program in 2023 to “to enhance competition and protect consumers in food and agricultural markets,” and 31 states, led by both Democrats and Republicans, signed on to participate.
September 28, 2025 at 11:00 PM
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Some House Republicans Break With Party on State Animal Welfare Laws

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Some House Republicans Break With Party on State Animal Welfare Laws A handful of Republican lawmakers are opposing legislation that would override several state animal welfare laws, following in the footsteps of some Senate Democrats. Last week, 14 House Republicans sent a letter to the leaders of the House Agriculture Committee, urging them to exclude the Save Our Bacon (SOB) Act from any farm bill to be considered by this Congress. It comes months after 28 Senate Democrats shared a similar request with the Senate Agriculture Committee.
September 24, 2025 at 10:10 PM
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EPA Will Keep Rule Designating PFAS as ‘Hazardous’

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EPA Will Keep Rule Designating PFAS as ‘Hazardous’ Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced last week that the agency will keep in place a Biden-era policy change that enables the agency to make companies pay for the cleanup of harmful “forever chemicals.” Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are chemicals that can persist in the environment for centuries, accumulate in the human body, and are associated with a range of health harms.
September 24, 2025 at 1:00 AM
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At Farm Aid, Top Agriculture Democrats Say Trump’s Policies Are Hurting Farmers

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At Farm Aid, Top Agriculture Democrats Say Trump’s Policies Are Hurting Farmers The two top Democrats on the Senate and House Agriculture committees took the stage at Farm Aid’s 40th-anniversary concert in Minneapolis on Saturday, where they criticized the Trump administration’s agriculture policies and said they were standing up for small, family farms. “Our farmers, our small farmers, have had a gut punch,” Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) said before she introduced the musician and Farm Aid board member Margo Price, whose family lost their Illinois farm during the 1980s farm crisis. “Farm Aid and all of you stand up for them.”
September 23, 2025 at 8:01 PM
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September 21, 2025 at 2:00 PM
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Democrats Decry Corporate Consolidation ‘at Every Single Level’ of the Food System

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Democrats Decry Corporate Consolidation ‘at Every Single Level’ of the Food System Democrats in Congress are once again directing attention to an issue that was a major focus of the Biden administration—how consolidation is making food and agriculture companies bigger and more powerful at the expense of farmers and consumers. Ten senators and representatives spoke this week at the Anti-Monopoly Summit hosted by the American Economic Liberties Project in Washington D.C. They highlighted consolidation in many sectors, including healthcare and tech, but two of the keynote speakers zeroed in on the food system.
September 19, 2025 at 11:00 PM
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House Republicans Block Tariff Challenges

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House Republicans Block Tariff Challenges House Republicans voted this week to continue limits on congressional challenges to President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which farmers and small-business owners say are threatening operations. On Tuesday, the House passed a procedural rule to tee up a vote on the package. This rule included an extension of a ban on congressional votes to repeal the national emergency authority that underpins many of Trump’s tariffs.
September 18, 2025 at 10:30 PM