1. United States
2. Iowa
3. Letter

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has slashed two programs that provided more than $1 billion for schools and food banks to purchase food from local farms and ranchers. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins is quoted as saying, these programs were “food justice for trans people in New York and San Francisco.” We know that what these programs did was provide two things: food for poor people across our state, especially in rural areas and money for farmers. This is Iowa and we know that a significant portion of our rural students rely on school lunches and that many families rely on our food banks. These folks are not "trans people in New York and San Francisco". They are our neighbors, our people. And the federal government just took $1 billion dollars away from our farmers and our kids. What are you going to do about it? And to be clear, the idea that trans people in New York and San Francisco don't deserve food is disgusting.