At the end of Donald Trump’s first presidential term, we published a recap of how his presidency shaped food and farming. Last week, we did the same for President Joe Biden.
In both, you’ll see that, even when whittled down to the most impactful actions, a lot can happen in four years. In fact, nearly every day, presidents, their agencies, and members of Congress make decisions—big and small—that have profound consequences for how we grow, process, transport, and consume food in this country.
For the last 16 years, Civil Eats has been covering food policy developments primarily through in-depth articles that shine light on and provide context to those issues that don’t get reported anywhere else.
More recently, we’ve also provided shorter, newsier policy coverage through our recurring column, “The Field Report.”
Today, we’re introducing Civil Eats’ new Food Policy Tracker to deliver daily, condensed updates about the changes taking place on Capitol Hill.
The tracker will not replace our continuing in-depth coverage or investigations. It will be additive.
Why Now?
A food policy news vacuum has been expanding in Washington, D.C. at the exact moment when the incoming Trump administration is promising to move quickly to transform federal agencies and laws. Our goal is to keep track of what that looks like to the best of our ability, so that in four years, a clear, robust record will be available.
What the Food Policy Tracker Is
We’ll be keeping close tabs on what’s happening in Washington, D.C. and updating the tracker daily. It will include actions taken by the President, federal agencies, and Congress that directly relate to or have implications for our food system. That could include any aspect of the system: farm, labor, environment, immigration, food safety, and health. We’ll track executive orders that have implications for food and farming, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food & Drug Administration (FDA), and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will likely be prominently represented.
What the Food Policy Tracker Isn’t
We won’t be covering state or local policies in the tracker or cover behind-the-scenes Senate or House politics around food issues. Government action is the focus of this project, so we won’t cover advocacy efforts outside that context.
The tracker is meant to provide a record of what the federal government is doing, not what people want from the government.
What to Expect
Daily updates will be just a few sentences each, explaining what happened and the most important details.
When something more significant occurs that we determine deserves more attention and context, we’ll report it as a larger news story.
How to Use the Food Policy Tracker
Overall, the tracker will contain short, newsier items. On our homepage and in the weekly newsletter, we’ll highlight the latest tracker updates so they’re easy to read. That includes both the shorter missives and longer news stories.
We hope you’ll also think of it as a record you’ll be able to reference at any point in the future. If you’re a researcher or a journalist, you’ll be able to sort the tracker by topic or agency to see a running list of actions. For example, maybe you want to look at what Trump’s EPA did in year one on pesticide policy. If you’re an educator, maybe you want your students to use it for project ideas.
This is all new for us, too, so we’ll be tweaking things and updating as we go to make it as useful as possible. You can always contact us with feedback and suggestions. If you think we missed something, you can also email tracker@civileats.com.
