In 2010, United States lawmakers passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which aimed to tackle both childhood obesity and hunger by making school meals more nutritious. Two years later, the Department of Agriculture updated its guidance for schools participating in the National School Lunch Program, or NSLP, in accordance with the law. Whereas schools could previously serve fat-free, 1 percent, 2 percent, or whole milk and be eligible for federal reimbursement, now they could only recoup meal costs if they ditched 2 percent and whole milk, which were thought to be too high in saturated fat for kids.

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Representative Glenn “G.T.” Thompson has been on a mission to change that. The Republican legislator representing Pennsylvania’s 15th congressional district believes the 2010 law sparked a decline in students drinking milk across the board. “We have lost a generation of milk drinkers since whole milk was demonized and removed from schools,” he told a local agribusiness group in 2021.

Between 2019 and 2023, Thompson introduced the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act — a bill that would allow schools to serve whole milk again under the NSLP — three times without success.

In January of this year, he reintroduced the bill once again — and inspired a group of animal welfare, environmental, and public health organizations to push for a vegan countermeasure. This month, a bipartisan group of legislators put forward the Freedom in School Cafeterias and Lunches, or FISCAL, Act, which would expand the definition of milk under the NSLP to include plant-based options. Currently, schools participating in the NSLP can offer milk substitutions to students with a note from a parent or doctor — but the FISCAL Act is promoting a world where vegan milks are offered freely, alongside cow’s milk.

If students end up replacing their daily cow’s milk with a plant-based alternative, this has the potential to bring down food-related greenhouse gas emissions. But you won’t hear supporters of the FISCAL Act talking up the climate benefits of plant-based milk in the halls of Congress. Instead, they’re focusing on the health benefits of soy, oat, and other vegan drinks for students who can’t digest or simply don’t want cow’s milk.

“Most of this nation’s children of color are lactose intolerant, and yet our school lunch program policy makes it difficult for these kids to access a nutritious fluid beverage that doesn’t make them sick,” said Senator Cory Booker, a Democratic co-sponsor of the bill. This focus on student health — and the absence of any environmental talking points — reflect the eternally tricky politics around milk in U.S. schools, which have become even more complicated in President Donald Trump’s second term.

Milk has a relatively low carbon footprint compared to other animal proteins, like beef, pork, poultry, and cheese. But dairy production still comes with considerable climate impacts — mainly from the food grown to feed cows, as well as methane emitted via cow burps and manure. In 2020, researchers at Pennsylvania State University found that a dairy cow can release 350 pounds of methane every year through their burps — meaning, all told, dairy cows are responsible for 2.7 percent of the U.S.’s total greenhouse gases.

Nondairy milks — fortified drinks like soy, almond, oat, and rice milk — have varying impacts on the environment and climate, but all of these plant-based alternatives use less land and water than cow’s milk to produce, and result in fewer emissions.

Under the NSLP, schools cannot be reimbursed for the cost of meals unless they offer students milk. The Center for a Humane Economy, an animal welfare and environmental group backing the FISCAL Act, calls this America’s “milk mandate.” In 2023, student Marielle Williamson sued her Los Angeles high school for not allowing her to set up an informational table about plant-based milk unless she also promoted dairy. Subsidized school lunches have been described as “a guaranteed market” for farmers’ products; this is all but acknowledged when legislators like Thompson blame school lunch for the decline of the dairy industry. Indeed, in a recent Senate agricultural committee hearing over the whole milk bill, Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, said, “Not only do school meal programs reduce hunger and promote learning, they also support our local farmers and ranchers at a time when it’s probably the very worst time I’ve seen in decades” for farmers.

The animal welfare groups backing the FISCAL Act argue schools need more flexibility to meet the needs of students with lactose intolerance. Consumption of milk has fallen consistently since the 1970s, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. That change is thought to be the result of shifting diets, as well as perhaps a reflection of America’s growing racial and ethnic diversity. It is estimated that half of American adults have difficulty digesting lactose, the protein found in milk and many other dairy products. These rates are higher in Black, Asian American, Hispanic, Native American, and Jewish communities.

“We’ve had so much marketing to tell us that the milk of a cow is, you know, nature’s perfect food, and it clearly is not,” said Wayne Pacelle, the head of Animal Wellness Action, an advocacy group that opposes animal cruelty and supports the FISCAL Act.

Pacelle acknowledged the climate impact of the dairy industry: “It’s just a truth that cows are big contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.” But he noted that arguments related to the climate are unlikely to sway the debate over school lunch beverages. “The Republican Congress is not really so attuned to that,” he said.

As a result, his group and the others pushing for the FISCAL Act aren’t talking much about the environmental considerations of drinking cow’s milk. This aligns with a shift happening in the broader food industry under the second Trump administration, as producers and manufacturers figure out which talking points are most appealing to leaders like Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has called for schools to start offering whole milk again.

The Republicans pushing for whole milk in schools are talking up the health and economic benefits of whole milk, an argument that came into sharp relief during a Senate agricultural committee hearing in early April. Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas, who drank from a tall glass of milk before addressing the committee, referenced the term “Make America Healthy Again,” or MAHA, when making his case. The movement, popularized by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., taps into wellness, environmental, and food safety concerns in the general public and offers solutions based in pseudoscience and conspiracy theories. Marshall, a co-sponsor of the whole milk bill in the Senate, said MAHA is “about whole foods, and I think we could categorize whole milk as part of” that framework.

While Republicans and Democrats alike may be sidestepping the dairy industry’s environmental impact and spending more time talking about student health, there is one environmental consideration that’s caught the attention of advocates of both whole milk and plant-based milk. That’s food waste, a leading source of greenhouse gas emissions. Forty-five percent of the milk cartons offered at breakfast in schools are thrown out annually because students don’t take them. When students do grab milk at breakfast, a fourth of those cartons still wind up unopened in the trash.

Krista Byler, a food service director for the Union City Area School District in northwestern Pennsylvania, spoke at the Senate agricultural committee hearing and said serving whole milk in her schools helped milk consumption go up, ultimately reducing the amount of milk wasted.

“I hated seeing such an exorbitant amount of milk wasted daily in our small district and was hearing stories of even bigger waste ratios in larger districts,” Byler said in her written testimony.

A similar case has been made by Pacelle and other supporters of the FISCAL Act, who argue students will be more likely to drink — and finish — their beverage at school if they have the option to go plant-based.

Recently, the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids bill passed a House agriculture committee vote. If it passes a full House vote, it could then move on to the Senate. Meanwhile, the FISCAL Act is still in committee in both houses of Congress.

Pacelle said the best chance the FISCAL Act has of passing is if its provisions are included as an amendment to the whole milk bill — framing it not as a rival measure, but as a complementary effort to create more choice for students. “Moving it independently is unlikely because of the power of the dairy lobby,” said Pacelle, “and the G.T. Thompsons of the world.”

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/food-and-agriculture/milk-school-lunch-plant-based-vegan-whole-dairy-lobby-congress/.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

Spring has sprung, and you can tell by looking at Dig’s online menu. The fast-casual chain known for its bountiful salads and bowls is promoting a new sandwich for the spring — the “avo smash,” wherein a hearty piece of chicken or tofu is embraced by a brioche bun, pesto aioli, and plenty of bright-green avocado.

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The lunch spot’s seasonal menus are planned at least three months in advance, said Andrew Torrens, Dig’s director of supply, meaning the avo smash has been in the works for a while. However, if the United States decides to escalate a global trade war next month, Dig will have to come up with a backup plan fast.

“If avocado prices explode, what’s our backup? How do we pivot?” said Torrens on a recent phone call.

Since his inauguration in January, President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada — creating confusion for restaurant owners, food distributors, grocers, and consumers who rely on the United States’ neighbor to the south for fruits and vegetables year-round. On February 1, the president signed an executive order levying a 25 percent tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico. However, he has twice pushed back the start date; earlier this month, he paused tariffs on most goods coming in from Mexico and Canada until April 2. What will actually happen on that date — which Trump has dubbed “Liberation Day” — is still largely unclear.

A tariff on goods from Mexico, the single largest supplier of horticultural imports to the U.S., would almost certainly mean higher prices at the grocery store. It could also, according to experts, increase food waste along the supply chain.

Dig sources most of its avocados from Mexico, where the warm climate is ideal for growing these fruits. This is common — in fact, about 90 percent of avocados consumed in the U.S. come from Mexico, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “We rely on imports, from Mexico in particular, on things like fresh fruit and vegetables in order to meet year-round consumer demand,” said David Ortega, a professor focused on agricultural economics and policy at Michigan State University. Tariffs have the potential to send those prices soaring by raising the cost of production. But the lack of clarity around U.S. trade relations is already impacting operations in the food and beverage industry.

“There’s so much uncertainty, you don’t know how to operate your business and you don’t know how to plan for it,” said Torrens. “If you knew what the new reality was, you’d adapt to it.”

Other food chains are reeling from the Trump administration’s policies. In an annual filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the salad chain Sweetgreen listed “international trade barriers” as one factor that could spike the cost of ingredients like avocados; it also mentioned the threat of mass deportation of undocumented workers as a supply chain disruption. Asked about tariffs, Scott Boatwright, the CEO of the Mexican-inspired burrito giant Chipotle, told reporters that the company would not pass on higher costs to the customer. “It is our intent as we sit here today to absorb those costs,” Boatwright told NBC Nightly News on March 2, just days before Trump announced a one-month pause in tariffs for goods covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, the trade agreement he negotiated during his first term.

Much has been written and said about the economic impacts of tariffs. One lesser-known side effect — which could also have environmental consequences — is the potential for more food loss and waste. This can happen at various points along the food supply chain, from the farm to the U.S.-Mexico border to grocery store shelves. “I think tariffs are a bit of a supply chain disruption,” not unlike the ones felt during the pandemic, said Brenna Ellison, professor of agribusiness management at Purdue University. The trouble stems from the fact that fruit and vegetables are highly perishable.

“If we’re having trouble getting them in the country because it costs more, if that creates more hesitation among U.S. buyers to get those products into the country, the clock is ticking really fast,” said Ellison. Items that normally would make their way to U.S. consumers will “go to waste quickly unless we can find some alternate use for them.”

Food loss and waste are measured by looking at how much edible food grown for human consumption doesn’t end up feeding people — whether that’s at the harvesting and processing stage or further along the way to the consumer, like in stores or kitchens. When organic matter, like fruits and vegetables, is thrown out, it often winds up in landfills — where it emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, as it rots. In the U.S., a majority of wasted food — about 60 percent — goes to landfills, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA also found that every year, 55 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents are emitted from food waste in landfills.

During the pandemic, there were reports of farmers leaving food to rot in the fields, as restaurants shut down and growers lost access to their regular customers. Ellison states this could happen again, if tariffs raise the price of agricultural goods to the point that growers are not confident they’ll be able to sell as much product as they’re used to and recoup the cost of harvesting.

But she noted that it does not necessarily mean those crops are sent to a landfill. “In some cases, depending on the crop, it can be tilled back into the soil,” sending plant nutrients back to the earth, said Ellison.

However, more waste can happen further along the supply chain — on the way to market or in grocery stores. If tariffs lead to delays in processing at the border, that could lead to more produce spoiling before or as it meets the consumer, said Ortega. He also mentioned that when the Trump administration first announced tariffs, “a lot of importers started to do what we call ‘front-loading’; they started to get as much product over the border in an effort to beat the tariff.”

Ordering fresh produce in excess means you have to sell it. Multiple Whole Foods Market stores in New York City in mid-March had a promotion on Mexican produce, including avocados and mangos. Whole Foods did not respond to a request for comment about whether the sale was related to tariff announcements. United Natural Foods Inc. — the importer for Whole Foods — had no comment, said Kristin Jimenez, the corporation’s vice president of corporate communications.

When food is left on grocery store shelves, it can also lead to food waste, said Ellison at Purdue. That can happen when retailers over-order produce and can’t sell all of it — or when prices go up and “people just can’t afford” to buy it, Ellison added.

There’s also a chance that consumers could end up seeing more limited availability of goods as retailers try to switch up their sourcing to avoid tariffs.

While Trump campaigned on lowering the cost of goods at the grocery store, a 25 percent tariff on goods from Mexico could make basics like fruits and vegetables even more expensive. That has hunger relief organizations worried, too.

“We’re obviously concerned that anytime there’s a potential disruption in the supply chain, particularly with fruits and vegetables, it could impact our ability to feed those in need,” said Jen Cox, the chief development officer at Food Forward, a food rescue operation focused on redistributing fresh produce to food banks, after-school programs, and more. She added that tariffs could exacerbate an already challenging cost-of-living situation for many people in the U.S., leading to an increase in hunger.

The U.S. set a goal of cutting food waste in half by 2030 — we’re nowhere near that. Should tariffs drive an increase in food sent to landfills, it will be one of multiple knock-on effects that trade barriers will have on consumers. “It’s sort of a conflation of all of these situations,” said Cox. Those compounding crises — economic, social, and environmental — mean that organizations like hers could have their hands full in the coming months, working to fill the gaps that “America First” trade policies will likely create.

Correction: A previous version of this article misstated Brenna Ellison’s place of work.

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/food-and-agriculture/tariffs-wont-just-hit-your-wallet-they-could-also-increase-food-waste/.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org