Newsroom

FNCS Acting Deputy Under Secretary Brandon Lipps today highlighted the accomplishments of USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service in 2018, from common-sense flexibilities for school meal providers to the agency’s vigorous response to provide food to the victims of coast-to-coast natural disasters.

Secretary Sonny Perdue today applauded the accomplishments made by USDA over the past year. USDA has continued enacting President Trump’s goals of regulatory reform, streamlining government, and refocusing USDA to be customer oriented.

Earlier this week, a new USDA Foods vendor delivered 2,000 gallons of fresh milk to the D.C. Capital Area Food Bank. The delivery was one of many taking place at food banks across the country resulting from purchases made by the USDA to provide market support to the dairy industry.

To provide relief from the impacts of Hurricane Michael, FNS will allow participants in the USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in 23 Georgia counties to buy hot foods with their benefits through Nov. 17, 2018.

FNS today announced a $2-million cooperative agreement with the Johns Hopkins University to conduct an in-depth, practicable evaluation of local agencies’ strategies to improve services provided by the WIC program.

Secretary Sonny Perdue yesterday hosted a roundtable with local school officials to learn more about how USDA can best assist and enable their efforts to serve nutritious meals to our nation’s children.

USDA today announced $5 million of investments in customer service projects to improve and modernize application processing in USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

USDA today announced the projects selected to receive the its annual farm to school grants designed to increase the amount of local foods served in schools. Sixty-five projects were chosen nationwide.

Secretary Sonny Perdue today proclaimed Aug. 1-7 as National WIC Breastfeeding Week. Each year, National WIC Breastfeeding Week is held in conjunction with World Breastfeeding Week during the first week of August to promote and support breastfeeding as the best source of nutrition for a baby’s first year of life. 

Administrator Brandon Lipps offers the following statement in response to the recent news about access to farmers markets for participants in SNAP.

For the first time in three years, USDA today released new data on improper payments in SNAP. This data reflects an improved reporting process that will better enable USDA and its state partners to make informed, data-driven decisions to improve program integrity.

FNS today announced $5.2 million in grant awards to bring nutritious, local foods into schools and create new economic opportunities for farmers. The grants will impact over 6,000 schools and 2.8 million students nationwide.

As part of Agriculture Secretary Perdue’s strategic goal of ensuring that our programs are delivered efficiently, effectively and with integrity, FNS announced an enhanced focus on program integrity today, that will include renewed attention on transparency, payment accuracy, fraud and waste prevention, and improved quality control.

Puerto Rico residents continuing to recover from the impacts of recent hurricanes could be eligible for increased nutrition assistance, thanks to a grant from USDA. This temporary assistance will be distributed through the Puerto Rico Nutrition Assistance Program, beginning March 1.