From the Reconciliation Farm Bill to drastic changes in spending and priorities at USDA in the second Trump Administration, American food and agricultural policy is experiencing an unusual amount of turbulence and upheaval. In this post, we explore changes in public perceptions on USDA spending priorities using results from the Gardner Food and Agricultural Policy Survey (GFAPS) from both May 2022 and August 2025, evaluating how recent policy changes compare to public preferences.| farmdoc daily
In the last year, the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) campaign has brought a new public interest and scrutiny of food and agricultural policy. We find only small changes in commodity support from May 2022 to August 2025, in particular, slight increases in support for livestock. Additionally, we find little evidence that respondents who view MAHA as positive, negative, or who were unaware of MAHA support commodity groups differently.| farmdoc daily
Maria Kalaitzandonakes, Jonathan Coppess, and Brenna Ellison - Using results from the Gardner Food and Agricultural Policy Survey, we find that awareness of Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) remains high and continues to be popular overall, however, support over the last three months, particularly amongst Democratic respondents, has waned some. Results also show that the respondents reported that MAHA is less aligned with their values than three months prior. Across parties, respondents’ ag...| farmdoc daily
