Presented by The Crop Trust
Well, Dish readers, we’ve nearly made it out of this wild year. It’s safe to say 2025 has been a year like no other. In our combined three decades of reporting, we’ve never seen the downfall of a U.S. government agency unfold this quickly. Especially not one that reached millions, across nearly every corner of the world.
Earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Congress that “no one had died” as a result of the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID and that “no children are dying on my watch.”
A growing body of evidence suggests that is simply untrue — and we are already seeing the dire effects of USAID’s demise. Across the global south, from Nepal to northeastern Nigeria, tens of thousands of children are trapped in an endless cycle of malnutrition because the U.S.-funded programs that once provided lifesaving care have shuttered. In Afghanistan, the World Food Programme is turning away 9 out of 10 acutely hungry people because U.S. funding cuts have forced the agency to close 298 nutrition sites and cut assistance. In Malawi, refugees struggling to survive on dwindling food rations are turning to sex work and theft.
Data backs up what we’re reporting anecdotally. In March, an analysis from the Standing Together for Nutrition coalition showed that U.S. budget cuts will deprive as many as 1 million children with severe acute malnutrition of treatment, causing an additional 163,500 child deaths per year. And in July, a report in the Lancet medical journal projected that deep funding cuts combined with USAID’s dismantling could result in 14 million additional deaths globally by 2030, including 4.5 million deaths among children under age 5.
But the story isn’t finished yet. Court challenges, congressional pressure — including from some Republican lawmakers — and mounting scrutiny of the administration’s approach have coincided with a limited restart of aid flows in parts of the system. This year has also forced a pause — and, in some corners, a rethink. What makes food aid effective? When does in-kind assistance help, and when does it fall short? Those questions are now colliding with a renewed global push to prioritize nutrition and agricultural development, including large-scale investments by institutions such as the World Bank aimed at boosting local production and long-term food security. The Trump administration, meanwhile, has ended major agricultural assistance programs such as USAID’s Feed the Future.
Whether this year becomes a breaking point or a turning point remains an open question. The answer will matter long after the calendar flips. Goodbye and good riddance, 2025. You won’t be missed.
To our readers: Thank you for reading and chatting with us during this roller coaster of a year for global development. We couldn’t do this work without you. Devex will take our annual companywide holiday break from Dec. 25 through Jan. 2. You’ll get your next edition of Dish on Jan. 7, 2026. Have a restful holiday!
The Pro reads:
• What good is in-kind food aid?
• A successful US food aid program needs agriculture investment, experts say
• How US aid obligations fell by 65% in 2025
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The stories that documented a year of disruption.
1. WFP to resume food aid delivery after halt due to U.S. stop-work order — by Tania Karas on Feb. 10, 2025.
We reported that USAID notified WFP that the pause on its programs had been rescinded. But the effects of U.S. funding cuts to WFP are ongoing today.
2. Exclusive: WFP to cut up to 30% of staff amid aid shortfall — by Ayenat Mersie on April 25, 2025.
Devex broke the story that WFP planned to cut up to 30% of its global workforce by 2026 as donor funding dropped sharply and hunger crises around the world deepened.
3. Which USAID-funded food and agriculture programs were cut? Which remain? (Pro) — by Ayenat Mersie on April 7, 2025.
Our best analysis of what was happening in real time. Devex reviewed the data to assess what was left of emergency food aid, nutrition, food systems, and agriculture programming across USAID-funded NGOs, multilaterals, and contractors.
4. USAID-funded famine early-warning system goes offline due to aid freeze — by Jesse Chase-Lubitz on Jan. 30, 2025.
FEWS NET, a key food insecurity data tool used by humanitarian groups worldwide, was taken down due to the Trump administration’s stop-work order on USAID. It was reinstated later in the year.
5. U.S.-grown food aid is stranded in ports worldwide despite waiver — by Ayenat Mersie and Tania Karas on Feb. 7, 2025.
The stranded aid was valued at nearly $500 million, and much of it was at risk of spoilage. In the end, much of that food did not reach its intended recipients. Later on, 500 metric tons of high-energy biscuits were incinerated, leading to members of the U.S. Congress questioning State Department officials.
6. Nutrition for Growth summit raises $27 billion to end malnutrition — by Tania Karas on March 29, 2025.
The final figure at the gathering in Paris surprised attendees and was a bright spot for nutrition advocates at a time of foreign aid cuts.
7. U.N. food agency caught in Trump administration’s crosshairs — by Tania Karas on April 11, 2025.
At a meeting of the Food and Agriculture Organization’s council in Rome, a U.S. representative laid out a vision for an agency aligned with U.S. interests — meaning no diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives or climate change work.
8. U.S. food aid disruption confirmed in WFP email to USAID — by Ayenat Mersie on Feb. 7, 2025.
An internal WFP email to USAID that Devex obtained confirmed that over 507,000 metric tons of U.S. food aid remained stranded or halted despite a waiver for emergency assistance.
9. Already strapped for cash, WFP faces post-USAID future — by Ayenat Mersie on March 12, 2025.
WFP was grappling with severe funding shortfalls even before U.S. President Donald Trump took office a second time. With donor budgets shrinking and U.S. foreign aid in flux, WFP faced tough choices about where — and whether — it could deliver food aid. Those choices are still reverberating today.
10. How Trump’s U.S. aid stop-work order affects global food aid — by Tania Karas on Jan. 29, 2025.
Everything we could glean in the very first days of Trump’s stop-work order and how it affected food, nutrition, and agricultural assistance. “It’s manufactured chaos,” one NGO official said at the time. Devex recognized early on that Feed the Future, USAID’s flagship food security program, had ground to a halt.
Big ideas on what failed, what still works, and what must change.
1. The U.S. is breaking a lifesaving global food aid system — By Dina Esposito on Dec. 3, 2025.
Moving Food for Peace, a key humanitarian program that has survived cuts to U.S. aid so far, to the U.S. Department of Agriculture would be a grave mistake. “On paper, the move may sound logical — USDA works with farmers, after all. “In practice, it would be disastrous for the world’s hungry and offer little benefit to American farmers,” Esposito writes.
2. The next global food crisis will come. The U.S. is not ready — by Dina Esposito and Maany Peyvan on Sept. 16, 2025.
Food aid alone cannot prevent the next hunger emergency. The United States risks repeating past failures unless it pairs emergency response with long-term food security investments. “History has shown us time and again that food aid alone cannot cure hunger,” Esposito and Peyvan write.
3. Now is the moment to eliminate a human-made health challenge: Trans fat — by Korinna Schumann, Jan Christian Vestre, Hilal bin Ali bin Hilal Alsabti, Ong Ye Kung, and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Sept. 3, 2025.
Eliminating industrial trans fat is one of the clearest, most achievable public health victories on the table. “When [the World Health Organization] first called for the global elimination of industrially produced trans fat seven years ago, only 11 countries, covering 6% of the global population, had best-practice trans fat elimination policies in effect. This number has since grown to almost 60, including the nine nations certified by WHO, comprising 46% of the global population,” the authors write.
4. Our food aid systems are at breaking point. Time to build a better system — by Simon Winter on Sept. 30, 2025.
Emergency food aid is faltering, creating an opening to rethink how the world responds to hunger. “We need to stop putting a Band-Aid over emergencies after they have occurred, and instead heed the warning signs to prevent crises from unfolding in the first place,” Winter writes.
5. On food systems change, time to keep calm and accelerate — by Lawrence Haddad on June 17, 2025.
Food system change hinges on better coordination, smarter finance, and feedback loops that actually work. “The current upheavals in debt, aid, and trade are threatening to make food system change even slower. Paralysis is one response to the gravity of the current situation. But when we see a fire, we need to run toward it to put it out, not away from it,” Haddad writes.
6. What we feed our children can fix our planet — by Sara Farley on July 23, 2025.
School meals can anchor climate-resilient farming, stronger rural economies, and better nutrition all at once. “When governments open guaranteed, reliable markets for school meal programs, they give farmers the security to plan ahead, learn new practices, and invest in building resilient food systems from the ground up,” she writes.
7. Agriculture is missing in climate action. NDCs can change that — by Helena Wright on May 13, 2025.
Climate action is leaving agriculture behind — and the costs are mounting. “Clear, ambitious policy signals through [nationally determined contributions] give investors the certainty needed to confidently allocate capital toward resilient infrastructure, sustainable food systems, and low-emission technologies,” she writes.
8. Investing in agrifood systems is a safer bet than military spending — by Máximo Torero Cullen on Jan. 28, 2025.
Neglecting agrifood systems is compounding hunger, instability, and long-term fragility. “Yet the world continues to respond to crises with force rather than foresight. In turn, the military spending bill keeps growing. In the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, military spending has risen sharply — by 105% and 78% respectively — while millions remain stuck in conflict and on the brink of starvation. Failing to fund long-term development traps vulnerable regions in a vicious cycle of conflict, eroding the foundations for sustainable progress,” Torero writes.
9. It’s time to redefine security to include development — by Amadée Mudie-Mantz and Michael Werz on Feb. 13, 2025.
In debates about security, development spending is still often treated as optional — or expendable. But development should “in no case be deprioritized in times of insecurity and crisis. In fact, investments in, for example, more sustainable food systems should be considered as a strategic form of deterrence. The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization has shown that it is cheaper to invest in development, including the eradication of hunger, than to pay for the security consequences of inaction,” the authors write.
10. Food aid is in crisis. So let’s stop funding agrochemicals — by Ruchi Tripathi on May 28, 2025.
For decades, global food and agricultural aid has prioritized and incentivized chemical-intensive production models, an approach the author says it is time to move away from. “We must not downplay the harm caused by slashing food aid budgets overnight but this crisis offers a chance to reimagine a transition toward funding agroecological practices that boost local economies, promote stronger land tenure rights, center indigenous knowledge, and build climate resilience for the long term,” Tripathi writes.
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It hasn’t always been clear who’s calling the shots in the new world of U.S. foreign aid. Here’s a rundown of the key players. [Devex Pro]
A new study on the effects of carbon dioxide on crops found that high levels made the food less nutritious. [The Guardian]
Bilateral health agreements between African countries and the U.S. are explicit about nonhealth goals the U.S. hopes to extract. [Devex Pro]