One year after USAID was dismantled, the outlines of where Food for Peace now sits — and how it will operate — are becoming clearer.
The program, which was administered by USAID for decades, falls under a new, temporary arrangement that moves it to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That shift was quietly formalized last Christmas Eve, when USDA, the State Department, and the Office of Management and Budget signed an interagency agreement transferring the program to USDA for fiscal years 2025 and 2026. (Since FY 2025 ended Sept. 30, the deal means USDA gets any leftover unspent funds.) A permanent move would require congressional approval. But the agreement itself hasn’t been made public, and the groups it affects — agriculture industry groups, NGOs, and implementing partners — tell Devex they still haven’t seen it.
What has been more visible is USDA’s effort to figure out how to run the program.
Earlier this month, the department convened a closed-door roundtable with humanitarian groups, commodity organizations, and shippers to talk through how Food for Peace might function under its oversight. Multiple attendees described the meeting to Devex as constructive and open, with officials asking basic questions about how the program works and where the pain points are. USDA officials present were Luke J. Lindberg, the undersecretary for trade and foreign agricultural affairs; Jennifer Mack, associate administrator and general sales manager at the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service; and Peter Laudeman, senior policy adviser for trade and foreign agricultural affairs.
“The tone was very much: We want to do this right, we want to do this well, and we want to hear from you,” one participant says, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect their relationship with USDA.
One notable absence: the State Department, which has been responsible for Food for Peace since it took over whatever programs were left after USAID’s dissolution. “No one from State was there. But they were invited,” another participant tells Devex.
The transfer has been welcomed by farm industry groups that have long argued that Food for Peace belongs at USDA, which already sources the U.S.-grown wheat, corn, and other commodities used in the program. Republican lawmakers backing the move say it will strengthen ties to U.S. producers and make the program more durable.
For humanitarian aid experts, the worry isn’t where the program sits — it’s how it operates. In recent years, Food for Peace has been used as a flexible aid tool tailored to different emergency settings, they say. But a move to USDA’s full control could turn it into a means of offloading surplus U.S.-grown food commodities, or pull resources away from the logistics and oversight that make food aid effective, they say.
There’s also the question of capacity. USDA has lost tens of thousands of staff over the past year, including senior officials with deep experience in international programs. The office most likely to house Food for Peace, USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service, is operating with significantly reduced staffing. Food for Peace is several times larger than the other food aid programs that USDA currently runs. Can a depleted workforce take on an initiative of that scale?
For those working closest to the program, the priority is less about which agency’s logo is plastered on the door — and more about avoiding another disruptive transition. As one person puts it: “The system and the children who rely on it cannot go through another eight months of breakages.”
Read more: After USAID, Food for Peace enters a new and uncertain chapter (Pro)
And don’t miss this opinion piece: The US is breaking a lifesaving food aid program
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AGRA is celebrating its 20th birthday in Davos, Switzerland, where thousands are gathered this week for the World Economic Forum.
After two decades focused on African food systems, AGRA — formerly known as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa — is reassessing its direction. With a relatively new leader at the helm, the organization is taking stock, listening, and rethinking its approach, AGRA President Alice Ruhweza told my colleague Elissa Miolene. “When we started 20 years ago, the issue was productivity,” Ruhweza said in Davos on Monday. “We looked at the Green Revolution in Asia and Latin America where farmers were lifted out of poverty in large part by seeds, and we thought we could do something similar in Africa.”
But two decades later, she added, it’s clear the picture in Africa was much more complicated. While Asia and Latin America’s agricultural pushes revolved around a few select crops such as rice, there was no one commodity that could take its place in Africa.
“We also have complexity in language, we have complexity in landscape, we have complexity in wealth. There is no uniformity. In Asia, many things are different — but everybody produces rice,” she said. “So ours could not have been a green revolution, but a rainbow revolution.”
Ruhweza said this year will be spent teasing out what worked, and figuring out — despite all those variables — if certain “sweet spots” exist for particular communities, countries, or crops. That includes which levers to pull for investment, she added, especially when it comes to domestic budgets.
“I want agriculture to find its way again, and to rediscover its role as Africa’s engine for economic growth,” Ruhweza said. “But that means that we have to make that case.”
ICYMI: Davos tests the limits in a world of power, profit, and inequality
Background: Alice Ruhweza's vision for AGRA and African agriculture
AGRA’s moment of reflection mirrors a broader reckoning underway across the development world.
As Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar writes in this look-ahead at 2026 trends, the old aid model is fraying — and what comes next is still taking shape. From the shift toward investment-led development to the growing role of multilateral development banks and development finance institutions, the next phase is likely to be defined by fewer stand-alone projects and more platform-style approaches built with the private sector. One example he points to is the World Bank’s $9 billion AgriConnect initiative, which reflects the kind of large-scale, investment-driven approach likely to become more common as traditional aid declines.
Read: The old aid model is dead. Now comes the fight over what replaces it
Background: Inside the World Bank’s plan to boost jobs by investing in agribusiness
For decades, irrigation was a go-to solution for boosting food production. More water, more crops, more food. But that formula is starting to break down.
Agriculture already accounts for about 70% of global freshwater use, and in many regions the water simply isn’t there anymore. Groundwater levels are falling, rainfall is becoming more erratic, and climate change is making both problems worse. In South Asia and parts of the Middle East, the consequences are already clear. “We know that after so many years, there will not be water to support the same way of doing irrigation in these areas,” says Poolad Karimi, senior irrigation specialist and head of global water informatics at the World Bank.
At the same time, a lot of the world still relies almost entirely on rainfall — even in places where water could be managed more sustainably. As weather patterns grow less predictable, those farmers face rising risks of crop failure.
That tension was on full display last week at the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture in Berlin, Germany, my colleague Jesse Chase-Lubitz writes, where leaders warned that the old way of thinking about irrigation no longer works.
Instead, experts are pushing for more flexible, farmer-led approaches — blending rainwater harvesting, small-scale irrigation, and better groundwater management. The idea is to boost resilience without locking countries into expensive systems that may not hold up in a warmer world.
Read: Amid water stress, experts want the world to get serious about irrigation
Pedro Sánchez, the agricultural scientist whose life’s work helped millions of farmers grow food under some of the world’s toughest conditions, died Jan. 12 in Florida at age 85.
Sánchez never believed science belonged only in laboratories. Raised on a farm outside Havana, Cuba, he saw research as a tool for improving lives — especially for smallholder farmers facing poor soils, low yields, and chronic hunger. That conviction shaped a career spanning Africa, Latin America, and Asia, and helped reshape how tropical agriculture is understood.
He spearheaded breakthroughs in cultivating crops in soils once thought unsuitable, including in parts of Peru and Brazil. His work helped expand food production in places where it was most needed, improving nutrition while giving farmers new ways to earn a living and sustain their land.
“Pedro Sánchez was a scientist of rare vision and deep humanity,” says Mashal Husain, president of the World Food Prize Foundation. “He understood that research matters most when it reaches farmers’ fields, restores dignity, and creates lasting opportunities for communities that have been overlooked for far too long.”
Sánchez received the World Food Prize in 2002 and later led the Agriculture and Food Security Center at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. Alongside his wife, ecologist Cheryl Palm, he used his prize money to support farmers and young scientists working to fight hunger — a commitment that defined his life’s work.
Read more: Celebrated soil scientist and food security activist Pedro Sánchez dies
For the world’s food supply, federal funding cuts have long-term impacts. [New York Times]
The new food powers: How China and Russia are filling America’s retreat. [War on the Rocks]
A new U.N. report says the world is no longer facing a temporary water crisis but a state of “global water bankruptcy,” and calls for long-term solutions rather than quick fixes. [UN News]
The cost of weak competition: How anti-competitive conduct in Africa’s food systems affects prices and livelihoods. [Thin Ink]
Elissa Miolene contributed to this edition of Devex Dish.