The U.S. Department of Agriculture is asking states and food service companies, with the support of school food authorities, to pledge to make school meals and snack programs healthier.
For fiscal year 2026, we will provide up to $4 million for a competitive cooperative agreement to a government or nonprofit entity to carry out a Healthy Fluid Milk Incentive project.
We regularly collect information about the school meal programs and how they operate from the people who know best – the state agencies that oversee the programs in each state and territory and the school food authorities that manage the programs locally in one or more schools.
The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to carry out Healthy Fluid Milk Incentives projects to develop and test methods to increase the purchase and consumption of fluid milk of SNAP households by providing incentives at the point of purchase. The Act requires biennial reporting on the status of projects and completed evaluations. The findings for the FY 2020 award were presented in the first report to Congress. This second report presents findings from the FY 2021, FY 2022 and FY 2023 pilot projects.
On Dec. 14, 2023, we published a final rule that went into effect on Feb. 12, 2024. In reviewing the resulting changes to the Code of Federal Regulations, we found that the final rule inadvertently omitted provisions from the CFR and contained several non-substantive errors. This document corrects those errors in the WIC regulations.
On Nov. 12, 2025, President Trump signed the Continuing Appropriations, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Extensions Act, 2026 into law. Section 787 of the Act directs USDA to update the maximum monthly allowance of fluid milk for certain food packages provided in the WIC program.
In alignment with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ priorities to encourage healthy choices, healthy outcomes, and healthy families and connect America’s farmers to nutrition assistance programs, we are revising the CSFP Maximum Monthly Distribution Rates to reflect the foods currently available in the program.
The primary purpose of the HFMI project is to develop and test methods to increase the purchase and consumption of qualifying fluid milk by SNAP households by providing them with an incentive at the point of purchase at authorized retailer locations.
Under the leadership of President Trump and Secretary Rollins, we have an opportunity to leverage the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to Make America Healthy Again.
Under the leadership of Secretary Brooke Rollins, USDA is prioritizing the clarification of statutory, regulatory, and administrative requirements of the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program.