# Food and Nutrition Service *Agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that administers domestic nutrition assistance programs* The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) is an agency of the United States [[Department of Agriculture]] (USDA). It runs the country's domestic nutrition assistance programs, among them the [[Child and Adult Care Food Program]] and the [[Summer Food Service Program]].[^1][^2][^3] The Wikipedia article on the agency describes its work as addressing hunger in the United States.[^1] The same article reports that its products and services reach one in five Americans.[^1] FNS works from headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. It has regional offices in San Francisco, Denver, Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston and Robbinsville, New Jersey, and field offices across the country.[^1] Wikipedia reports that the agency has one of the smallest staffs in USDA but by far its largest budget.[^1] It is funded within USDA through the yearly Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies appropriations bill.[^1] For 2019 the same source reports $27 billion in discretionary funding for USDA as a whole, not for FNS alone. Its 2019 participation estimates were 40.8 million SNAP recipients, 30 million school-lunch recipients, 15 million school-breakfast recipients, 6.6 million WIC participants, and 690,000 elderly people in the Commodity Supplemental Food Program.[^1] The project's catalogue of validated claim:link pairs lists the agency's CACFP, SFSP and civil rights pages under legal theories on Title VI, [[Title IX]] and refugee resettlement. These listings identify program records. They do not, by themselves, establish any finding.[^2][^3][^4] ## History Some of the programs FNS now administers began as Depression-era relief efforts and are older than the agency itself.[^1] The agency was created within USDA on August 8, 1969.[^1] Its first administrator was Edward J. Hekman, who had been president of the Keebler Company. Hekman held the post until the Ford administration ended.[^1] The cached Wikipedia text (revision 1368389607) gives a different name for the agency. It calls the agency the Food and Nutrition Administration (FNA) and gives "Food and Nutrition Services" as an earlier name.[^1] The agency's program pages, and the project's catalogue entries for them, use the name Food and Nutrition Service.[^2][^3][^4] Wikipedia reports that 11.1 percent of the US population was classed as food insecure in 2018, about 37.2 million people. It describes this as a 0.07 percent decrease from 2017.[^1] It defines food insecurity as a household lacking the resources or funds to provide for all of its members.[^1] It also names twelve states that averaged 15 percent or more in polling over 2016–2018: New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia and North Carolina.[^1] ## Services Wikipedia groups the agency's offerings as follows:[^1] - commodity foods, supplied as prepared meals at congregate feeding sites, as food packages for home use, and as disaster relief; - food assistance through electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards, free or low-cost meals and snacks, vouchers, and fresh local produce; - nutrition education and promotion materials; and - food safety and security work, technical assistance, and informational materials. Core Nutrition Messages is a consumer-facing education program built to follow the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.[^1] Through the National School Lunch Program, the agency also promotes a National School Lunch Week each mid-October, with materials for parents, teachers and school nutrition staff.[^1] ## Nutrition assistance programs Wikipedia counts fifteen domestic nutrition assistance programs through which the agency delivers these services.[^1] They include: - the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), which covers day care for children and for adults over 60;[^1][^2] - the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP);[^3] - the National School Lunch Program, which has operated since 1946;[^1] - the [[School Breakfast Program]];[^1] - the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC);[^1] - the Commodity Supplemental Food Program and the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations;[^1] and - the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the former [[Food Stamp Program]], which the article calls the cornerstone of USDA nutrition assistance.[^1] FNS Reporting publishes monthly food-cost and participation figures by fiscal year for many of these programs.[^1] The Office of Community Food Systems supports programs that use locally grown food. According to Wikipedia, the USDA Farm to School Grant Program awarded nearly $10 million in 2019.[^1] ## In the Minnesota record ### What The project's catalogue of validated claim:link pairs lists FNS program pages under three of its legal theories. - **Title VI** (race discrimination in federally funded programs): the catalogue lists the CACFP page, the SFSP page and the agency's civil rights overview.[^2][^3][^4] - **Title IX** (sex discrimination in federally funded education programs): the catalogue lists the CACFP page. The row describes CACFP and SFSP funds as a "pass-through to MDE" and treats them as one agency funding stream subject to a Title IX assurance.[^2] - **T15** (VOLAG refugee resettlement): the catalogue lists the same three pages.[^2][^3][^4] These rows identify federal program records. The record assembled here does not establish any complaint, finding, docket or dollar figure concerning FNS or its Minnesota pass-through recipients.[^2][^3][^4] ## Notes [^1]: Wikipedia, *Food and Nutrition Service* (revision 1368389607, retrieved 2026-10-26; CC BY-SA 4.0) — the agency's description, offices, funding, 2019 estimates, history, food-insecurity figures, services and programs as summarized there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_and_Nutrition_Service [^2]: USDA Food and Nutrition Service, *Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP)* (program homepage, undated) — CACFP as an FNS program; the page is listed in the project's catalogue under its Title VI, Title IX and T15 rows. https://www.fns.usda.gov/cacfp [^3]: USDA Food and Nutrition Service, *Summer Food Service Program (SFSP)* (program page, undated) — SFSP as an FNS program; the page is listed in the project's catalogue under its Title VI and T15 rows. https://www.fns.usda.gov/sfsp/summer-food-service-program [^4]: USDA Food and Nutrition Service, *Civil Rights Overview* (agency page, undated) — the FNS civil rights program; the page is listed in the project's catalogue under its Title VI and T15 rows. https://www.fns.usda.gov/civil-rights/civil-rights-overview