Editor’s Note: The audio below is an interview by Ag Information producer Todd Gleason and Germán Bollero, Dean of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
More than 200 people who work for Illinois Extension are losing their jobs.
The workers provided nutrition education for people eligible for SNAP benefits, formerly known as food stamps. Federal funding for that program was eliminated by the Trump administration and approved by Congress under the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act.’
Germán Bollero is the Dean of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He said these workers were a lifeline.
“So currently it impacts one million people in the state of Illinois that are going to be not participating anymore in programs on education that allow them to learn more about connecting the food that they purchase and that they eat and they consume,” said Bollero.
The SNAP-ed workers being laid off also helped launch a statewide initiative that connected local food producers with hunger relief organizations.
The College of ACES said the program cut affects nearly 2,000 partnerships in Illinois.
“They’re not here in Champaign, they’re all across the state of Illinois… They’re contributing to those communities. They are delivering programs that have immediate impact in the health and wellbeing of individuals in the state of Illinois,” said Bollero.
“They’re reducing the cost of health care because these programs have been proven to being effective in reducing chronic disease and developing good eating and health habits.”