The Food Price Projections Document
We Are Governing Blind — And That Is the Point
The federal government cancelled the USDA Household Food Security Survey in 2025 — the only nationally representative, continuously tracked measure of American hunger, running for 30 consecutive years. It reduced the USDA Economic Research Service — the agency that produces food price analysis — by 29%. It cut the National Agricultural Statistics Service by 37%. These are the agencies whose data would, under normal circumstances, provide the authoritative foundation for any food price projection.
In that environment, I did what any responsible public health analyst does when government data infrastructure has been intentionally dismantled: I built scenario models from the best available peer-reviewed sources, disclosed my methodology completely on the cover page of the projections document, disclosed the uncertainty ranges, labeled the work as scenario modeling rather than actuarial forecasting, and made the full document freely downloadable so anyone can review and challenge my reasoning.
If the government wants more precise projections, it should restore the measurement tools it deliberately dismantled. That is not an excuse. It is a congressional indictment — and it is a core reason I am running.
Three Inconsistencies, Named and Addressed
Issue 1: "Independent Modeling"
"Independent modeling projects that a family of four will pay $9,500–$12,500 more per year for food by 2032–35..."
"My own scenario modeling, grounded in independent peer-reviewed sources, projects that a family of four will pay $9,500–$12,500 more per year for food by 2032–35..."
What happened: The word "independent" in the mailer implies a third-party entity produced the projections. In fact, the Food Price Projections 2026–2050 document — available for free download on this page — was produced by me, Gregory Burgess, and is clearly attributed on its cover page. The projections are built from independent peer-reviewed sources (USDA NASS, Iowa State Marsden Farm trial, IPCC, Nature), but the scenario modeling work itself is mine. "Scenario modeling from verified 2026 baselines, grounded in peer-reviewed sources and USDA data" is exactly how the document's cover page describes it. That is what I should have written in the mailer.
The underlying figures are accurate. Scenario A (no new interventions), 2032–35 period: +$6,500 to +$12,500, midpoint +$9,500 per year for a family of four spending $1,200/month on food. That figure is directly from the projections table and is traceable to its sources. Only the attribution of "independent" is imprecise.
Issue 2: Timeline Overstated for "Near 2025 Levels"
"Under the full plan, independent projections show family food costs held near 2025 levels by 2036–40."
"Under the Hybrid Organic Transition scenario, family food costs approach or fall below the 2025 baseline in the 2041–50 period — one decade later than the mailer implies."
What happened: This is a genuine error of one time period. The projections document's 2036–40 data for the strongest scenarios (Scenario D: Hybrid Organic) shows a midpoint of +$1,800/year above 2025, and Scenario C (ARI Full Platform) shows +$3,800/year above 2025. Neither is "near 2025 levels." The correct period is 2041–50, when Scenario D reaches a midpoint of approximately +$800/year — approaching the 2025 baseline — and Scenario E can fall below it with full labor reform in place. I wrote "2036–40" when the data supports "2041–50."
What remains true: The contrast is still enormous. By 2036–40, the full ARI platform holds family food costs to $3,800 above the 2025 baseline, while the OBBBA no-intervention trajectory costs families $12,500 above baseline — a difference of $8,700 per year. The structural argument that the ARI dramatically changes the long-term food cost trajectory is fully supported. Only the specific claim about which period costs approach the 2025 baseline was stated one period early.
I regret the imprecision. The mailer was designed to communicate a complex multi-decade projection in a single sentence. That compression produced an error. The full tables are in the download below, and I stand behind them.
Issue 3: Farm Labor Figure — Wrong Attribution, Wrong Magnitude
"Nearly half of all U.S. agricultural workers are undocumented, according to USDA data."
"An estimated 50–70% of U.S. agricultural production labor is performed by undocumented workers, according to the National Academy of Sciences (2017) and peer-reviewed agricultural economics literature."
What happened: Two errors in one sentence. First, "nearly half" understates the cited range. The Food Price Projections appendix cites the National Academy of Sciences (2017) and Martin (2017, American Journal of Agricultural Economics) for a range of 50–70% — not "nearly half" (which implies roughly 45–49%). Second, the attributed source — "USDA data" — is imprecise. USDA employment data is part of the evidentiary foundation, but the specific 50–70% figure is sourced to the National Academy of Sciences and the peer-reviewed agricultural economics literature, not to a USDA publication directly. Both the number and the attribution should have been more precise.
Importantly, the corrected figure actually strengthens the argument. The accurate range — 50–70% — represents a larger share of the food production workforce than "nearly half" implies. If anything, compressing it to "nearly half" understated the food supply vulnerability from immigration enforcement.
Every Other Major Claim in the Mailer Is Sourced and Accurate
The following claims were cross-referenced against the Food Price Projections 2026–2050 appendix and the Agricultural Resilience Imperative source citations. All verified:
Why "Best Available Evidence" Is the Honest Standard — and Why That Standard Itself Indicts Current Policy
My food price projections are scenario models, not actuarial forecasts. The cover page of the projections document says so explicitly. Here is why that distinction matters, and why the government's decision to dismantle its own data infrastructure is the deeper story:
- The USDA Household Food Security Survey — 30 years of continuous data — was cancelled in 2025. This is the instrument that would tell us, in real time, how many Americans cannot afford food right now. It no longer exists. I am building food security projections in an environment where the government has deliberately switched off its own measurement system.
- USDA ERS, cut by 29%, is the agency that produces food price economic analysis. The National Agricultural Statistics Service, cut by 37%, produces the crop production and farm condition data that informs market modeling. These are not peripheral agencies. They are the infrastructure of food policy. Their gutting directly degrades the quality of any projection — mine or anyone else's — that relies on current, verified government data.
- My methodology is fully disclosed and freely available. The Food Price Projections appendix lists every source, every force magnitude, every lead-time estimate and its origin. I am not hiding my reasoning. I am showing my work — which is more than the federal government is doing when it cancels the survey that would tell us whether conditions are getting better or worse.
- The appropriate professional standard when authoritative data has been suppressed is not silence. It is transparent, evidence-grounded scenario modeling with disclosed uncertainty ranges. That is exactly what I produced. Public health analysts, epidemiologists, and agricultural economists do this routinely when administrative data is unavailable — in international development contexts, in conflict zones, and now, in the United States of America in 2026, because our own government chose to stop collecting the relevant data.
- My errors were errors of compression, not fabrication. Every figure I cited traces to a real source. The mistakes were in how I described the authorship of the modeling, the precision of one timeline, and the attribution of one figure. None of the errors invents data. All of them are corrected here, on this page, voluntarily, because that is what Show Your Work means.
Read Everything. Verify Everything.
Every document referenced on this page is free to download. The projections document includes a full appendix with APA-cited sources for every claim. That is what Show Your Work means.
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