USDA has suspended at least $500 million in funding originally destined for food banks nationwide, arguing the Biden administration had created "unsustainable" expectations for supplementing the Emergency Food Assistance Program through the department's Commodity Credit Corporation spending authority.
A group of 26 Senate Democrats led by the Senate Ag Committee's ranking member, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, on Tuesday challenged the USDA decision, saying that suspending the funding would have a "significant and damaging impact upon millions of people."
TEFAP, as the food assistance program is known, is supported by annually appropriated funds, purchasing under USDA's Section 32 authority, and recently, special CCC funds designated by the Biden administration.
While orders purchased with appropriated and Section 32 funds have been uninterrupted, food banks are beginning to see orders through CCC funds returned or canceled. Politico first reported the interruptions to food banks.
The CCC funds are a discretionary tool administrations have occasionally used for TEFAP. During the first Trump administration, over $2 billion of CCC-funded food purchases went into the program. It both provided some support for farmers impacted by the trade war at the time and supplemented food banks during the pandemic.
During the Biden administration, then-Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack authorized nearly $1 billion in CCC funds per year to TEFAP for the first three years of the term. In the final year, that amount was $500 million.
The entirety of the $500 million is subject to a suspension, said Vince Hall, chief government relations officer with Feeding America, the national network of food banks. There’s an additional $60 million from the previous year that was unspent that may also be subject to the suspension, he said.
In a statement, a department spokesperson said USDA continues to purchase food for the program through appropriated funds and Section 32 purchases.
“The Biden Administration created unsustainable programming and expectations using the Commodity Credit Corporation," the statement said.
USDA recently approved an additional $261 million in Section 32 purchases to provide additional fruits, vegetables and tree nuts, the statement said.
Like what you see on the Agri-Pulse website? See even more ag and rural policy news when you sign up for a four-week free trial Agri-Pulse subscription.
“With 16 robust nutrition programs and the Section 32 market support program in place, USDA remains focused on its core mission: strengthening food security, supporting agricultural markets, and ensuring access to nutritious food,” the statement said.
But in a letter to Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins, the 26 Senate Democrats posed a series of questions about the decision and noted that it comes on top of an earlier decision to cancel Biden administration initiatives that were aimed at providing locally produced foods to schools and feeding programs.
"These cuts will deprive Americans of food assistance, emergency food providers of necessary support to carry out their work, and American farmers of vital domestic markets," the letter says.
Hall said some food banks have not felt any impacts from the suspension. At other banks, as much as 35% or more of their food supply has been affected.
Vince Hall“It hits harder in rural communities because rural food banks are more dependent on programs like TEFAP,” Hall said. “The rural populations are experiencing the highest rates of hunger and the available resources are less available to food banks.”
Hall explained that food banks located in urban areas are likely closer to grocery stores or can find alternate ways to source food.
Even though the pandemic has wound down, food banks have actually seen an increase in demand due to other factors like higher grocery prices and the scale back from pandemic-era government benefits.
Capital Area Food Bank, which serves the greater Washington area, has doubled its pre-pandemic offerings.
Depending on the year, the food provided by USDA through TEFAP is between a quarter to a third of CAFB’s offerings. Now, the food bank is expecting half of the truckloads of food intended for distribution from now until the end of June to be canceled.
Radha Muthiah, CEO of CAFB said they have to pivot quickly to find other sources of that food. This will likely mean the organization will have to purchase food because it’s unlikely to get enough donated items in time.
“That puts pressure on our finances because we don’t want to reduce the amount of food that is being distributed and that the community is expecting, because we know the need to still be high,” Muthiah said.
Even for food banks that haven’t been affected by the suspension, the uncertainty is still causing some concern.
“It's just more knowing so as we're budgeting and forecasting and developing and continuing these ongoing relationships with our growers and our agricultural partners that there's clarity on what we can do, because it is such a significant impact to them,” said Mandy Nuku, executive director of Feeding Colorado. “The unfortunate part right now is that there's compounding impacts.”
Moving forward, Hall said Feeding America is hoping to see a farm bill passed with additional funds for TEFAP. Specifically, they are calling on Congress to increase entitlement funding from about $450 million to $990 million per year. The group also wants to see Congress double the separate authorization for TEFAP storage and distribution funding.
TEFAP was created during the Reagan administration in the early 1980s to divert surplus commodities to feeding programs amid a downturn in the farm economy.
For more news, go to www.Agri-Pulse.com.
