A quarter of adults have eaten less or skipped meals because they lacked the money to buy food, said an antihunger group on Monday in calling for expansion of food assistance during the coronavirus pandemic. The largest U.S. farm group and a food bank network suggested that the USDA should create a voucher system to get farm-fresh food directly to nearby food banks.
Democratic leaders in Congress also called for an increase in SNAP benefits as lawmakers wrangled over an expansion of coronavirus relief. “We cannot abandon those who are facing a life-and-death struggle to put food on the table,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer in a statement.
A poll commissioned by the nonprofit Hunger Free America said 24 percent of adults skipped meals or cut portions for lack of money and that 37 percent of parents ate less or skipped meals during the past month because they did not have enough money. Group leader Joel Berg said charities could not meet the rising demand for food.
“We need a massive, coordinated federal, state, and local government response that dramatically expands government food safety net programs and uses National Guard units and national service participants to ramp up home meal deliveries,” he said.
At the same time food banks are inundated, some producers are plowing under fruits and vegetables or pouring milk down the drain because of shrinking consumer demand, said president Zippy Duvall of the American Farm Bureau Federation and Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, chief executive of Feeding America, a network of 200 food banks nationwide, in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.
“The (Agriculture) Department has the opportunity to help address both unfortunate consequences described above through a voucher program that would deepen the relationship s between farmers and food banks, allowing them to work directly with one another instead of relying on third parties and what is sometimes a longer pathway to get food from farms to food bank shelves,” said Babineaux-Fontenot and Duvall.
Vouchers would allow farmers to recoup some of their costs while speeding delivery of perishable food to hungry families, said the farm group.