The USDA ought to keep President Trump’s glitzy food box giveaway program in operation rather than let it die at the end of April, said Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee on Thursday. A food bank leader said that while the food box was helpful in responding to the surge in hunger caused by the pandemic, it was secondary to other public nutrition programs, such as SNAP.
“Keep your foot on the gas,” said Kyle Waide, chief executive of the Atlanta Community Food Bank, part of the Feeding America network. “We expect we will need to respond to historically high levels of food insecurity well beyond 2021.” Waide said the temporary 15 percent increase in SNAP benefits should be continued. “Purchase more food through TEFAP and other USDA [donation] programs.”
Rep. Jim McGovern, one of the most vocal SNAP supporters in Congress, said the 15 percent increase in benefits, set to expire on Sept. 30, should be made permanent. “We should agree on that,” said the Massachusetts Democrat. He urged President Biden to call a White House conference on hunger and to appoint a “food czar” to coordinate the federal response to food insecurity.
At the start of this week, the USDA said it would accept suggestions through March 31 for a replacement for the food box. “While the food box served some communities well, it faced challenges in others,” said the Agricultural Marketing Service, which oversees the $5.5 billion program. Since it began operation last May, nearly 148 million boxes of food have been delivered.
“We’re not attacking the food box program,” said Rep. Austin Scott, a Georgia Republican. “I think it’s important we have this combination” of ways to provide nutrition assistance. Other Republicans on the committee said the food box had been unfairly criticized based on “cherry-picked hiccups” in operation and argued it could be “a model for years to come.”
The food box was the Trump administration’s answer to hunger during the pandemic. The administration opposed increases in SNAP benefits and tried to limit eligibility for food stamps. Ahead of the presidential election last Nov. 3, the USDA mandated that the food boxes include a letter from Trump that claimed credit for the program. “In my 30 years of doing this work, I’ve never seen anything this egregious,” an Ohio food bank director told Politico. “These are federally purchased boxes.”
Under the program, the USDA paid contractors to buy food — fresh produce, dairy products, and cooked chicken and pork — at the local level, box it, and deliver it to distributors, including food banks and churches, selected by the contractors. Economists said the program was inherently inefficient. Some contracts went to inexperienced bidders, and there were complaints of spotty food quality. USDA officials testified that the program was created on the fly without a mechanism to assure equitable distribution of the food.
Trump’s agriculture secretary, Sonny Perdue, said the food box was a “win-win-win” because it bought food from farmers who lost customers due to the shutdown of restaurants, provided work for food distributors idled by the shutdown, and helped feed hungry Americans.
The Feeding America network of food banks distributed 7.5 billion pounds of food during 2020, a 43 percent increase from 2019. Waide said half the food distributed by the Atlanta food bank came from The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) and the food box program, but that the majority of that food was supplied by TEFAP, a federal program that donates packaged and dry foods to charity.
SNAP provides nine times as much food to low-income Americans as food banks do, said Waide. “My food bank strongly supports expanding access to SNAP.”
House Agriculture chairman David Scott of Georgia said the hearing “solidified something we’ve known for years: SNAP works, and we must do all we can to ensure that important program continues to provide assistance to those who need it.”
The food box program is not without supporters. Chief executive Eric Hodel of the Midwest Food Bank, based in central Illinois, said he hoped the food box program would continue. It provides “tremendous benefits,” he said.
Ron Edenfield, president of Wayfield Foods, which has nine grocery stores in the Atlanta area, said the food box was a temporary solution but that “existing food partnerships” — SNAP and WIC would be examples — and food banks worked better. “Imagine the frustration of a parent who receives a food box containing peanut butter but has a child with a peanut allergy,” he said.
To watch a video of the hearing, click here.
The written testimony of the five witnesses is available here.
The USDA web page for the food box program is available here.