Hours after he was nominated for a second term, President Trump announced at a produce packing house in North Carolina an additional $1 billion on Monday for the food-box giveaway program that is his administration’s answer to hunger during the pandemic. Nearly 71 million boxes of food have been delivered since the program began on May 15 but critics question if it is a fair and efficient way to help families.
The Farmers to Families Food Box program, originally given $3 billion, relies on contractors to buy surplus food from farms, package it, and deliver the boxes to food banks and other nonprofit organizations for distribution. The program was expected to run through Oct 31.
House Democrats and anti-hunger groups have called for a temporary 15 percent increase in SNAP benefits during the pandemic, so that the mounting numbers of food insecure could buy more food at supermarkets. But the White House and Senate Republicans are opposed. With the impasse over SNAP, the government response to the coronavirus has included money for child nutrition and to cover a surge in SNAP enrollment. Some 43 million people received food stamps at latest count, an increase of 6.2 million since the pandemic hit. But the administration has put the spotlight on the food boxes, which combine the private sector and charities with government funding.
“With this $1 billion addition, we’re going to keep it going. And we’re going to keep feeding those in need until this pandemic has passed,” said Ivanka Trump, White House senior adviser and daughter of the president, who was present when the program was created. Besides feeding hungry people, the food box program bolsters farm income and provides work in the food distribution industry, she said, “truly a win-win-win program.”
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said the additional funding was “an outpouring of compassion” and set off a chant of “four more years” in the audience outside of Flavor 1st Growers and Packers in Mills River, 150 miles west of Charlotte. Earlier in the day, delegates at the Republican National Convention nominated Trump for re-election.
Trump spoke for 15 minutes about the food box program; his re-election campaign; his antipathy toward China, which he blames for the coronavirus; and the billions of dollars of federal support to U.S. farmers, who were among the leading targets of retaliatory Chinese tariffs.
“The American farmer has done very well. I never hear any complaints from the American farmer, you know,” said the president. The administration sent $23 billion in trade war checks to farmers and ranchers to mitigate losses in 2018 and 2019. It earmarked $16 billion for coronavirus relief for producers this year, with slightly more than $9 billion disbursed. There have been complaints from farm groups that the program was too restrictive. Perdue has hinted a new version of coronavirus aid will be offered in September.
In speaking of aid to farmers, Trump referred to the coronavirus fund and said, “then we added another, we got it up to a total…close to 34 (billion)…so our farmers will never be tormented again.”
USDA officials were not immediately available for comment.
The food box program, created on the fly, went into operation last spring without a formula to assure food was distributed equitably, said the USDA official overseeing the program during a House Agriculture subcommittee hearing a month ago. Agriculture Undersecretary Greg Ibach said the priority was to get food moving quickly. “This is just fraught with waste, fraud and abuse,” said the subcommittee chair, Rep. Marcia Fudge, an Ohio Democrat. “We have no idea what you are doing. Nor do you, because you can’t answer the questions.”
On Monday, Trump said more than 1 billion pounds of food was delivered through the program, “providing more than 100 million meals to Americans most in need, and this is a program that just got started.” Flavor 1st works with Baptists on Mission to distribute 7,000 boxes of food a week to 200 locations in North Carolina, he said.
The USDA agency in charge of the food box program says 70.7 million boxes of food were invoiced as of Monday. Contents of the boxes vary. The USDA targeted fresh produce, dairy products and precooked chicken and pork for the program.
To read a White House fact sheet on food assistance, click here.