The Farmers to Families Food Box Program, the Trump administration’s response to hunger during the pandemic, “has accomplished much and can serve as a model for future USDA fresh food purchasing and distribution efforts,” said a review of the program on Tuesday. The report made eight recommendations for improvement, including stronger emphasis on purchases from small and medium-sized producers and a “best practices” guide for food distributors for dealing with food banks.
Some 132 million boxes of food were distributed through the end of 2020 and a fifth round of purchases was under way. A total of $5.5 billion was allocated for the give-away program by the Trump administration. The program has been criticized as inefficient, and it went into operation without a formula to assure equitable distribution of the food across the country.
The report by the Harvard Law School’s Food Law and Policy Clinic and the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) said the USDA adjusted the program during 2020 to improve its performance. Still, it gave short shrift to small and medium-sized farmers, minority farmers and women farmers, said the report.
“It’s critical that in future iterations of the program the USDA threads the needle in a way that alleviates hunger while also supporting the…the full diversity of American agriculture,” said Wes King of NSAC.
For the home page for the food box program, click here.
The report is available here.