Food banks fear possible end of USDA Farmers to Families Food Box program

Food banks fear possible end of USDA Farmers to Families Food Box program The program, which sent more than a 100 million boxes of fresh food to families straight from food distributors, was part of a Covid-19 relief program that might not continue in 2021. NBC News

As the Dow Jones hits record highs, climbing past 30,000 points and lining the pockets of the country's richest, Greg Meyer of Soldotna, Alaska, is trying to figure out how to get his community fed.

Meyer, the executive director of Kenai Peninsula Food Bank in south-central Alaska, makes sure people in one of the hardest-to-reach regions of the country have enough food on the table. Alaska residents, already in a budget crisis, were hit hard by Covid-19: Oil prices tanked, the Canadian border closed, tourism dropped, seasonal fishing was complicated by travel restrictions, and cruise ships no longer lined the state's shores — not to mention the rising case numbers. Demand for food assistance on the Kenai Peninsula became impossible to meet.

Help came in the form of the Agriculture Department's Farmers to Families Food Box program.

As part of the $19 billion Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, the Agriculture Department announced in April it would set up partnerships between food banks and food distributors, whose workforces have been "significantly impacted by the closure of many restaurants, hotels, and other food service entities." Through the partnerships, the Agriculture Department provided packaged boxes of fresh produce, dairy and meat to food banks like Meyer's, ready to meet soaring demand.

The boxes were a success, giving people on the Kenai Peninsula and elsewhere access to food of a previously unreachable quality and quantity. The Agriculture Department ran four rounds of the program from April to December and delivered more than 110 million boxes nationwide. ...

An Agriculture Department spokesperson said that "with the Consolidated Appropriations Act 2021 becoming law, the Agriculture Department is evaluating all funding opportunities for food purchases." The spokesperson didn't comment specifically about the program's future. ...

In Nebraska, Brian Barks, CEO of Food Bank for the Heartland, hopes the program will continue.

"I really hope our leaders in Washington will look at this program and the benefit that was brought by it and consider moving it forward," he said...

Ginette Bott, president and CEO of the Utah Food Bank, hopes the program continues but says the organization is preparing to make do without it.

"It would be awesome if it did, but we are not counting on it," she said. "Families around us who have been impacted by the pandemic aren't going to recoup on New Year's Day. " ...