United States Food banks, pressured by increased demand, say they will have less food to distribute due to at least $ 1 billion cuts and pauses in federal funding by the Trump government, according to Reuters interviews with organizations in seven states.
Hunger in the US has increased in recent years with the high inflation and the end of the programs of the pandemic era that expanded food aid. President Donald Trump’s government has promised to reduce inflation by cutting off government spending, including two US agricultural department programs that helped schools buy food from local farms.
Reuters has talked to food banks in seven US states that said the cancellation and pauses of the programs mean they predicts fewer products, meats and other basic foods in the coming weeks and months.
One reasons is the fewer expected shipments from the US Department of Agriculture Department (TEFAP), one of the agency’s main nutrition programs that buys farmers and sends them to the pantries, some of the organizations said.
Vince Hall, director of government relations at Feeding America, the largest network of food banks in the country, said USDA is analyzing the program and suspended half of Tefap resources – $ 500 million – from Commodity Credit Corporation, which usually gives the department a wide set of discretionary resources for various programs.
A USDA spokesman told Reuters that the agency is still shopping to support food banks, but has not answered detailed questions about Tefap spending and why banks are having reduced deliveries.
Feeding America talked to the Trump government about the break and asked him to make a quick decision on the back of the back, Hall said.
This break aggravates the losses resulting from the cancellation by the Agency, from the Local Food Buying Assistance Program (LFPA), which funded about $ 500 million annually for food banks, organizations told Reuters.
Chad Morrison, director of the West Virginia Mountaineer Food Bank, said he saw in a weekly West Virginia State forecast that about 40% of product deliveries such as Tefap cheese and milk from April will be canceled.
This will reduce the amount of food supplied by its network of 450 food pantries and other food programs, said Morrison.
Food banks are dealing with unprecedented demand as US hunger rates increase after years of decline.
By 2023, 13.5% of Americans fought at some point to secure enough food, the highest rate at almost a decade, according to the latest USDA data. In the countryside of the United States, the hunger rate is even higher, 15.4%, according to data.
Anna Pesek, a farmer of Delaware County, Iowa, said about 20% of the sales of her Over The Moon farm last year came from LFPA, which sent turkeys and pork to food banks throughout the state. The financing for this program was also cut.
She projects that her products will no longer reach the awakes without financing the agency.
“It’s a really devastating feeling,” she said.
This content was originally published in the US: Trump cuts reach food banks and increase the risk of hunger on CNN Brazil.
Source: CNN Brasil
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