USDA to End the Farmers to Families Food Box Program in May

After reviewing the Farmers to Families Food Box Program, the Biden-Harris Administration has made the decision to discontinue the program in May. This program helped deliver nearly 133 million boxes of food in 2020 and played a helping hand to curb the rising hunger crisis in America.

In 2020, the USDA spent six times its normal emergency food budget on the Farmers to Families Food Box Program due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. In addition to its high cost, the program also faced uneven distribution nationwide, which left some rural communities underserved.

Tom Vilsack, the newly appointed U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, is now looking to redirect tax dollars to focus on different hunger initiatives, including expanding food stamp benefits and increasing food purchases through existing government food distribution programs.

"Providing hunger relief through expanded SNAP, WIC and school nutrition programs is likely a better use of resources, as the distribution channels are already established,” says Erick Metzger, general manager of National All-Jersey, Inc., based in Reynoldsburg, Ohio.  “Recipients get to choose what products they receive, which could cut down on food waste."

"The food box program also awarded contracts to some organizations that had no prior experience in food procurement or distribution. And in the early rounds, the somewhat tight parameters on what could be included disrupted markets. However, to its credit, the program did move a lot of product, to a lot of folks in need," Metzger adds.

How will this news affect commodity prices? According to Mike North, a dairy markets analyst for ever.ag, prices are taking a hit because of this news.

"The markets are responding negatively to this announcement because over the last weeks, the assumption was that the program was going to be continued and more buying would be coming,” North says. “The gravity of this news will weigh on prices for several days."

Dairy Donation Program

Though milk markets aren’t responding favorably to the end of the Farmers to Families Food Box Program, a new program is on the horizon. During a recent hearing, Vilsack noted, "We've got the dairy donation program (DDP) that we are going to set up to help the dairy industry."

As established in the Consolidated Appropriated Act of 2021, the USDA will soon be implementing the Dairy Donation Program (DDP). The $400 million program will facilitate the timely donation of dairy products to nonprofit organizations that then will distribute goods to those in need to help minimize food waste.

The statute allows for retroactive reimbursement of donations made before the donation and distribution plans are approved. This advance notice provided by the USDA provides minimum provisions to be included in the program to encourage the dairy industry to process and donate surplus milk supplies as it moves through the spring surplus milk production season.

For more information, including the minimum key program requirements incorporated in the statute, visit www.ams.usda.gov/notices.