Hunger programs see drop in federal surpluses

July 07, 2007

BARRE TOWN – Since 2005, high prices for agricultural commodities have been helping farmers, but they are now putting the squeeze on another group – the hungry.

High prices are constricting a crucial commodities-based nutrition program – The Emergency Food Assistance Program, or "TEFAP" – that food banks and local food shelves rely on. And uncertainty about the reauthorization of the federal farm bill may mean a further crimp in programs that help the hungry.

Nationwide, the amount of "bonus" commodities that the United States Department of Agriculture bought for the program has shrunk by 80 percent since the 2004-2005 fiscal year. The result has been a dramatic drop in food shelf assistance.

The Woodbury/Calais Food Shelf, for example, used to be able to provide meat, instant potatoes, bread dough and berries for as many as 90 people who use the TEFAP program. But in a recent month, it could order only apple juice.

TEFAP and other commodities nutrition programs are part of the farm bill, which is up for reauthorization this year. "It's a relatively small amount of money in the context of the farm bill, but it matters a lot to a food bank," said Doug O'Brien, who became the Vermont Foodbank's chief executive officer last month. "About 40 percent of all the food we distribute around the state is in the form of USDA commodities."

O'Brien noted that "we don't want to be in the position of relying on falling farm prices – no one wants to see farm prices fall."

The solution he advocates is to increase the overall appropriation. "It's critical when you have 66,000 Vermonters that rely on food security systems," he said.

TEFAP funding has two parts – a "mandatory" congressional appropriation, fixed by law, of about $140 million, and a "bonus" component, which authorizes the USDA to buy bonus, or surplus, commodities to support market prices. The USDA can buy the commodities only when market prices fall so low that purchases will reduce the supply and increase prices. The USDA usually gives the bonus commodities to outlets such as the Vermont Foodbank.

"In 2004 and 2005, more than $500 million worth of commodities flowed through the system of food banks," O'Brien said. But since 2005, farm prices have been high and the USDA has lacked the legal authority to buy commodities in excess of the $140 million appropriation.

What needs to happen, O'Brien maintains, is to raise the mandatory appropriation and to get a guarantee that the USDA will buy certain bonus commodities (at its discretion) over the five-year life of the farm bill.

Thus far in the legislative process the outlook for the nutrition programs is mixed.

The House agriculture subcommittee that has jurisdiction over the nutrition programs provided $110 million in new TEFAP spending last month, bringing the total mandatory appropriation to $250 million. This would mean an increase of about 80 percent in food bank inventories, O'Brien said. Congress has also pledged $2 billion over the five-year life of the farm bill for bonus commodities purchases of fresh fruits and vegetables for schools and food shelves. The $250 million is "food that food banks can count on," O'Brien explained. "It will just come automatically. The bonus commodities come as prices need support."

As hopeful as the subcommittee's action is, the question is whether Congress can pass a farm bill at all. "There's a very good chance that they won't," O'Brien said. "The Senate is moving at a much slower pace," he said, and has appropriated less money for TEFAP.

Those eligible for TEFAP have incomes under 185 percent of the federal poverty level – $349 a week for one person, or $712 a week for a family of four.

TEFAP is not the only federal nutrition program whose future is up in the air. For the past two fiscal years, the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, which provides monthly boxes of staples to more than 4,000 low-income elderly Vermonters, has been "zeroed out." That means that Congress has had to step in and provide appropriations on an ad hoc basis. "The program is on life support every year," O'Brien noted.

The farm bill is reauthorized only once every five years, so if reauthorization does not succeed this year, O'Brien said, it's unlikely that there will be adequate federal funding of nutrition programs for the next two or three years.

"A strong nutrition title is really critical to Vermont, especially when you consider how dependent the food shelves and the soup kitchens and the shelters are on this program," he said.

The full House Agriculture Committee begins amending the farm bill on July 17. O'Brien urges Vermonters to contact Rep. Peter Welch, Sen. Patrick Leahy and Sen. Bernard Sanders. Welch and Sanders, he said, can play important roles in the debate when the bill reaches the floors of their chambers. Leahy, who helped create the TEFAP program, is a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

July 07, 2007

Press Room