EXECUTIVE ORDERS PROJECT - Government Contracts: Cuts to Federal Food Program Affects Local Food Bank
Fredericksburg Regional Food Bank expecting to lose about 38% of deliveries from The Emergency Food Assistance Program.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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The hard data on how federal government cuts to food banks and schools across the country is beginning to take shape. In a high-profile announcement last month, the Trump administration cut $1 billion in funding to two programs that provide food to schools and food banks — the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program, and the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program.
Those cuts have not significantly affected the Fredericksburg Regional Food Bank, but cuts to TEFAP (The Emergency Food Assistance Program) are harming this organization, which has provided between 6 and 7 million meals annually since the pandemic, according to the food bank’s president and CEO, Dan Maher.
In a phone conversation with the Advance, Maher said that “38% of the food that was ordered [through TEFAP] on our behalf by the federal government, we do not expect to be delivered now.”
To put that in perspective, a 38% reduction in TEFAP deliveries “translates on the order of a half million pounds of food,” Maher said. These can be a mix of shelf-stable foods, proteins, and vegetables.
The food bank doesn’t count on the TEFAP program alone to collect the food that it distributes to those in need. According to Maher, TEFAP accounts for about one-third of the organization’s food commodities.
In terms of the overall number of commodities the food bank takes annually, the TEFAP cuts represent about 10%.
Hope That Some of the Food Will Be Restored
The portion of TEFAP funds that are being reduced comes from the Commodity Credit Corporation.
Maher said that “each administration is allowed to set its own priorities for how those funds will be used.”
Feeding America, of which the Fredericksburg Regional Food Bank is a member, is working to understanding the shifting ground of funding for food programs, Maher told the Advance. “The initial indication that Feed America has is that as much as half of those funds may come in another format, but there’s not a lot of clarity regarding the when and the how.”
So for the food banks, there’s still a lot of waiting to see how everything will shake out.
While Maher and others wait out the process, they are making adjustments internally to deal with the current conditions.
We are “trying,” Maher says, “to generate donations from larger scale donors, such as retailers, warehouses, and others” who already make significant contributions to the organization. This is the preferred option for dealing with lost commodities from the federal government.
Purchasing food is also an option. But it’s one that the food bank will turn to only when absolutely necessary.
“While food banks don’t exist to purchase food …. whenever a significant amount of our food is reduced, we have to pivot to purchased food,” Maher said.
This is where individuals concerned about the issue can be particularly helpful and where financial contributions help.
“Dollars give us flexibility,” Maher said, “so that as circumstances shift we can react.”
Purchasing food — as any consumer knows — is particularly expensive right now. Maher estimates that the cost to replace the 500,000 pounds of food being taken away by the federal government would be “between $800,000 and $1,000,000” if the food bank bought it at current market prices.
To learn more about the Fredericksburg Regional Food Bank, visit FredFood.org.
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