The Agriculture Department has halted millions of dollars worth of deliveries to food banks without explanation, according to food bank leaders in six states.
USDA had previously allocated $500 million in deliveries to food banks for fiscal year 2025 through The Emergency Food Assistance Program. Now, the food bank leaders say many of those orders have been canceled.
The halting of these deliveries, first reported by POLITICO, comes after the Agriculture Department separately axed two other food programs, ending more than $1 billion in planned federal spending for schools and food banks to purchase from local farmers.
The collective cuts are expected to make it more difficult for food banks to meet families’ needs, with food prices now 20 percent higher than they were in 2020, food bank leaders say.
“I certainly look at our lines and look at our shelves and say we need some relief,” said Joree Novotny, executive director of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks, which also reported canceled deliveries with no indication they would resume.
For the Central California Food Bank, that means a loss of 500,000 pounds of expected food deliveries worth $850,000 just for April through July, according to co-CEO Natalie Caples. Cathy Kanefsky, president of the Food Bank of Delaware, said between 20 to 24 full truckloads of food were canceled for the next four months.
The money that was clawed back across the three programs came from the Commodity Credit Corporation, a New Deal-era fund that gives USDA flexibility to prop up farmers facing natural disasters or adverse market conditions.
It’s not clear how much of the $500 million for the emergency assistance program has been cut, but one USDA employee, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations, said the Trump administration has been trying to claw back CCC money the Biden administration previously allocated in order to devote funds to other priorities.
USDA was supposed to spend $148 million of the $500 million early this year to buy dairy products, eggs, blueberries and more. But last month, the department notified state agencies that it was canceling solicitations from suppliers, according to a Feb. 20 email that Feeding America sent to its network of food banks and was viewed by POLITICO…..
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