TEFAP Alliance Blog

August 2005

TEFAP Alliance
Sponsored by California Emergency Foodlink

WASHINGTON UPDATE – August 25, 2005
Reconciliation Pressures on Food Stamps Mount
Congress remains on recess this month, and although future reductions in TEFAP are unlikely, the pressure is growing for the House and Senate Agriculture Committees to consider Food Stamp Program (FSP) cuts in response to “reconciliation” instructions contained in the 2006 Budget Resolution. The Committees have until September 16 to identify $3 billion in spending reductions over five years for programs under their jurisdiction. Committee leaders are examining commodity programs, conservation, and nutrition assistance as possible areas for savings.

Food stamp supporters are rallying to protect the program. Nearly 70 minority legislators signed an August 1 letter to Agriculture Committee chairs urging against food stamp cuts. On behalf of the entire membership of the Congressional Black and Hispanic Caucuses and the board of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, Representative Joe Baca (D-CA) said, “For members of these caucuses, funding for food stamps and nutrition programs is a key priority. We care about agriculture, but not at the expense of providing assistance to feed hungry children.”
Nonetheless, “The long knives are out for food stamps,” warned Representative Earl Pomeroy, a North Dakota Democrat and member of the Agriculture Committee.
Advocates are concerned that the increasingly efficient FSP, currently sporting the lowest error rate in the program’s 40-year history, cannot be reduced without significant damage. “We’re not aware of any way that [lawmakers] could make cuts of any sort… and not have it be harmful to current recipients,” said Ellen Vollinger of the Food Research and Action Center in Washington, D.C.
Food Waste Pegged at $100 Billion per Year
More than 40 percent of the food grown in the U.S. is lost or thrown away at an annual cost of more than $100 billion a year, according to an ongoing study financed by the federal government and conducted by the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology (BARA) at the University of Arizona. Researchers estimate that at least half of all the food discarded is not bad and is still edible.
“We’ve lost touch with food,” explained Timothy Jones, a BACA archaeologist overseeing the research. “People are totally unaware of food. It’s true of everybody from the citrus industry to the person who takes a plate of spaghetti and meatballs they could have kept and instead throw away.”
Jones noted there are large losses from restaurants, especially those with salad and buffet bars. Almost 10 percent of food from fast-food restaurants is thrown out, along with more than a quarter of prepared foods in convenience stores.
There is also big food waste on the home front. BARA found that some 14 percent of household garbage is edible food in its original packaging and not out of date. Researchers noted that 34 percent of edible food discarded is dry-packaged goods and 19 percent is canned goods, both of which can keep a long time.
Reducing food waste by a quarter could result in a $25 billion boost for the economy, Jones said.
Final FY05 Totals Posted
The Food Distribution Division (FDD) within the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service has posted on its web site an Excel spread sheet with final totals for fiscal year 2005 administrative funds and commodity allocations under TEFAP. The totals reflect initial allocations, food funds transferred for administrative needs, and reallocations. To view the chart, go to: http://www.fns.usda.gov/fdd/programs/tefap/FY05_Comod-Admin.xls.
Reports from the Field

• The Central Virginia Food Bank is trying to lighten demand on its services by directing people in need of food to the Food Stamp Program. “A couple of years ago, we did an analysis of our service area and looked at, if [we] were to give each person below the poverty level five of the 21 meals they need a week, how much food we would have to distribute,” food bank executive director Fay Lohr told the Richmond Times-Dispatch on July 3, 2005. “The number was 52 million pounds. We’ve only been able to distribute 10 to 11 million pounds a year. We said, ‘How can we get closer to this?’”

Federal funds have helped by placing state outreach workers at food banks to help people apply for food stamps and another grant has been used to provide 64 computers at food bank recipient agencies to help others apply for assistance.

• “It’s a tradition of summer in Wichita in recent years: School-age children stand in bread lines every week. Or they show up at the Lord’s Diner downtown every night,” were the opening two lines in a story in the June 9, 2005 Wichita (Kansas) Eagle.

“You see more and more every year,” said Wendy Glick, who runs the diner, which offers a free evening meal to whoever needs it. “Families come in, with their kids. They look around …. You can tell they’ve never done this kind of thing before.”

During summer, poor children who got two free meals a day at school look elsewhere for food. Glick says hundreds more kids show up to eat at the diner. She’s sure it’s because families feel the pinch when the kids are home.

Clinton Moss, the new director at the Bread for Life food pantry, says he sees more families picking up bags of food, and for the same reason. “It gets you right here,” Moss said, putting hand over heart. “When I drove to the pantry at 7:30 this morning, we already had families standing in line. “ That time was 2 and ½ hours before the pantry opened for the weekly food giveaway.

• KOAA television in Colorado Springs, Colorado filed this report in an August 8, 2005 newscast: “Southern Colorado’s main food bank, Care and Share, is cutting its free hand-outs in half because of an emergency food shortage. A summer donation slowdown and increased need are blamed for the shortage. Care and Share officials said people are using all their money to fill up their cars with high-priced gas and then have no money left for food.”

*****

WASHINGTON UPDATE is published monthly by Weinberg & Vauthier Consulting, 419 West Broad Street, Suite 204, Falls Church, VA 22046; telephone: 703-532-5700; fax: 703-532-3780; email: zyweinberg@earthlink.net.

Washington Update
Thursday, August 25, 2005

mvauthier :: Aug.25.2005 :: Washington Update :: No Comments »:: Print This Post

Trackback this post | Feed on Comments to this post