TEFAP Alliance Blog

October 2005

TEFAP Alliance
Sponsored by California Emergency Foodlink

WASHINGTON UPDATE – October 21, 2005

Stopgap Measure Keeps Programs Funded

Caught up last month in hurricane relief efforts and debates on tax cut proposals, Congress once again failed to pass appropriations bills before the October 1 start of the new federal fiscal year. To keep government functioning in the absence of final spending bills for fiscal year 2006, a continuing resolution (CR) was enacted at the end of the month and signed by President Bush on September 30. The CR will keep most programs operating through November 18, 2005 or until appropriations are enacted, whichever occurs first.

In the meantime, appropriations bills for agriculture and nutrition programs, including TEFAP, are still being negotiated in a House-Senate conference committee.

The CR, also known as House Joint Resolution (H.J.R.) 68, specifies that programs and activities are funded at whichever is lower: the fiscal year 2005 appropriated level; the fiscal year 2006 amount provided by the House; or the fiscal year 2006 amount provided by the Senate. If no funding is provided for a program by either the House or Senate, the program may not be continued. If funding is in only one of the bills, the program may continue. A program that is included in either or both bills but was not funded in fiscal year 2005 cannot be initiated.

Consequently, funding for TEFAP will remain at the fiscal year 2005 level of $140 million for food purchases and $49.6 million for storage and distribution. For fiscal year 2006, both the House and Senate bills provide $140 million for TEFAP food and $50 million for distribution, with an allowance to transfer $10 million from the food account to meet storage and distribution needs.

Final fiscal year 2006 appropriations levels may be decided by the end of this month. Although the basic TEFAP funding amounts of $140 million and $50 million are expected to remain unchanged, discussion of a potential two percent across-the-board reduction in all discretionary spending – including the TEFAP distribution account – surfaced recently.

Reconciliation Decisions Threaten Food Stamps

Republican leaders in the House of Representatives are pushing for an additional $15 billion in spending cuts in entitlement programs beyond the $35 billion over five years approved in the budget resolution in April. The cuts are being made under a process referred to as budget reconciliation. Though no vote has been yet been taken, the issue of deeper cuts is expected to come to the House floor soon.

The House Agriculture Committee has yet to detail how it will find $3 billion in reductions in mandatory programs – including food stamps – under its jurisdiction to meet the initial reconciliation target. A requirement to trim an additional $1.5 billion from agriculture programs would likely have serious repercussions for the Food Stamp Program.

The Senate Agriculture Committee adopted its reconciliation recommendations on October 19, 2005 and, surprisingly, did not recommend any cuts in food stamps. Cuts were made to commodity price support and conservation programs instead.

“My view is that the Food Stamp Program supports poor families trying to put food on the table and helps farmers by increasing the food purchasing power of those families. It is a win-win situation for American agriculture,” commented Agriculture Committee Chair Saxby Chambliss (R-GA). “As we move forward in the reconciliation process, I intend to oppose attempts to make any structural changes to the Food Stamp Program, such as a block grant or superwaiver,” Chambliss said.

TEFAP Central to Hurricane Assistance

TEFAP has been the cornerstone of government efforts to provide food to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita that lashed the Gulf Coast in recent weeks. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) earmarked $50 million in emergency food assistance for displaced persons shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit. Commodities in household size packages were made available to families affected by the disaster and institutional size allotments were provided to emergency shelters for congregate feeding.

Commodities made immediately available for use were taken out of the inventories held in the affected states of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Shipments to other states were also diverted to high-need areas where retail stores were closed. In late September, following the landfall of Hurricane Rita, USDA purchased an additional 20 million pounds of canned meat, poultry, fruits, and vegetables to augment relief efforts. The purchases included items in short supply, such as infant formula and baby foods, as well as culturally appropriate foods, inclluding black-eyed peas.

To keep commodities flowing to TEFAP recipients unaffected by the disasters, USDA began replacing foods taken out of state inventories before the end of September.

Food Banks Stretch to Provide Disaster Relief

Regional food banks, normally among the first responders to any natural disaster, needed help themselves last month as ferocious storms battered the Gulf Coast. At least ten food banks in the national network of America’s Second Harvest (A2H) were impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita – four in Alabama, three in Louisiana, two in Florida, and one in Mississippi.

Between August 29 and October 19, A2H helped its sister food banks in affected states by dispatching 1,468 truckloads of food and grocery products totaling 46.2 million pounds of both donated and purchased product. Personnel from food banks around the nation also went to the Gulf Coast area to help restore food bank operations. The A2H supplies provided an estimated 36 million meals to over 1.1 million displaced persons.

Movement Founder Mourned

John van Hengel, known as the father of food banking in the United States, passed away on October 5, 2005 at the age of 83.

In 1965 in Phoenix, Arizona, van Hengel met a woman at a soup kitchen where he volunteered, who told him she often fed her children from food she found discarded in grocery store garbage bins. She told him the food was just fine and should be collected and stored – the way banks store money – instead of being thrown away.

In 1967, in cooperation with St. Mary’s Church, van Hengel began soliciting donations from local grocery stores along with unpicked fruit from suburban backyards. This “second harvest” provided food for local charities feeding the hungry. The distribution operation at the church became St. Mary’s Food Bank, the first in the nation.

The notion of collecting and redistributing edible but unsalable food grew like wildfire, and van Hengel’s idea ultimately morphed into a national food bank network known today as America’s Second Harvest. Now, St. Mary’s alone distributes 24 million pounds of food a year that is sent out to 430 agencies. Collectively, the more than 200 Second Harvest food banks nationwide handle 1.8 billion pounds of food and grocery items annually.

More Bonus Foods on the Way

In recent weeks, USDA has announced that it will purchase large quantities of three commodities that will be donated to child nutrition and domestic food distribution programs, including TEFAP. USDA will buy: up to 20 million pounds of sweet potatoes, both canned and fresh; up to $10 million worth of pink salmon, which will be processed into patties, nuggets, and other products; and up to 22.8 million pounds of Concord grape juice.

Reports from the Field

• The October 12, 2005 Gotham Gazette in New York City ran the following story:

“Working at the Yorkville Common Pantry on East 109th Street in East Harlem, Deborah Goldstein decided to do something different. Rather than gather the usual anonymous statistics on the people lined up for emergency food, she decided to listen to them instead. In The Faces Behind the Statistics, one of two reports released in September by the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, she profiles four people on the hunger line:

Maria is 45, has four children, and suffers from depression. Magrit, 59, lost her job of 17 years when she had to take time off to heal a broken ankle. Jack, 57, used to paint houses, but had to stop because of physical problems, and is now disabled. Sianne, 41, takes care of a family of nine.

“I didn’t know why all these people were standing in line,” said Goldstein, a recent graduate from a Master’s program at Hunter College School of Social Work, “and I wanted to know.”

A staggering 37 percent of East Harlem residents live below the federal poverty line. Some 600 of them go to the Yorkville Common Pantry for food every week. The majority of those seeking help are the working poor, some of them thrust into hunger and, often, homelessness by a sudden disaster.

“Hunger is not about individual failings,” Goldstein said. “It’s about a failed system.”

To see the report, go to: http://www.nyccah.org/media/harlem2.pdf.

• “Montanans are increasingly relying on food banks for groceries after spending their limited income on rent, heat, and other essentials,” according to a study released in August 2005 by the Montana Food Bank Network and reported in the August 13, 2005 Billings Gazette.

“There is a general belief that as long as communities instigate charity and support food banks and pantries, they have done their share to reduce food insecurity,” said Minkie Medora, chair of the Network’s Food Policy Council, as quoted in the article. “However, building more and bigger food banks is not the answer, and in fact denies facing the real issue – poverty – and its resulting lack of long-term food security,” she added.

*****

WASHINGTON UPDATE is published monthly by Weinberg & Vauthier Consulting, telephone: 703-304-1285; email: zyweinberg@earthlink.net.

Washington Update
Friday, October 21, 2005

mvauthier :: Oct.21.2005 :: Washington Update :: No Comments »:: Print This Post

Trackback this post | Feed on Comments to this post