Farmers to Families Food Boxes Discontinued

The Biden administration is discontinuing a program that delivers boxes of surplus agricultural products to food banks, citing inefficiencies in distribution.

The Farmers to Families Food Box program was started at the height of the pandemic, as a way to get excess farm production into the hands of food-insecure Americans. The Trump administration hired hundreds of companies to buy food, package it and deliver it to food banks and other charities.

The program was launched in response to reports of agricultural produce going to waste because of disruptions to the supply chain caused by the pandemic. But it was plagued with problems, including erratic deliveries and wildly varying prices.

The cost was $4 billion, which is six times the USDA's normal emergency food budget.

Source: USAgNet