Today, House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Angie Craig (MN-02) criticized the USDA’s decision to stop $500 million in funding meant for food banks nationwide when hunger and demand are increasing.

“People are struggling with grocery costs, and the decision to prevent $500 million worth of food from reaching local communities is reckless. This comes on the heels of USDA cutting $1 billion in funding for family farmers to supply food banks with locally grown food – and all this at a time when Republicans are trying to cut SNAP by $230 billion. Make no mistake, all of these cuts will take even more money out of farmers' pockets and increase stress on our food banks. The USDA is supposed to fight hunger and support farmers in America. Its recent actions are doing the exact opposite.”

Background

• Through the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), the USDA purchases a variety of healthy foods like fruits, vegetables and other staples from American farmers and makes those foods available to local emergency food distributing organizations, like food banks, soup kitchens and food pantries.

• Food banks are experiencing rising demand as inflation remains high and U.S. food insecurity rates climb.

• In 2023, more than 50 million people turned to charitable food assistance for help.

• Hunger is more common in rural areas. Rural areas comprise less than two-thirds of U.S. counties, but 9 out of 10 counties with the highest food insecurity rates are rural.

• Over 20 percent of the food distributed through Feeding America food banks and local hunger-relief programs comes from TEFAP. In 2023, Feeding America food banks provided 5.3 billion meals. 

• Republicans are pushing for a massive $230 billion cut to SNAP benefits in reconciliation. Cutting support for community food banks while also slashing individual food assistance programs will increase hunger in America. SNAP provides 9 meals for every meal provided by the largest network of food banks.