Thanks to their incredible productivity, we have the capacity to
produce enough food not only for every American family, but for much of
the world.
In
a nation with such an abundance of food resources, it is unthinkable
and unacceptable that any American go hungry. Unfortunately, even as the
economy recovers and more Americans get back to work, millions of
hardworking folks still need help putting food on the table.
America’s
food insecure families are just one group of Americans counting on
Congress to finish the work of a comprehensive Food, Farm and Jobs Bill
that adequately invests in America’s nutrition safety net.
To
help families in need, the U.S. Department of Agriculture maintains a
nutrition safety net through a wide range of programs. These include the
Emergency Food Assistance Program, which helps ensure adequate stocks
at food banks and food pantries; the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
Program that helps families put food on the table; and the Special
Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children which is
focused on mothers and their young families.
For
example, right now, many food banks and emergency food centers are
dealing with increased winter traffic and their resources are stretched
thin. To help support these food banks and pantries, USDA this week was
able to purchase an additional 155.6 million pounds of wholesome, high
quality, domestically-grown fruits and vegetables to be donated through
TEFAP.
Last year, the program resulted in more than 640 million pounds
of extra food in food banks across the nation and added $498 million to
the farm economy.
Meanwhile, USDA remains focused on delivering a reliable and modern assistance effort through SNAP. Our
efforts to crack down on fraud and abuse while modernizing the SNAP
program have led to one of the lowest error rates in history for the
program, and a fraud rate of 1.3 percent.
And
while we have worked hard to provide even healthier meals to the 31
million kids who eat school lunch and 13 million who eat school
breakfast, USDA has established ambitious goals to expand the reach of
summer nutrition programs that feed more than three million low-income
children daily when school is out.
Many of these efforts to provide a strong, dependable safety net for American families rely on passage of a new Farm Bill that supports strong nutrition programs.
Although
the holiday season and its focus on giving have passed, this is no time
to forget that too many American children and families are still
struggling to make ends meet, particularly in the wake of an automatic SNAP monthly benefit reduction
that began late last year.
Millions of folks count on the nutrition
safety net as they strive to get back to work – and they’re counting on
Congress to pass a Food, Farm and Jobs Bill to maintain this important
effort.
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