Food banks in the United States, which have been increasingly pressure, say they will get less food to distribute due to temporary discounts and suspension at least billion dollars in federal funding by the Trump government, according to Reuters interviews with organizations in seven states.
Hunger in the United States has increased in recent years with high inflation and the end of the epidemic era programs that expanded food aid. The government of President Donald Trump has promised to reduce inflation by cutting government spending, including two programs from the US Department of Agriculture that helped schools buy food from local farms.
Reuters spoke to dining banks in seven states that cancellation and stopping programs means that they predict products less than products, meat and other essential foods in the coming weeks and months.
Some organizations said that one of the reasons is the least expected shipment of the US Department of Agriculture (TEFAP), one of the main nutrition programs in the agency that buys farmers and sends them to the stores.
Vince Hall, director of government relations in America’s feeding, the largest network of foodstuff banks in the country, said the US Department of Agriculture analyzes the program and suspends half of the TEFAP – 500 million dollars – from Commodity Credit Corporation, which usually gives the administration a wide range of estimated resources for various programs.
A spokesman for the US Department of Agriculture told Reuters that the agency is still shopping to support food banks, but it has not answered detailed questions about the ting on TEFAP and why the banks are lacking.
America spoke to Trump government Hall said at the end of the first half and asked him to make a quick decision on the back.
The organizations told Reuters that this break increases the losses resulting from the cancellation of the agency, from the LFPA, which funded about $ 500 million annually for food banks.
Chad Morrison, director of Mountner Western Food Bank in Virginia, said he saw in the weekly West Virginia that about 40 % of the delivery of products such as TEFAP and milk cheese from April will be canceled.
This will reduce the amount of food provided by its 450 food network and other food programs.
The food banks deal with unprecedented demand with increased hunger rates in the United States after years of decline.
By 2023, 13.5 % of Americans fought at some time to secure enough food, the highest rate in nearly a decade, according to the latest data of the US Department of Agriculture. In the US countryside, the hunger rate is higher, 15.4 %, according to data.
Anna Pesik, a farmer in Delaware County, Iowa, said about 20 % of her sales on the moon farm last year came from LFPA, which sent Roman roosters and pork to the banks of food throughout the state. The funding of this program has been reduced.
She shows that her products will not reach waking up without financing the agency.
“It is a really devastating feeling,” she said.
