Food-stamp cuts put more pressure on food banks

Photo from Feeding America

As the holidays arrive, food banks are about to experience the annual rose in demand for food as some Americans struggle to assemble their holiday meals. The $5 billion reduction in the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (formerly known as food stamps)—with the Nov. 1 expiration of a temporary boost from the 209 economic-stimulus package—will affect approximately 48 million Americans, Jake Grovum reports for Stateline. To see an interactive map of the cuts by state, click here. Meanwhile, Farm Bill negotiators will hold a conference call Monday to reconcile differences, including the proposed cuts in the program over the next 10 years; the House wants to cut $40 billion, the Senate $4 billion.

"Everyone's scared to death about these SNAP cuts," said Ross Fraser of Feeding America, a nationwide network of 200 food banks that supplies 63,000 agencies around the country. An estimated 15 percent of Americans are "food insecure," and food banks were already struggling to help these people through the Great Recession. Even though enrollment in food stamps is nearly three times what it was in 2000, the number of Americans receiving help from food pantries and similar services has risen nearly 50 percent, Feeding America says. The holiday rush has prompted food banks to hold extra food drives and ask companies to make seasonal donations such as turkeys, Grovum reports.

An unanticipated benefit of the increased demand is that fresh food and produce are less likely to sit on the shelves for too long and spoil. "A lot of those are fairly rural counties," Jake Bruner of the Hoosier Hills Food Bank in Bloominton, Ind., said about the areas his food bank serves. "We're seeing agencies, a mom-and-pop food pantry, being able to take full bins of bananas and distribute them quickly." In Fort Smith, Ark., the River Valley Food Bank has given out 8 million pounds of food in 2013, a record for them. Director Ted Clemons said, "When you can distribute 8 million pounds and the pantries are still taking that food, that shows there is a demand."

Even before the food-stamp cuts, food banks weren't able to distribute enough food. "By Feeding America's estimate, the benefit cuts will cost 1.9 million meals for low-income Americans next year—more than half the number of meals the organization distributes in a given year," Grovum writes. In Washingon, D.C., almost one in four citizens is on food stamps. The area food bank bought 50 percent more food to prepare for the holidays than it did last month. Even so, "organizers know they can't feed everybody who is hungry," Grovum writes. (Read more)