Transforming TEFAP – A Call for Action
TEFAP is facing a crisis of both food and funds. As more hungry Americans are turning to emergency food sources to meet their daily needs, significantly less food is being provided through The Emergency Food Assistance Program.
The TEFAP Alliance urges Congress to provide $500 million annually in entitlement funds for food purchases and another $175 million annually in entitlement funds for storage and distribution expenses to address this crisis.
Since 1981, The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) has been the mainstay of government hunger relief efforts throughout the U.S. The program provides a variety of nutritious foods – fruits, vegetables, grains, meat, eggs, and dairy – to food banks, food pantries, and community-based organizations in every state of the nation that are the core of emergency food bags and boxes given to the hungry.
However, funds for TEFAP food purchases have been frozen at $140 million annually since 2002. And bonus commodities available to TEFAP have declined precipitously: USDA allocated only 99 million pounds of bonus items to TEFAP in 2006, a mere 18 percent of the total it provided five years earlier (see TEFAP Pounds & Dollars – 1999-2006 for more detail). Moreover, TEFAP storage and distribution funds have been subject to across-the-board cuts and have never exceeded $50 million annually.
Meanwhile, the needs of hungry people across America are growing every year. The U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) noted last December that requests for emergency food assistance in major cities rose by an average of seven percent in 2006; the 16th consecutive year the USCM has recorded an increase. Every city surveyed reported that individuals are relying on emergency food sources not just in times of crisis but as a regular source of food over long periods of time. Official government figures released in November 2006 estimated 10.8 million hungry people and over 24 million more at high risk.
The legislation that authorizes TEFAP is known as the Farm Bill, and it comes up for renewal in 2007. The TEFAP Alliance is calling on Congress to take this opportunity to bolster TEFAP funding with $500 million for food and $175 million for distribution annually, in order to support and stabilize the nation’s besieged emergency food system and insure that no one in this country goes hungry. That is the minimum that should be done and the organizations listed below support that request.