Dear Members of Congress:

As members of Feeding America’s national network of over 200 food banks, we urge you to protect and strengthen federal nutrition programs during the 2012 Farm Bill reauthorization.

Food banks are on the front lines of our nation’s fight against hunger. We see every day how important federal nutrition programs are in our community and how effectively they are working to ensure that struggling Americans can provide enough food for their families. One in eight people receives food assistance each year through Feeding America food banks. Our network supports over 61,000 local pantries, kitchens and shelters, 55 percent of which are faith-based. Together we serve 37 million Americans across all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

With unemployment still stuck over 8 percent nationally, millions of families are out of work or have been forced to accept fewer hours or a lower salary than they had before the recession began. Nationally, our network experienced a 46 percent increase in clients from 2006 to 2010. Jobs and economic opportunity are the best solution to hunger and poverty, but for far too many Americans, jobs and opportunity are out of reach, and we need to ensure that struggling families can still put food on the table. Farm Bill nutrition programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) are targeted at our most vulnerable, providing a critical safety net for the poorest Americans.

SNAP has responded effectively to the 94 percent increase in unemployment from 2007 to 2011 with a 70 percent increase in participation over the same period. SNAP benefits are targeted at our most vulnerable. Nationally, 76 percent of SNAP households included a child, senior, or disabled person, and 85 percent of SNAP households have gross income at or below 100 percent of the poverty line. SNAP expands in hard times, helping families buy groceries, and freeing up resources for other needs like rent, utilities, and transportation.

But while SNAP is growing as intended to meet increased need, TEFAP, which provides an average of 25 percent of the food distributed by our food banks, has not kept pace with growing demand. In fact, TEFAP commodity support actually dropped 30 percent in 2011 even as food banks continue to experience the greatest need they have ever seen. Unlike SNAP, mandatory TEFAP is not counter-cyclical and does not automatically grow when need grows. Furthermore, TEFAP bonus commodity purchases are tied to agricultural markets, not food insecurity, and strong agricultural markets resulted in fewer bonus TEFAP purchases in 2010 and 2011. Additional TEFAP support is urgently needed to ensure that food banks can continue serving their communities.

Food banks serve many families who are not income-eligible for SNAP but who still struggle to put food on the table. We are also serving families whose SNAP benefits are inadequate to last through the month. On average SNAP only allows $1.50 per person per meal, and 90 percent of benefits are exhausted by the third week of the month. Any cuts to SNAP benefits or eligibility would only increase the overwhelming need food banks already seeing, including the cut to SNAP benefit levels scheduled to go into effect next year. The 2010 child nutrition bill was partially paid for by terminating early the temporary boost to SNAP benefit levels provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), presenting families with a sharp drop in monthly benefit levels in November 2013.

Federal nutrition programs not only provide immediate relief for struggling families, children, and seniors, they also yield significant dividends for America’s farmers and the agricultural industry. Both TEFAP and CSFP provide only American-produced commodities, providing a strong impact on the farm economy. For example, bonus TEFAP commodities (those purchased by USDA to intervene in weak agricultural markets) provide an estimated 85 cents per dollar of Federal expenditure to commodity producers, and producers receive about 27 cents of each dollar spent on TEFAP mandatory commodities (those purchased at the funding level set by the farm bill). Each dollar spent on SNAP benefits results in $1.79 in economic activity along the farm to fork continuum, and about 16 cents of each retail food dollar goes to farmers.

We recognize the challenge you face in drafting a Farm Bill in a time of deficit reduction, but we are faced every day with the tremendous, ongoing need in communities in every state across the country. We are confident that even in a time of limited resources, our nation can make decisions that reflect our shared value of helping our neighbors in need and urge you to protect and strengthen TEFAP, SNAP, and CSFP. With that, we offer the following priorities for the Farm Bill:

• Increase funding for mandatory TEFAP to better reflect the need for emergency food assistance.
• Set aside a portion of the specialty crop purchase requirement to go specifically to food banks.
• Clarify USDA’s authority to make TEFAP bonus purchases when the need for food assistance is high, not only when agriculture markets are weak, so the program is responsive to both excess supply and heightened need.
• Protect SNAP funding, benefit levels, and eligibility rules and reject harmful policy changes that would weaken the integrity of the program.
• Restore the ARRA benefit increase to SNAP benefit levels through March 2014 and provide a soft, phase out to protect families from a sharp cliff in benefit levels.
• Transition CSFP to a seniors-only program while grandfathering in current participants to promote greater efficiencies and recognize CSFP’s evolution to serving a primarily senior population.

Farm Bill nutrition programs have a real impact on your constituents, many of whom rely on one of our food banks or federal nutrition programs to meet their basic food needs. Please protect and strengthen TEFAP, SNAP, and CSFP in the Farm Bill reauthorization. In the meantime, we invite you to visit a food bank serving your district so you can meet our clients and see for yourself how much nutrition programs are needed and how well they are working.

Sincerely,