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What in the world does this mean?:
"Right now, the agricultural economy is very strong and the
surpluses
aren't available for us to purchase," said Jean Daniel, a
department
spokeswoman. "Certainly we're empathetic, but unfortunately we
cannot count
on those bonus commodities every year."
The wording would seem to mean that the demand for
those products is very high. Who is buying this "surplus" that, in the
past, has been available ("to purchase"), to food banks?
Export? To where? Is this some of our trade deficit returning to
cause problems for the less fortunate?
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2007 7:45
PM
Subject: [Livingontheland] U.S. food
banks, in a squeeze, tighten belts
I really, really, don't enjoy saying I told you so. This
item is from the
British International Herald Tribune.
paul tradingpost@lobo.net
------------------------------------------
"Everybody
was saying the same thing. They're all hit by an increase in
demand, all
hit by the impact of the higher costs of food, and all hit by
federal
reductions. We just don't have the quantity of products available
that we
used to."
U.S. food banks, in a squeeze, tighten belts
By
Katie Zezima
Friday, November 30, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/30/america/30food.php
MANCHESTER,
New Hampshire: Food banks around the country are reporting
critical
shortages that have forced them to ration supplies, distribute
staples
usually reserved for disaster relief and in some instances close.
"It's
one of the most demanding years I've seen in my 30 years" in the
field,
said Catherine D'Amato, president and chief executive of the Greater
Boston
Food Bank, comparing the situation to the recession of the
late
1970s.
Experts attributed the shortages to an unusual
combination of factors,
including rising demand, a sharp drop in U.S.
supplies of excess farm
products, and tighter inventory controls that are
leaving supermarkets and
other retailers with less food to
donate.
"We don't have nearly what people need, and that's all there is
to it,"
said Greg Bryant, director of the food pantry in Sheffield,
Vermont
"We're one step from running out," Bryant said.
"It kind
of spirals," he added. "The people that normally donate to us have
less,
the retailers are selling to discount stores because people are
shopping in
those places, and now we have less food and more people. It's a
double,
triple, hit."
The Vermont Food Bank said its supply of food was down 50
percent from last
year. "It's a crisis mode," said Doug O'Brien, the bank's
chief executive.
For two weeks this month, the New Hampshire Food Bank
distributed supplies
reserved for emergency relief. Demand for food here is
up 40 percent over
last year and supply is down 30 percent, which is
striking in the state
with the lowest reliance on food banks.
"It's
the price of oil, gas, rents and foreclosures," said Melanie
Gosselin,
executive director of the New Hampshire Food Bank.
Gosselin said
household budget squeezes had led to a drop in donations and
greater
demand. "This is not the old 'only the homeless are hungry,'" she
said.
"It's working people."
Lane Kenworthy, a professor of sociology and
political science at the
University of Arizona, agreed, saying: "The
overall picture is that
household incomes are kind of stuck. There's very
little way to increase
income, and most people have a very heavy debt load.
Any event that
increases your costs is really, really troublesome, because
you're already
stretched thin."
The food bank in Manchester delivers
provisions to a housing project each
week, and on a recent Monday, Matthew
Whooley, 26, of Manchester, was
waiting in line with his wife, Penny, and
their four children.
"Every week there's less and less food," Whooley
said. "It used to be
potatoes, meat and bread, and last week we got Doritos
and flour. The food
is getting shorter, and the lines keep getting
longer."
In part, food banks are suffering because farmers are doing
well. The food
banks rely on supplies from the U.S. Agriculture
Department's Bonus
Commodity Program, which buys surplus crops like apples
and potatoes from
farmers.
"Right now, the agricultural economy is
very strong and the surpluses
aren't available for us to purchase," said
Jean Daniel, a department
spokeswoman. "Certainly we're empathetic, but
unfortunately we cannot count
on those bonus commodities every
year."
Supplies from the surplus program dropped to $67 million worth
last year,
from $154.3 million in 2005 and $233 million in 2004. Figures
for this year
are not available, Daniel said.
Food bank operators
are lobbying for passage of a farm bill currently
stalled in the Senate
that would raise emergency aid for food banks to $250
million a year, from
$140 million. That figure has remained steady since
2002.
Susannah
Morgan, executive director of the Food Bank of Alaska said, "The
biggest
problem is that the federal government's programs are dropping as
need is
growing."
Morgan said the decline has affected rural Alaska, where
native tribes run
most food pantries. She said about 10 percent of the
state's rural food
banks have closed because there is not enough federal
help coming in.
"They don't feel staffing and heating is worth it for
the small amount of
food," Morgan said.
Further complicating the
picture, Morgan and others said, is tighter
inventory monitoring, which has
left many stores with less to donate.
"They know exactly what they
have, down to the can," said Darren Hoffman, a
spokesman for the Los
Angeles Regional Food Bank, whose supplies are down
11 percent this year.
"They can track a lot better and don't order in bulk.
Efficiency has kind
of been the enemy of the food bank."
Extra food - items that are not
selling or seasonal inventory that is no
longer needed - is now often sold
to low-cost retailers, said Tim Viall,
executive director of the Greater
Stockton Food Bank in Stockton,
California
"We're getting fewer
canned goods than last year from retail grocers,
because they're selling it
to warehouse food stores," Viall said. "We're
putting more reliance on
canned food drives, and we're trying to ramp up
the fresh fruit and
produce. We are in the heart of one of the most
productive agriculture
areas in the world, and we're trying to take
advantage." In places where
community donations are down and there are no
food manufacturers to
solicit, pantries and food banks are making difficult
choices. The Society
of St. Vincent de Paul food pantry in Cincinnati is
giving families less
food this year because there is not enough. It has
started to ask smaller
families to take fewer products.
"Donations are down, and people who
need help is up," said Liz Carter,
executive director of the food bank. "So
what are we going to do. We just
made the decision that instead of giving
people six or seven days worth of
food, we're going to give them three or
four days of food, which is a drop
in the bucket."
Ginny Hildebrand,
executive director of the Association of Arizona Food
Banks, said many
pantries were facing similar situations.
At a recent conference for
food bank employees, Hildebrand said, "Everybody
was saying the same thing.
They're all hit by an increase in demand, all
hit by the impact of the
higher costs of food, and all hit by federal
reductions. We just don't have
the quantity of products available that we
used to."
Ross Fraser, a
spokesman for America's Second Harvest, which distributes
more than two
billion pounds of donated food and grocery products annually,
said the
shortages at food banks were the worst the organization had seen
in 26
years.
"Suddenly it's on everyone's radar," Fraser said. "Food banks
are calling
us and saying, 'My God, we have to get
food.'"
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