Bulk of farm bill aimed at poor
Posted on Friday, May 9, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/National/225124/
HELENA-WEST HELENA — A Washington fight over farm subsidies is threatening to derail an increase in federal help for millions of poor Americans who rely on food stamps and charity to feed themselves.
Besides setting agricultural policy for the next five years, the farm bill is poised to prop up increasingly devalued food stamps and offer more money for foods sent to pantries and other lastresort feeding stations.
It’s the kind of help critical for feeding the poor in places like Arkansas, where nearly one in five residents relies on food stamps. It’s particularly important in places like Phillips County, where nearly half of the population of 23, 300 uses food stamps. Pantries there report serving well over 600 households every month.
On Thursday alone, food sacks from Grace Community Food Pantry made it into 121 homes. A dozen of the families were receiving them for the first time.
After more than a year of tinkering, Congress is expected next week to send President Bush a five-year extension of the farm bill, whose nutrition provisions met little resistance in Congress and make up about two-thirds of its $ 570 billion cost over the next decade. Bush has threatened a veto.
But the extra money for antihunger relief may seem small to recipients who are standing in longer pantry lines and seeing their food stamps’ buying power decrease as prices soar.
Dolores Thomas, 58, said she gets $ 76 a month in food stamps in addition to other government welfare. It’s not enough to keep her from a monthly trip to the food pantry for more help.
“I went to the grocery store last month,” said Thomas, who does not work. “Seventy-six dollars. And when I got out the store, looked like I didn’t have anything.”
State officials don’t know how the farm bill might affect social programs in Arkansas. But one estimate by the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington figures the largest food-stamp change would increase benefits for a typical family by about $ 5 a month.
Food stamps helped feed more than 553, 000 Arkansans in the state’s fiscal 2007 fiscal. In Phillips County, the number was 11, 352 — or 49 percent of all residents.
Among them was the May family of Barton, which now gets about $ 530 a month. That’s for a family of four and a household in which no one has a job. Michael, 52, and Penny, 44, say recent injuries to his hands and her right knee leave them with slim job prospects. They’re seeking disability payments.
“And he just got bit by a snake,” she said. “So he’s still trying to recover from that.”
Seeking to stretch their welfare dollar, the Mays have made a few adjustments to their shopping list, like picking out cheaper meat. “Second-grade meat, really, is what I call it,” Michael said. And once a month, for the past few years, the Mays trek about 10 miles to the food pantry, grab a number and wait.
“If we still had plenty, you know, we wouldn’t come. There’s other people that need it,” Penny said. She held ticket No. 55.
In general, the farm bill would increase food-stamp benefits by allowing applicants to deduct more income and living costs in the government equation used to determine monthly payments. And it would boost the minimum $ 10 benefit and tie it and the standard income deduction to inflation.
The legislation also would put more money toward food that trickles down from the U. S. Department of Agriculture, mostly through food banks, into pantries and soup kitchens.
For nearly 30 years, at first as a temporary program, the government has bought staple foods to help stock pantry shelves. Like food stamps, the program is meant only to help: One anti-hunger group figures that 85 percent of food banks rely on the government-bought foods, which make up nearly 14 percent of their supplies. Corporate and charitable giving provides the rest.
While the Mays and others waited at the pantry Thursday, workers stuffed plastic bags with 11 government-bought items like canned beef stew and corn. A family of five or more got 22 items.
People who are not on welfare get only nongovernment food, the inventory of which fluctuates with the community’s generosity, which pantry volunteers say is strong. Because of that, and the federally funded food, the pantry on Thursday was able to give each home an extra bag of donated items, including meat, tortillas, milk and crackers.
Pantry workers say the bags, which can be given to each household only once a month, can stretch into maybe four or five days’ worth of meals.
“We could not serve and meet the needs of our community as well as we’re trying to do without USDA’s help,” volunteer Doris Smith said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
And what if the program doesn’t get new money and its buying power continues to shrink ?
“We’d just have to lighten ’em up,” she said of the food sacks.
Not counting administrative costs, the federal government has annually spent at least $ 140 million on the Emergency Food Assistance Program since 2002. But that doesn’t buy what it used to, and American farmers aren’t selling the government as much extra food as in the past. So, Congress plans to start buying $ 250 million in program food every year and hitch the spending to inflation.
Even then, food banks won’t see the same level of federal help as they did five years ago, when the government spent more than $ 396 million, an amount that has dwindled with declining farmer surpluses. Last year, the program spent $ 191 million.
That decline, combined with rising demand, has cut into how much federally bought foods like canned beef stew and corn make it into bags packaged for the hungry.
“We actually have to limit the amount we can give a food pantry,” said Laura Rhea, president of the Arkansas Rice Depot in Little Rock. Her organization distributes government-bought food, and other items, to nearly 100 pantries across the state. “There’s not enough food to go around right now.”
On Wednesday, church volunteers from across central Arkansas piled in one after another to load up what food there was.
It’ll all move fast, said Harvey Johnston, who with two other volunteers from First Christian Church of Sherwood stacked a trailer full of government food and other goodies. The church’s pantry opens this morning at 10: 30 and will likely serve about 30 families, he said.
Some of the families will probably be new to the program. Johnston told of one couple who recently sought help for the first time. After the husband lost his job as a mechanic, the couple sold his tools and both wedding rings to make ends meet.
“I could tell you stories you wouldn’t believe,” he said.