DeLauro announces bill to increase USDA fresh produce purchases
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Revealing the breaking news to the United Fresh Produce Association Washington Conference by video message on Sept. 21, House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said she has introduced the Fresh Produce Procurement Reform Act.
The 10-page bill aims to increase and improve the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s procurement of fresh fruits and vegetables.
In her video address, DeLauro reviewed the damage caused to Americans by the COVID-19 pandemic while praising the industry’s participation in the Farmers to Families Food Box Program.
“Last year, the COVID-19 pandemic created the greatest economic and public health crisis in a generation,” she said, recalling how the food supply chain broke down and many farmers were forced to plow under their harvest.
“Then, as the economic crisis worsened, hunger skyrocketed, particularly among families with children,” DeLauro said. “The pandemic has exploited our country’s nutrition crisis, disproportionately affecting Americans with chronic diet-related diseases like obesity, diabetes, hypertension and heart failure.”
Those chronic diseases cause affected Americans to account for about two-thirds of COVID-19 hospitalizations, she said.
The USDA created the Farmers to Families Food Box Program with Congressional funds from the first coronavirus relief act, and DeLauro said the program should not have been ended.
“Throughout 2020, we saw the program succeed at connecting healthy fruits and vegetables from our nation’s farmers to hungry families who needed it the most,” she said. “I saw gratitude on the faces of so many families as I helped distribute boxes at a school in my district. Many of them would go on to say that never before had they had access to such high-quality fresh produce.”
DeLauro said that she, like many in the produce industry, was disappointed by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack's decision to end the program earlier this year.
“In my view, the program should have been strengthened and continued as a way to get healthier foods to families, and as an investment in our produce and specialty crop growers who fall outside of USDA traditional commodity support,” she said.
Legislation explained
DeLauro said Fresh Produce Procurement Reform Act empowers USDA to partner with growers, distributors and food hubs to provide fruits and vegetables to community organizations like schools, local food pantries and youth organizations.
DeLauro said the bill prioritizes produce grown locally and requires USDA to consider important factors other than just the lowest cost bid when awarding contracts, which she said will leverage the program to build resiliency in local and regional food supply chains.
She said the coalition of support for this legislation is broad, from prominent agricultural organizations like United Fresh and the National Sustainable Agricultural Coalition to public health groups like the American Heart Association, as well as community organizations like the Boys and Girls Club of America and Save the Children.
United Fresh will work with DeLauro to gain more co-sponsors for the bill, said Robert Guenther, senior vice president of public policy.
Tom Stenzel, president and CEO of United Fresh, thanked DeLauro in a statement for “recognizing the extraordinary opportunity to address nutrition insecurity by tapping the existing fresh produce supply chain to meet these community needs.”
The need for healthy foods is great among Americans, Mark Lowry, director of Community Action Partnership of Orange County, Calif., said in a news release.
“In our community, unemployment is still more than twice the pre-pandemic level, two million people in our state recently lost all unemployment benefits, the eviction moratorium will soon expire, personal debt is at an all-time high, and the inflationary cost of food is impacting low-income families most dramatically,” he said in the release.
“Although the demand for food assistance remains high, attention directed toward meeting this need has faded.”
Lowry said “right-sized support” from the federal government, county governments, and local cities early in the COVID-19 disaster response has largely evaporated.
“We need to repeat that COVID is not over and the financial impacts of COVID are certainly not over,” he said.
“Congresswoman DeLauro has long been a champion of the families who we serve, and we applaud her leadership in working to secure additional fresh fruits and vegetables to satisfy the nutritional needs of vulnerable families across America.”
