While food recovery operation, Spoonfuls, hasn’t been directly impacted by federal funding cuts, Liz Miller, senior manager of community relations for the New England-based organization, says many of the partner organizations that Spoonfuls supports have.
“Some of our partners have had reduced distributions from their other sources of food because of the cuts to the Emergency Food Assistance Program and to the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreements Program,” she says. “Suddenly, there was less coming out of food banks, and there was less available for our partners, and that just amplified the pressure on Spoonfuls to try to do more.”
Miller says Spoonfuls anticipates that the need will continue to grow, especially with the cuts to SNAP benefits in the reconciliation bill and those proposed by USDA.
“That is not funding cuts to us or to the food pantries that we serve, but it’s funding cuts for the household budgets for all the people that they’re working with,” Miller says. “That really just means that we’re going to have more inquiries coming to us, looking for more fresh product, which is the hardest to come by.”
Miller says while Spoonfuls anticipates there will be a greater need, food insecurity has remained high since the global pandemic with rising costs of food and cost of living.
“Here in Massachusetts, one in six households is facing food insecurity, and it’s higher among households with children,” she says. “We’re already seeing an increased demand. These cuts have not helped. And then with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid cuts coming down the pike, you know that’s just going to affect households’ bottom lines. Food budgets are about to get even tighter.”
Miller calls it a perfect storm of growing need, but a reduction in supports that help those with food insecurity. And, she says, partner organizations that Spoonfuls supports continue to ask for more assistance.
“Suddenly their need increased even more, and not just by funding cuts, but funding cuts that affected food distribution,” she says. “For many partners, it wasn’t a funding cut that hit them, it hit the food bank and then it affected what they were receiving in terms of food coming into their pantry.”
And she suspects the residuals of federal funding cuts, cuts to Medicaid and SNAP will linger for many years.
“There’s the very real impacts to people, to their households, to the bottom lines, and from our perspective, that is a big impact on food security and people’s ability to access the food they need and want,” she says. “There’s a huge economic impact to these cuts as well. And I think from the perspective of farmers, it’s really big, and from the perspective of local retailers, it’s really big. SNAP is an economic driver here in Massachusetts.”
Miller says Massachusetts has a SNAP matching program called the Healthy Incentives Program, which supports the purchase of local products. And many states have similar projects, which will see impacts from a loss of SNAP dollars due to the cuts in the reconciliation bill.
“I think the economic impacts on, like, local businesses, is one that are going to be felt really hard,” she says.
But a bright spot is that so far, Spoonfuls hasn’t seen a reduction in donations from grocers and growers.
She also says Spoonfuls continues to look ahead to try and meet this growing need. This means anything from how to optimize processes, working with retail partners to maximize donations and what the future looks like for Spoonfuls.
And she also says this is an important time to continue to advocate both for the importance of SNAP benefits but also access to fresh fruits and vegetables. The fresh produce industry must continue to share the economic impact of SNAP benefits.
Miller says Spoonfuls has an Advocacy Toolkit available to those interested in helping speak up.
I think a lot of folks are disillusioned right now and just feeling very unheard and don’t feel like raising their voices is worth it,” she says. “But you know, it has to keep happening if you want your issues to be addressed.”
And, of course, she says those in the fresh produce industry can also help support Spoonfuls’ efforts through donations at https://spoonfuls.org/donate.
