“I’m proud to announce that we will provide an additional $1 billion to fund the Farmers to Families Food Box program. It’s worked out so well,” said President Donald Trump in North Carolina on Monday. The announcement takes the Farmers to Families Food Box Program budget from $3 billion to $4 billion.
“Through this program, the Department of Agriculture is purchasing food from farmers, then local distributors pack and deliver the boxes. And families in need get it, and they get to eat very well.”
Trump says the program has been a huge success thus far.
“In just three months, we’ve delivered over 1 billion pounds of food, providing more than 100 million meals to Americans most in need. And this is a program that just got started… as soon as I saw it – I saw one line that was hungry and one line that had so much food they had to dispose of it – the farmers. I said, ‘Let’s put them together.’ And with (Ag Secretary) Sonny (Perdue) and with all of the people that worked on it and Ivanka’s backing – strong backing – we got it done in literally a week. We got it done in, I think, it might have even been less than a week. That’s not bad.”
The Farmers to Families Food Box Program is part of the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, or CFAP.
In Indiana last week, Secretary Sonny Perdue announced that CFAP 2.0 is on the way with more details coming in September.
He told a crowd at a town hall meeting in Milford, Indiana that growers will be really happy when they see the new rules for CFAP. Perdue says that signup should probably happen in September as well.