Every day, thousands of low-income people have a nutritious meal prepared with USDA commodity foods. Sometimes these meals are prepared at home; other times the meals are served at schools, soup kitchens for the homeless, day care centers, summer camps, senior centers, hospitals, nursing homes, and halfway houses for battered women or recovering substance abusers. In dollar terms (about $1 billion annually), the USDA commodity programs are small compared to other domestic food assistance efforts such as the Food Stamp or National School Lunch Programs. However, their reach is great.

A Depression Program

Through its commodity programs, the USDA has been providing food to people and help to farmers since the Great Depression of the 1930's. It was then that the Federal Government began to buy surplus crops from farmers to stabilize agricultural markets and guarantee producers a fair return for their labors in the face of eroding consumer purchasing power and dislocations in foreign trade. Although the emphasis then was on the removal of surpluses from the market, by 1938 USDA was distributing $54 million dollars worth of food annually to local public assistance agencies that gave it to the poor.

Schools also received surplus commodities to help them provide nutritious meals for millions of students who were unable to pay for their school lunches. This marrying of interests between helping the American farmer and providing for the food needs of low-income people has continued to varying degrees throughout the history of the commodity programs.

The Delicate Balance

Today, USDA provides regular commodity support to a wide variety of low-income people through eight different programs:

• The Child Nutrition Programs
• The Nutrition Program for the Elderly
• The Commodity Supplemental Food Program
• The Charitable Institution Program
• The Program for Summer Camps
• The Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations
• The Emergency Food Assistance Program
• The Soup Kitchen/Food Bank Program

Commodity assistance is also available to victims of natural disasters.

Sometimes these commodities are surplus foods and their purchase plays an important role in stabilizing agricultural markets. This is true for some of the commodities that are provided to the Child Nutrition Programs and the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), and all of the commodities donated to the Charitable Institution Program. For other programs—such as the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations, and the Soup Kitchen/Food Bank Program—funds appropriated by Congress are intended to purchase commodities specifically tailored to the needs of recipients. In these instances, surplus removal gives way to other considerations such as the particular nutritional needs of program participants.

Surplus food is not lower in quality or less appealing than other food. Over the years, USDA has donated millions of pounds of meat, poultry, fish, fruits, vegetables, grain, and dairy products when they were in surplus. Purchase specifications require high quality standards; all commodities are processed using on-site USDA inspection to assure that purchase specifications are met.

The administrative agency, the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), also pays attention to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans when selecting commodity foods. Over the last decade, purchase specifications have been changed: commodity canned fruits are now packed only in light syrup or natural juice, the fat content of canned and frozen meat has been significantly lowered, tuna is packed in water, and peanuts are unsalted. Commodity foods—surplus or otherwise—are under constant review to ensure that they meet current nutrition standards.

Since the passage of the Commodity Distribution Reform Act of 1987, FNS has collected annual preference information from all of its commodity program operators. This allows FNS to determine whether the foods it provides will be consumed once they are distributed.

Working Together

The commodity programs represent a successful melding of the interests of American agriculture and the people who need assistance in obtaining a nutritionally adequate diet. However, other important partners in this effort include State and local governments, a variety of nonprofit institutions, and thousands of volunteers.

Commodity foods are served to senior citizens in many different settings—including senior centers, churches, and Meals-on-Wheels programs—through the Nutrition Program for the Elderly. Low-income Native Americans receive commodities as an alternative to the Food Stamp Program on 223 reservations throughout the country. In FY 1992, approximately 2.1 billion meals were served through the Charitable Institution Program by more than 14,000 nonprofit institutions—such as hospitals, food pantries, nursing homes, and shelters for the homeless—using surplus commodities. Over the years, USDA has provided foods such as rice, pasta, peanut butter, dairy products, flour, fish, vegetables, and fruits to these institutions.

Low-income children also receive the benefit of as many as 90 different commodity foods through the National School Lunch Program, the Child and Adult Care Program, and the Summer Food Service Program. In school year 1992-93, FNS gave school meal providers 14 cents worth of commodities for every meal served in the National School Lunch Program.

These efforts require State agencies to develop and maintain systems for warehousing and distributing commodities to local distributing organizations. State governments play a critical role in the operation of the commodity programs. Several of the programs are also heavily dependent on the efforts of local nonprofit organizations and volunteers.

All over the country, volunteer groups provide community-based services to low-income adults and children. And foods donated by USDA and private sources help them meet basic needs. Once those needs for shelter and food are met, people can turn their attention to other things that will help them become self-reliant and productive. A study of groups providing meals to the homeless, completed in 1989, found that "the higher proportion of USDA commodity foods that a provider gets, the more calories, protein, and carbohydrates are present in meals served, and the more food groups are present in the meals."

In Duluth, MN, the Damiano Center not only provides food, shelter, and clothing, but also offers the homeless an opportunity, through its Handy Hands job program, to earn some much needed money at a community day labor program. If workers prove reliable, Handy Hands helps with references that can lead to full-time employment.

"Damiano Center is based on the belief that the best hope for eliminating hunger is in actively working with people, enabling them to provide food for themselves," says Jim Dwyer, who coordinates the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) at the center. "Once their basic food needs are met, we try to create opportunities for low-income people to learn to be more self-reliant."

In Boston, more than 120 volunteer groups donate or help with meals at the Pine Street Inn for the homeless. In addition to providing food and shelter, Pine Street has an onsite clinic and provides clothing, a work rehabilitation program permanent housing services, and a special program for women who have been chronic substance abusers and their children. This special program for women works in tandem with USDA's Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).

At Baltimore's Bayard Street recreation center, police officers volunteer to cook meals and help the children learn social skills and positive values.

The Emergency Food Assistance Program

The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) joins agricultural surpluses, USDA support for the food needs of low-income people, and the efforts of volunteer groups. TEFAP began in December 1981 as a special distribution of cheese to reduce large dairy surpluses at a time of high unemployment. Subsequently, other surplus commodities—such as flour, butter, nonfat dry milk, rice, honey, and cornmeal—were added to the distributions. Volunteer groups and local governments in all States provided the people needed to give out these foods every month to low-income households who needed supplemental food assistance. At TEFAP's peak in 1987, community action agencies, food pantries, churches, senior centers, and welfare offices distributed $850 million in commodities.

Today, these large surpluses do not exist. TEFAP continues because in 1989 Congress passed the Hunger Prevention Act, which provided USDA with $120 million a year for the purchase of nutritious foods to augment those that remained in surplus. In addition, the Hunger Prevention Act created a new commodity program, the Soup Kitchen/Food Bank Program. In 1992, USDA purchased $32 million in commodities primarily for those organizations that serve meals to the homeless. When States find that they cannot use all of the commodities allocated to them to meet the needs of the homeless, they can give them to food banks for distribution to other low-income clients.

The funds appropriated by Congress allow USDA to purchase a wider variety of foods for both TEFAP and the Soup Kitchen/Food Bank Program. Canned meat, peanut butter, juice, vegetables, and rice are among the commodities available. Without the surpluses of overproduction, the program is smaller now than it has been. Now it is much more common for the 17,000 local distribution sites across the country to integrate USDA foods with those obtained from private sources. In some States, food banks are now the primary source of USDA foods. In these situations, needy households can go to a food pantry or other local nonprofit organization whenever they have an emergency need for food, rather than having to wait for the scheduled TEFAP distribution.

The Commodity Supplemental Food Program

The Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) operates at 47 sites in 20 States and one Indian Tribal Organization. It provides specially tailored commodity foods to supplement the diets of low-income pregnant, postpartum, and breastfeeding women and their children up to age 6. In some sites, the program also serves elderly persons. The goals of CSFP are similar to those of the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), but it provides food rather than a voucher for the purchase of food. Clients cannot participate in both programs during the same month.

CSFP started in 1968 as the predecessor to WIC, and it served approximately 342,539 participants last year. The food packages are tailored to meet the needs of women and children. The packages include such items as juice, infant cereal, infant formula, nonfat dry milk, fruits, vegetables, and canned meat. Like many other USDA commodity programs, it is heavily dependent at the local level on the efforts of nonprofit organizations and volunteers.

Sites in Denver, Des Moines, and Detroit use a supermarket concept to provide efficient and educational service to their clients. At these sites, clients are provided with a shopping list of eligible foods and are then responsible for selecting from commodity foods those items and quantities that match family ages and numbers. Nutrition education, including food preparation demonstrations, is available to help CSFP clients make food choices.

In Des Moines, a well-baby clinic that offers immunizations, lead-poisoning screening, and iron-level blood tests is also housed on the premises. Denver has begun an innovative "Food for Thought" program through which children can get children's books provided by private donations.

Since it began its CSFP operation in Detroit, Focus: Hope, which was originally formed as a civil rights organization, has been able to garner support from private and public sources to offer high technology job training to inner city residents. "The USDA food assistance available through CSFP has made it possible for us to realize our mission of eradicating racism, poverty, and injustice through practical and intelligent action," says Eleanor Josaitis, cofounder of Focus: Hope. "There's a lot more left to be done, but our partnership with USDA is so vital to the basic well-being of the 85,000 women, babies, and elderly citizens we serve each month. A stable source of good food allows people to start addressing other life issues that can lead to self-reliance and a brighter future for their children."