Food-Aid Politics Take Stage as Vilsack Cancels Trump Program

Partisan tensions between Democrats and Republicans have spilled over into debate over how to help hungry Americans during the coronavirus pandemic, following a recent Agriculture Department decision to end a Trump-era food box program.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack confirmed the move to discontinue the Farmers to Families Food Box program, a 2020 department initiative to buy and distribute produce, meat, dairy, and seafood to food banks in an effort to help families and give agriculture producers an economic boost.

Volunteers distribute boxes from the USDA Farmers to Families Food Box program outside of a church in Sumter, S.C., on March 13, 2021.

Photographer: Micah Green/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The program had “a lot of problems,” such as differences in administrative costs, food waste, and inadequate accounting of box deliveries, ...