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Food Distribution Programs
History and Background
The commodity program began in the early 1930’s as an outgrowth of federal
agriculture policies designed to shore up farm prices and help American
farmers suffering from the economic upheaval of the Great Depression.
Many individual farmers lost their farms, while the total amount of
farmland increased. The danger of malnutrition among children became a
national concern. Below are links to the legislative history of the
growth of the Food Distribution Program from 1933 to the present:
EARLY
1930's to 2004
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1. |
1933 - The Commodity Credit Corporation
(CCC) Charter
Act. This Act, P.L. 108-358, created the CCC.
The CCC was established
primarily to get loans to farmers and help them store non-perishable
commodities until prices rose. However, in order to prevent waste and
spoilage of crops forfeited to the federal government as payment for
these loans, the government was forced to sell or distribute these
crops to domestic commodity programs.
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2. |
1935 - Section 32 of the
Agriculture Act of 1935.
Section 32 of P.L.
74-320
made available funds to the Secretary of Agriculture to purchase
surplus commodities from farmers. This law provided the basis
for donating surplus commodities (and later funding) to eligible
categorizes of recipients through federal domestic commodity
programs.
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3. |
1946 - The National School Lunch Act of 1946.
On June 4, 1946,
President Harry S. Truman signed the National School Lunch Act,
which permanently authorized the National School Lunch Program (NSLP).
The legislation was passed in response to concerns that "many
American men had been rejected for World War II military service
because of diet-related health problems."
Its
purpose was to provide a market for agricultural production and to
improve the health and well-being of the nation’s youth.
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4. |
1949 - The
Agricultural Act of 1949.
Section 416 of the Act, as amended through P.L. 108-498, made certain
donated commodities acquired through price-support operations by the
Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) available for distribution to
school lunch programs, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and local
public welfare organizations serving needy people.
The Act further authorized the CCC to pay for added processing,
packaging, and handling costs for foods acquired under price support
so that recipient outlets could more fully use them.
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5. |
1961 - Executive Order Increasing Food Donations to Needy
Families. In January 1961, the first executive order issued by
President Kennedy mandated that the Department increase the quantity
and variety of foods donated for needy households. This executive
order represented a shift in the Commodity Distribution Programs’
primary purpose – from surplus disposal to that of providing
nutritious foods to needy households.
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6. |
In the 1960's and
1970's, several laws created programs with
commodity components. In the
1960’s and 1970’s, several laws were enacted to create programs with
a commodity component which were designed to meet the food needs of
specific segments of the population. These included:
- The School
Breakfast Program,
- The Summer Food
Service Program,
- The Child Care
Food Program,
- Nutrition
Program for the Elderly (now the Nutrition Services Incentive
Program),
- The
Commodity Supplemental Food Program, and
- The Food
Distribution Program on Indian Reservations
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7. |
The Agriculture and
Consumer Protection Act of 1973.
The Agriculture and
Consumer Protection Act of 1973, P.L. 93-86, provided authority in
section 4(a) of the Act for USDA to make open-market purchases of
foods similar to those acquired under Sections 32 and 416 when foods
are not available under those authorities. This authority responded
to a temporary decline of surpluses in the early 1970’s.
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8. |
Commodity Initiatives in the 1980s and 1990s
Legislation enacted in the 1980’s addressed unemployment and
homelessness. For the first time, emergency feeding organizations
were guaranteed some form of commodity assistance. Prior to that,
these smaller charitable agencies such as soup kitchens and food
banks, relied on Secretary’s discretion to receive donated
commodities.
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In 1981, The Emergency Food Assistance
Program (TEFAP) was established. TEFAP began in 1981 to help
supplement the diets of low-income Americans, including elderly
people.
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1983 The
Emergency Food Assistance Act of 1983
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In 1988, the Soup Kitchen/Food Banks
Program (SK/FB) was created. The SK/FB program was created to
provide commodities to the homeless population.
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In 1996, the SK/FB Program merged with
TEFAP with the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work
Opportunity Reconciliation Act, better known as Welfare Reform.
More....ØØ
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Last Modified:
05/30/2007
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