Farmers to Families Food Box

The Farmers to Families Food Box program was set up by the United States government during the COVID-19 pandemic to help get fresh food from farmers to consumers. It lasted from May 2020 to May 2021, and distributed more than 173 million food boxes worth over five billion dollars. It was part of the United States Department of Agriculture's Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, which was announced on April 17, 2020.

Food boxes

The "family-sized" food boxes contained produce, dairy products, meat, and/or seafood. The USDA bought the produce from farmers and sent it to local packaging companies. Those companies distributed the packages to local organizations, like NGOs and religious organizations. The program set no restrictions on which families could receive boxes.

Over 70,000,000 boxes were invoiced between the program's start date and the end of August 2020. By the second week of August 2020, the program's budget was three billion dollars.

Reception

The program was positively received, but there were some criticisms. At first, it only provided boxes with mixed produce, dairy products, and meat. Since some people do not eat dairy or meat products, the USDA began offering produce-only boxes.

Additionally, the boxes weighed forty pounds. This made it difficult for people without cars to bring them home.

In August 2020, a group of legislators wrote to the USDA saying that the Food Assistance Program had not given enough help to specialty-crop farmers.