Ivanka Trump announces $1B more for 'Farmers to Families Food Box' program
The program has helped bring more than 70 million boxes of food from small U.S. farms to families in need since May
Advisor to the president Ivanka Trump on Tuesday announced $1 billion in additional funding for the Trump administration's "Farmers to Families Food Box" program.
The first daughter launched the program — which connects food distributors and small farms to help deliver food to faith-based groups and families in need during coronavirus — with Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue in May. The program has secured $3 billion in funding from the CARES Act and Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA).
"Through our Farmers to Families Food Box Program, we are supporting over 200 farms and distributors and over 5,000 American jobs. This program is working for everyone, which is why we will provide an additional $1 billion for our Farmers to Families Food Box Program," Trump wrote in a Wednesday opinion piece for The Fayetteville Observer.
Trump added that the $1 billion commitment "will provide certainty for those in need and to our American farmers and ranchers who feed, fuel and sustain our great [n]ation."
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Additionally, each food box will contain a signed letter from President Trump "underscoring the importance of stopping the spread so that we can defeat this virus together."
President Donald Trump, right, sits with his daughter Ivanka Trump during and event about the "Farmers to Families Food Box Program" at Flavor First Growers and Packers, Monday, Aug. 24, 2020, in Mills River, N.C. (AP Photo/Nell Redmond)
The president and the first daughter made a surprise visit to a Farmers to Families program site in Mills River, N.C., on Monday.
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"During this time of trial, we've seen once and again that the strength of our nation lies in patriotic citizens, like everyone here today," the president said during his visit. "I've met so many of you. Each time you deliver a food box to a family, you show them that, in this country, no one is forgotten."
The pandemic has been particularly harmful to U.S. farmers due to Americans' changing eating habits as a result of local lockdowns. Pork farmers are facing a potentially drastic increase in euthanization, beef and pork supply shortages have caused factories to close, and dairy farmers throughout the nation were forced to pour portions of their milk supply down the drain in April.
The Farmers to Families program has helped bring more than 70 million boxes of food from small U.S. farms to families in need since May.
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"This program is a miracle. It works for everybody," Zach Derstine, president of Derstine's Inc., said during the presidential advisor's recent visit to Church of God in Christ, in Pittsburgh, Pa. Derstine credits the program for saving his distribution company, Trump wrote.