The federal government will start buying meat, vegetables and milk from the nation’s farmers and distribute the surplus to the nation’s food banks, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said Thursday, a plan welcomed by the agricultural sector.
While the details and the amount of money that will be spent on the program were not clear, Mr. Perdue said President Trump has approved the plan to help the nation’s farmers during the coronavirus outbreak.
“Yes — that’s directly we’ll take dairy products,” Mr. Perdue said. “We’ll take meat, protein products, both beef and pork off the their produce as well. Many of this food that’s being that does not have a home in a market for it, USDA will have a program that will procure this food and distribute it to food banks and other nonprofit charities.”
Mr. Perdue hinted at such a program in an April 9 tweet, but in an appearance Thursday on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria,” the secretary told host Maria Bartiromo the problem lies not with supply but with the supply chain.
“We’re doing our best to relocate that adequate supply into the demand channels that can process it for consumer needs, but as you can imagine it’s like flowing down an interstate and things are going well at 60, 65 miles an hour and you have a crash and it all backs up, and there’s dual lanes, and we’re trying to relocate a dislocated supply-demand system from one to the other,” he said.
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