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The Texas Thrifty Food Plan is on course in Congress to get thriftier, prompting the food bank serving 13 North Texas counties to urge against a proposed freeze to the national nutrition program.
That’s because, on its current track in a House committee, the 2024 update to the farm bill is on course to provide 42 million fewer meals in the coming decade.
That’s according to the Tarrant Area Food Bank, which cites data from the Congressional Budget Office. The food bank administers the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Plan locally under the Texas Thrifty Food Plan.
The massive U.S. farm bill, now in the House Agriculture Committee, includes both the SNAP and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC.
The food bank did not include WIC, which provides specific foods in prescribed amounts, in its criticism of the farm bill making its way through the House Agriculture Committee.
Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson, R-Pennsylvania, has declared a freeze on SNAP spending.
Jared Williams, vice president of governmental and external relations at Tarrant Area Food Bank, said Friday the Congressional Budget Office estimates inflation and increased participation will erode a $131 million infusion SNAP received in 2021.
That boost to SNAP three years ago increased its daily per-meal value by $1.20 per person to $5.45, Williams said.
“That had a huge positive benefit to the Tarrant Area Food Bank service area,” Williams said. “The risk of that (freeze) is it not only jeopardizes the increase that provided the $1.20 increase. It places a strain on the food bank. The food bank often is the only place that (SNAP recipients still in need) can turn.”
He said the 2021 increase provided 42 million additional meals that were not available before then. The increased food funding also created 1,570 local jobs, he said.
Williams and food bank President and CEO Julie Butner say the more robust SNAP of recent years is in peril of a reversal of fortune that will cause the $131 million shortfall in Texas cited by the budget office.
The shortfall is based on inflation and anticipation of increased SNAP participation, Williams said.
The Thrifty Food Plan is of concern to the nonprofit organization, which provides non-government food help, because SNAP lightens the burden on the food bank.
“For every meal the food bank provides, SNAP provides nine,” Williams said Friday, as the U.S. Congress prepared to adjourn for the weeklong Memorial Day break.
The timing is not good.
“In the last year, the Tarrant Area Food Bank has witnessed a surge in demand for food assistance, reaching levels not seen since the height of the pandemic,” CEO Butner said in a news release. “SNAP is our country’s No. 1 defense against hunger and an important resource in our local emergency food assistance system.”
Williams asked that the public contact their congress member to oppose the SNAP freeze.
Asked by email to his communications director to respond to the food bank’s announcement about SNAP, U.S. Rep. Roger Williams, R-Weatherford, side-stepped SNAP.
“The House Agriculture Committee started marking up the Farm Bill (H.R. 8467, the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024) yesterday,” Rogers spokeswoman Madeline Waschak wrote in a Friday reply to the Weatherford Democrat. “The congressman will have to look at the finalized text with the amendments added before determining how he will vote. He recognizes the importance of the farm bill and the resources it provides to our nation’s farmers and ranchers.”
Jared Williams said the nonprofit organization enjoys “great working relationships” with the congressional delegation representing its service area.
“We are optimistic,” he said. “Our delegation has been very supportive of food bank priorities.”
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