Shrinking Surplus to Mean Less Free Food : USDA Program’s Success Itself Is Blamed for Cuts

George Thorsell, 77, a retired sailor, collects less than $16,000 a year in retirement benefits, barely enough to support his wife and the two granddaughters he is rearing.

Once a month, Thorsell, a cherubic-faced gentleman with smiling eyes, appears at the La Palma Community Center with a plastic grocery bag. He produces identification to prove that he is a resident of La Palma, and then volunteers drop 2 pounds of rice, 5 pounds of cornmeal and a 5-pound block of cheese into his bag.

The value of the three products doesn’t run more than $15, but for Thorsell and about a quarter-million other Orange County residents, the staples are necessary.

“I know it helps me greatly,” Thorsell said the other day as he left the community center with his 12 pounds of products. “The cheese, especially, we can make go a little while.”

$5 Billion Worth of Food

However, Thorsell and the estimated 15 million to 18 million other Americans who receive these products each month will have their food supplies reduced drastically in the coming three months, say officials of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which distributes the food under the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program.

Since 1981 when the program began, the USDA has distributed 5 billion pounds of surplus food nationally, worth more than $5 billion.

The program initially was instituted to reduce huge surpluses of cheese, milk and rice that the government had stored throughout the country.

However, USDA officials in Washington announced last week that the program has worked so efficiently that the food surpluses have dwindled, and reductions in the food distributions will come in April and May when powdered milk, cheese, rice and honey, the four most nutritional items, will not be available. Cornmeal, flour and butter also are currently distributed.

Two agencies in Orange County that distributed about 5 million pounds of the products last year at 171 distribution sites--St. Vincent de Paul Distribution Center in Orange and the Community Development Council in Santa Ana--have known of the cutbacks for some time. Still, the reductions have officials at the anti-poverty agencies concerned.

St. Vincent de Paul distributes the food at 61 sites in the northern areas of the county while CDC oversees the other 110 in the rest of the county.

Bridget O’Connell, St. Vincent de Paul’s program coordinator, said she is not convinced that the government’s surplus has dwindled to the point that powdered milk, cheese and rice will no longer be available.

“It’s hard to believe, but I guess we will distribute what they give us. This helps a lot of people, and it’s a good program,” she said. “What’s worse is that we were ready to grow with the program and expand it. This is really a big disappointment to us.”

Gene Serrano, a spokesman for the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service office in San Francisco, said the reductions are the result of the program’s success.

“There are fewer (products) coming into the system, and a lot more is being distributed,” he said. “Besides, this was a mechanism put in place only to deal with the surplus. It exists only for that and was not meant to put a hole (in the fight against hunger).”

The dwindling supplies of milk products and rice are the direct result of the Food Security Act that Congress enacted in 1985.

Under the law, the government is paying 14,000 dairy farmers to stop milk production by slaughtering or exporting cows, calves and heifers. In addition, the government has reduced the subsidies paid to dairy farmers in the form of price supports.

The Congressional Research Service recently reported that 420 million pounds of surplus cheese were distributed under the emergency program last year, but only 245 million pounds would be available this year. Only 56 million tons of powdered milk were available for this year, down from the 96 million pounds handed out last year.

The 1985 law also gave rice producers a financial incentive to sell their crops in the open market rather than to the government, leading to a sharp reduction in the federal inventory of rice, USDA officials said last week.

Moreover, under federal law, the emergency food program is the last priority for distributing surplus food. School lunch and breakfast programs, food assistance for the elderly and international food assistance have priority.

The USDA has said those programs are not in danger of running out of commodities.

To qualify for the surplus commodities, a family of four must earn less than $16,800 a year. A single person must earn less than $8,250 a year, or $687 a month, to qualify for the program.

Serrano, however, said the government has other programs that could help those being hurt by the reduction in the commodities. He said many already receive food stamps.

“There is no way that these commodities can carry a family through the month. It is simply a supplemental program,” he said, adding that whenever the surplus increases, the reductions will cease.

“The reductions now are for the next two or three months. We don’t know yet what the distribution will be for the rest of the year. This will be a month-to-month determination,” Serrano said.

Jean Forbath of Share Our Selves, the largest volunteer anti-poverty agency in the county, which also serves as a distribution point for CDC, said the reduction in powdered milk and cheese will be a problem for low-income families who rely heavily on those products.

“It is already a struggle to keep some of these people with enough food,” she said.

Forbath said that Share Our Selves includes the government commodities in its own food baskets, distributed to about 20,000 poor families each year.

“What will be bad is that powdered milk and cheese are very nutritional. The cheese is a good complement and it lasts. It will be expensive for some of our families to replace it,” she said.

At La Colonia Independencia Community Center in Anaheim, manager Savina Antolin agreed.

Antolin, who distributed about 80 packages containing powdered milk, cheese, rice and cornmeal on Thursday, said about 200 families in the poor west Anaheim neighborhood are dependent on those products.

“We have a lot of families in this neighborhood with small children,” she said. “Those will be the ones who will feel it the most when we have less to hand out.”

Marcial Calderon, 65, a retired laborer, lives with his wife and grandchild in the neighborhood. Partly disabled, Calderon makes do on only several thousand dollars a year from Social Security benefits.

Told that the supplies would be drastically curtailed by April, Calderon could only shrug.

“It’s bad, and I know we’ll feel it. We need this food. But if we can’t have it, we can’t have it,” he said.

One couple leaving the community center with their monthly supply were startled to find out about the coming reductions. The couple, who declined to give their names, said the commodity products greatly help in feeding their four children.

“It’s tough, but we’ve been doing pretty good lately. But when you’re poor, bad news seems to find you when you start thinking things are looking good,” the man said before stepping into the family station wagon.

At CDC’s Santa Ana headquarters, food service manager Linda Gomez was concerned that the distribution of the commodities will not return to the levels of the last three or four years.

“We’ve been told to be cautiously optimistic. But if the reductions continue, I know we will have a serious problem,” she said.

USDA FOOD CUTOFFS

The U. S. Department of Agriculture currently distributes cheese, powdered milk, rice, cornmeal, flour, butter and honey through the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program. Reduced distributions will come about in April and May when rice, honey, cheese and powdered milk will not be available.

USDA SURPLUS COMMODITIES GUIDELINES

All individuals eligible to receive U.S. Department of Agriculture surplus commodities must meet the following income guidelines:

HOUSEHOLD MAXIMUM MONTHLY MAXIMUM ANNUAL SIZE INCOME INCOME 1 $687.50 $8,250.00 2 $925.00 $11,100.00 3 $1,162.50 $13,950.00 4 $1,400.00 $16,800.00 5 $1,637.50 $19,650.00 6 $1,875.00 $22,500.00 7 $2,112.50 $25,350.00 8 $2,350.00 $28,200.00 9 $2,587.50 $31,050.00 10 $2,825.00 $33,900.00 +$237.50 per +$2,850 per additional member additional member

People may receive commodities from just one distribution site per month.

Source: USDA