President Trump’s “Harvest Box” Plan Will Cause Hunger to Soar

By Dan Lesser

Low-income people should be able to choose the food they eat.

But the message the Trump Administration has sent through its FY 2019 budget is, in large part, quite the opposite.

To pay for the recently-enacted GOP tax plan, which delivers massive tax giveaways to large corporations and our country’s wealthiest households, the proposed budget would slash funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by 30%, or more than $200 billion, over the next ten years. The biggest cut comes from replacing a significant portion of most families’ monthly SNAP benefits with a “Harvest Box” of powdered milk, juice, ready-to-eat cereals, pasta, peanut butter, beans, and canned foods.

There are many serious problems with this poorly conceived proposal, not the least of which is that it would produce massive waste, cause hunger and poverty to soar, create a massive bureaucracy, and stigmatize people with low-income.

The Harvest Box is a recipe for waste.

The Harvest Box would force families to receive certain items regardless of their preferences and needs. Children and adults with peanut, wheat, and dairy allergies would still be shipped peanut butter, pasta, and milk products, while people who have moral or religious beliefs that prohibit them from eating meat would also be shipped meat products monthly. Families with children who are picky eaters would not be able to substitute healthy foods that their children prefer.

Much of the media coverage surrounding this issue has misleadingly likened the Harvest Box to the trendy meal kit services like Blue Apron. But the Harvest Box does not contain any of the fresh meat, produce, or other ingredients associated with these high-end services, which typically cost $9.99 per meal. Moreover, these popular services allow recipients to make choices and provide recipe instruction cards with each box. The only thing the Harvest Box would have in common with meal kit services is that the boxes are delivered to your front door.

That is, if you have one.

Homeless families and people who are highly mobile would likely face difficulties obtaining their Harvest Boxes due to frequent moves or a lack of stable housing. According to the Trump Administration, the logistics of delivering a box of food to millions of households would fall to state governments, yet the burdensome cost of doing so is not included in the President’s proposed budget.

This paternalistic idea has already been tried before — and it failed.

The USDA’s Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR), which provides monthly food boxes to income-eligible households living on Indian reservations, currently serves 90,000 households a month. The program has proven deficiencies, including a lack of culturally appropriate food options and unhealthy food, such as powdered milk and fat-filled canned meat products, that fails to meet the needs of chronically ill individuals. Meanwhile, coordinating the pick-up and drop-off of the food boxes has proven to be particularly difficult.

SNAP is already making low-income people healthier.

Contrary to the assumptions underpinning the Harvest Box proposal, reams of research show that SNAP helps recipients lead healthier lives. Broadly, SNAP households tend to eat healthier food than low-income non-participants, while children, adults, and elderly participants enjoy significant health benefits and reduced medical costs.

Further, the closest existing model to the Harvest Box, the FDPIR, may be contributing to increased rate of obesity and diabetes in Native American communities. According to CDC statistics, Native Americans and Alaskan Natives are at least twice as likely as white people to have Type 2 diabetes, and they experience obesity 1.5 times the rate of non-Hispanic whites. It is believed that the nutrient deficient and calorie dense food packages of the FDPIR have exacerbated this trend — the Harvest box would only do the same.

The Trump Administration’s proposed cuts to SNAP will devastate our country’s most effective anti-hunger program.

Given SNAP’s strong, bipartisan support, it’s unlikely that Congress will pursue the Harvest Box proposal — yet still, major threats loom.

Roughly 1 in 8 Americans rely on SNAP to put food on the table each month, and this critical food program has already experienced a substantial decrease of average monthly benefit allotment since 2011. Deep funding cuts, other proposals to radically restructure the program, and attempts to tighten or expand SNAP’s already-harsh time limit on very at-risk recipients would harm millions of struggling families, forcing them to go hungry or make impossible choices between eating or paying for rent, healthcare, or childcare.

The Harvest Box is a half-baked idea premised on false, wrongheaded assumptions about people with low incomes.

The Harvest Box proposal underscores the Trump Administration’s animus towards people with low incomes — especially low-income people of color — and is just its latest attack on the social safety net. Advocates and recipients of anti-hunger and anti-poverty programs must stay vigilant in their defense of SNAP and other basic assistance programs. The physical and financial well-being of millions is at stake.

Kelsie Landers contributed to this blog.