WASHINGTON—The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) has proposed the federal government a new program, “Meat the Need,” to help the nation’s embattled dairy and pork farmers.
The plan would be a means to take extra dairy, pork and turkey supplies off the market and bringing up prices paid to producers. The commodities will then be available through a supplemental food assistance program to people who could not otherwise afford them.
Meat the Need calls for the federal government to purchase up to three installments of 75 million pounds of cheese and other dairy products over 120 days and up to three installments of 100 million pounds of pork products over 180 days. If the target price of $16 per hundredweight of milk and 49 cents per pound of pork, the average cost of production for each product, is reached before the second or third installment, the purchases would stop. The plan also includes of a one-time purchase of 100 million pounds of turkey
“Pork and dairy farmers in Iowa and across the nation are hurting, and this proposal is a way to support them during this difficult time and get nutritious and wholesome products to needy families,” said Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey. “Right now these farmers are losing money on every gallon of milk the produce and every pound of pork they raise, that is unsustainable.”
The purchased meat and dairy products would be distributed to food banks, school lunch programs and a new SNAP‐PLUS program, as well as into foreign military food assistance.
The SNAP-PLUS program would allow USDA to increase allocations to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and require SNAP beneficiaries to spend the new allocations on meat and dairy products only. Participants would be given separate electronic benefits transfer (EBT) cards to purchase the products.
The initiative is projected to cost between $2 billion and $3 billion, and the proposal calls for the funding to come from unspent stimulus dollars.
