On March 26, the food bank Feeding America West Michigan, which covers the western Lower Peninsula and all of the Upper Peninsula, announced it was getting fewer truckloads of fresh food after cuts to a U.S. Department of Agriculture Program. Now, FAWM and its partners are working to weather the loss.
The initiative, called The Emergency Food Assistance Program, was first authorized in 1981 to distribute foods purchased by USDA to support agriculture markets while assisting low-income people.
That surplus had diminished by 1988, so Congress passed the Hunger Prevention Act, authorizing the purchase of USDA foods specifically for the program…