CHICAGO: The
US government
delivered far less food aid than it had pledged by the end of June, according to
food bank managers
and data from
the agriculture department
sent to Reuters, after it hired inexperienced companies to box food during the
pandemic
.
The Farmers to Families Food Box program, one of several new government efforts to relieve struggling Americans, aimed to take food from farmers typically produced for restaurants and deliver it to the millions of people who lost their jobs or were otherwise hit by the coronavirus lockdown.
But the program has drawn criticism from food banks, analysts and some US senators for awarding contracts to often inexperienced vendors that were unable to source the food and deliver it in a timely manner.
Data sent to Reuters shows the program fell short of its target to deliver $1.2 billion worth of food