USDA Faces Questions Over Food Program Problems

Federal agriculture officials have been called to testify on Capitol Hill about distribution problems plaguing food programs that serve tribes and the elderly. The problems have resulted in food shortages at food banks and in tribal communities, including in Oklahoma.

The affected programs are the USDA’s Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR), which as the name suggests, serves tribes, and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), which serves low-income elderly and food banks.

Lawmakers like Oklahoma's Frank Lucas have one pretty basic question they want answered: “How could you take a program that was working and screw it up this bad?”

In a phone interview Thursday, Congressman Lucas (R-OK3) said he plans to get to the bottom of it, but that the apparent mistake was the USDA's decision to go from using two companies to handle the food distribution to one.

“And in Oklahoma, where we have a number of tribes participating in this program,” said Rep. Lucas, “it's causing deliveries not to come on time and food not to be available when it's needed.”

Congressman Tom Cole (R-OK4), himself a member of the Chickasaw Nation, says 116 different tribes participate in FDPIR. He says he's spoken with representatives of several Oklahoma tribes — the Chickasaws, Cherokees, Comanches — and says, fortunately, they have had the resources to fill the gaps left by the late food delivery.

“But it's a real hardship on some of these really remote reservation tribes,” Cole said in a Zoom interview, “and it's certainly a hardship and an inconvenience even on tribes that have the financial wherewithal to replace that. They're not obligated — they shouldn't do that, this is a treaty-obligated program.”

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has acknowledged the “mistake” of contracting just one company to handle distribution and has taken steps to temporarily boost distribution. But both Cole and Lucas say the tribes told USDA when the switch to one distributor was being contemplated that it wasn't going to work.

“When you're warned, 'Hey, if you do this, this is going to happen,' by the people that are on the receiving end of the program,” said Cole, “I am curious as to why more credence wasn't given to them.”

The hearing is set for Wednesday at 10 a.m. ET in the Longworth House Office Building. Both Lucas and Cole should be participating.