COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Government cheese is back, in a big way. More than four million pounds of cheese are headed to American food pantries and soup kitchens thanks to stimulus program spending.
The federal government is giving states $100 million to spend on emergency food assistance, including $1.56 million paid to Miceli Dairy Products of Cleveland for 837,936 pounds of mozzarella cheese. Another $1.19 million will go to Farmer John's of California for 760,000 pounds of frozen ham.
"As that food comes in it goes out of here within a couple of days to our network of food pantries because they are so desperately in need of food," said Evelyn Behm, vice president of the Mid-Ohio Foodbank.
Demand for food assistance is up 13 percent in 2009 following a 15 percent increase in 2008. To help ease the crunch, the food bank is using $760,000 stimulus funding to feed people in the 20 counties it serves.
"We chose high protein things and so we chose ham, cheese, some chicken, and we also chose a lot of canned fruit as well," Behm said.
US Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack explained the reasoning for using stimulus funds to provide emergency food relief.
"While the principal purpose of these expenditures is to provide food to those hardest hit by these tough times, the purchases also provide a modest economic benefit of benefiting Americans working at food retailers, manufacturers and transportation companies as well as the farmers and ranchers who produce our food supply," Vilsack said.
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