Ivanka Trump visits NC Farmers Market to tout program that helps with food insecurity
Ivanka Trump visited the N.C. State Farmers Market in Raleigh Thursday to tout a U.S. Department of Agriculture program meant to provide hungry families with food boxes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump, President Donald Trump’s daughter and one of his advisers, was joined by U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, wearing a mask with the U.S. flag, and Rep. David Rouzer, a Wilmington Republican, in a Farmers to Families Food Box distribution event.
Before delivering a set of prepared remarks, the group walked the length of the Farmers Building. Several vendors stopped to have their pictures taken with Trump, who was wearing a floral mask. The group stopped for a few minutes at Lee’s Produce stand, where Steve Troxler, the N.C. agriculture commissioner, rued that Perdue wouldn’t be able to taste a Cherokee purple heirloom tomato.
The Farmers to Families Food Box program launched in April as part of an effort to link farmers with distributors, who are paid to buy food from farmers, then package and distribute the boxes to food banks. The boxes go to people suffering from the economic fallout of the coronavirus crisis.
“We’ve seen firsthand how successful this program has been to the farmers and families in the state,” said Steve Troxler, North Carolina Agriculture Commissioner, according to pool reports.
With the 2020 presidential election less than two months away, the Trump campaign, and members of the Trump family, are showing a renewed focus on North Carolina, which is expected to be a swing state.
Donald Trump Jr., one of the president’s sons, also was in North Carolina on Thursday, visiting Hendersonville. Thursday’s visits come on the heels of dual Trump family visits Tuesday, when the president held a rally in Winston-Salem, and Eric Trump, another son, visited High Point. Last week, the president stopped in Wilmington to name it the nation’s first World War II Heritage City.
About 35 people gathered at the market, spaced apart, to hear Ivanka Trump’s remarks, according to pool reports. She praised the quick mobilization of a distribution network for the program, which has delivered 90 million boxes.
“There were people struggling at every end of the spectrum from farmers to distributors to families who had never been to a food bank before,” she said. “The ability to bring our country’s produce to those in need is so important.”
During a late August visit to Mill River, the president announced he was setting aside another $1 billion for the food box program, bringing its total to $4 billion.
Last week, a Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina official said that food insecurity has spiked as a result of COVID-19, with one in five adults and one in three children now considered food insecure.
Addressing food insecurity
During Perdue’s remarks at the Farmers Market, Perdue recalled receiving a phone call from President Trump after he saw news reports about crops being plowed under and milk being dumped out due to the economic impact of COVID-19 shutdowns. Perdue recalled explaining to Trump that there was enough food, but that it was largely geared toward restaurants and other sources outside of homes.
“If you know the president, he wants solutions,” Perdue said. “He doesn’t want problems, he wants solutions, and he said, ‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’ And I said, ‘We’ll figure out something.’”
The Farmers to Family Food Box emerged from that conversation and is currently in its third round of purchases.
Ronnie Lee, the owner of Lee’s Produce, said he has contributed to some of the boxes, selling zucchini, sweet potatoes and tomatoes to Ford’s Produce, who then distributes the goods to food banks.
The program has had some problems, with National Public Radio reporting last week that the government paid high prices for some boxes, in part because distributors are supposed to deliver them to food bank customers. The Counter, a non-profit journalism organization focused on food production, reported that hungry people in many counties did not receive any boxes in the first round of distribution.
Still, the Trump Administration is confident in a program officials have repeatedly called a “win-win-win.”
Ivanka Trump hinted that the program could continue, even after the pandemic ends.
“This is a program that in some capacity is always going to be necessary,” Trump said, later adding, “There’s always going to be need, there’s always going to be people in need, and the ability to bring our country’s great produce, fresh produce into the hands of American families, is just so incredibly important.”
Perdue’s farmers market stop was one of several on a multi-site swing through North Carolina. Earlier Thursday, he visited West End, in rural Moore County to announce a $2.3 million ReConnect Program grant to the Randolph Telephone Membership Corp. The company is slated, per a USDA release, to use the money to provide high-speed broadband to more than 3,000 homes, 26 businesses and 17 farms in the area.
Perdue also toured a Harnett County farm with Rep. Richard Hudson and is set for a Friday morning visit to Pender County, where he is expected to make another ReConnect Program announcement.
This story was originally published September 10, 2020 at 3:48 PM.