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FEDERAL funding for Foodbank will be maintained at $750,000 a year, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced.
Bendigo Foodshare chair Cathie Steel is no longer anticipating difficulties sourcing essential products such as breakfast cereals, pasta, rice and canned fruit and vegetables.
Monday:
BENDIGO Foodshare is bracing for a diminished food supply following cuts to national food relief funding.
It comes after a report last month highlighted the prevalence of food insecurity, with an estimated 8800 people in central Victoria calling on food relief programs weekly.
The funding national food relief organisation Foodbank – which assists 710,000 people a month – receives from the federal government for its Key Staples Program has been almost halved, with six weeks’ notice.
From January 1, Foodbank will receive $427,000 a year to ensure the supply of essential foods in its warehouses.
The food staples the program produces – breakfast cereals, rice, pasta, and canned fruit and vegetables – are among those Bendigo Foodshare chair Cathie Steele said were difficult to source locally.
“If we can’t get these from Foodbank Victoria, we can’t get [those foods] out,” she said.
Foodbank Victoria chief executive Dave McNamara said the federal funding cuts effectively meant a 10 per cent cut to food volumes, or 1.7 million meals the organisation would not able to deliver.
Foodbank Victoria distributed 380,305 kilograms of staple, fresh and frozen foods to 14 charity partners in Greater Bendigo in the 2017/18 financial year. More than half of that stock – 225,565 kilograms – was delivered to Bendigo Foodshare, which distributes the food to a wider network of organisations.
Foodbank chief executive Brianna Casey said the already modest funding the organisation received from the government for the Key Staples Program received provided more than $8 million worth of essential foods for distribution to 2600 charities nationwide.
“We are dumbfounded,” she said.
“In our pre-budget submission we made a compelling case for why it is critical that this funding be increased to address the hunger crisis we are currently facing with 4 million Australians exposed to food insecurity every year.
“Instead, our flagship program is now at risk and our ability to deliver emergency drought relief in times of natural disaster will be compromised.”
Ms Casey called on Prime Minister Scott Morrison to correct the ‘short sighted decision’ and commit to ensuring vulnerable Australians were supported in their time of need.
Foodbank said its funding had decreased ‘exponentially’, from $1.5 million a year three years ago to less than half a million a year from January 2019. Meanwhile, demand for food relief had grown exponentially.
Bendigo Foodshare recently told the Bendigo Advertiser the number of people requiring assistance for food insecurity had more than doubled in the past two years, from 14,000 people a month to 8800 people a week.
“The knock-on effect is really multiplied at our level because we get no funding,” Ms Steele said.
“It’s devastating when this kind of thing happens… the impact on the ground is just so hard.”
Bendigo Foodshare’s supply of fresh and frozen food was restricted earlier this year by a lack of refrigerated transport, due to a change in Foodbank Victoria’s freight providers.
The community rallied around Bendigo Foodshare to minimise the disruption to the programs schools and agencies provided.
An anti-poverty initiative staged over three events in Bendigo last month raised $2517 in support of Bendigo Foodshare.
Ms Steele said the only options available to Bendigo Foodshare in this latest challenge were to join in the calls on the federal government to increase its support for Foodbank, and to advocate locally for donations and volunteers.
“Don’t let food go to waste, now more than ever,” she said.
She encouraged people keen to get involved to call 5444 3409 or to register online to donate at bendigofoodshare.org.au/donate
Mr McNamara suggested people contact their local federal politicians or the Prime Minister’s office to make their sentiments known.
Member for Bendigo Lisa Chesters dubbed the funding cut ‘outrageous and mean’.
She said Labor would restore the $320,000 slashed from Foodbank’s Key Staples Program and called on the government to do the same.
“I know from working with local emergency food relief organisations, like Bendigo Foodshare, how vital Foodbank is and the role they play locally to ensure these organisations have food to distribute,” Ms Chesters said.
She said Bendigo Foodshare supplied 40 school breakfast and lunch programs and 41 community agency meals and emergency relief programs throughout Central Victoria.
“It's vital that our federal government demonstrates strong commitment to supporting community infrastructure like Bendigo Foodshare,” Ms Chesters said.
“Food insecurity is not an individual problem it's a social problem. When people are forced to live meal to meal they cannot fully participate in society.”
GetUp has launched an online campaign calling on Mr Morrison reverse the funding cuts.
GetUp senior campaigner Jake Wishart said thousands of people were petitioning Scott Morrison to reverse the government’s ‘heartless’ decision.
The campaign can be viewed at www.getup.org.au/campaigns/rr-foodbank/petition/save-foodbank-reverse-the-cuts.
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