BATON ROUGE - The Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank says that truckloads of canned food deliveries from the U.S. Department of Agriculture have been canceled due to federal government cuts. Although these cancellations were bonus shipments, the food bank is concerned that this could lead to larger issu es.Mike Manning, the president of the food bank, states that the lost food will create a void they will now have to fill."We are trying to build as much as we can now to navigate through the challenges of summer," he said. With six truckloads of food being canceled by the USDA locally and many more nationwide, worries are growing. "Well, there are a lot of things happening with the USDA right now, and there is considerable uncertainty," he said. "The local food purchase program, which was used to buy food from smaller farmers for the food banks, was canceled this year."This situation, Manning says, has only intensified concerns for the bank."We've seen some loads canceled that were a bit unusual; to see that many this early in the year, it's just total uncertainty about what's going to happen if we are going to get our usual allocations and that's the fear, is food going to be available?", he noted.In the bank's warehouse, shelves that are usually full of food are now empty. "That's a problem; it means we don't have food to distribute, and if not, how are we going to replace that food?" he said. For those who depend on the food bank, this could mean less food available."Well, we are going to have to reduce our allocation per pound per client. We've been fortunate to raise it to 25 pounds, we'll do it in stages and maybe lower it if we don't have the food supply, because we want to be able to give as many people as we can some food, as opposed of having to turn people away around," he said.Permalink| Comments ...read more read less