Farmers to Families Food Box Program continues, fifth round of purchases coming soon USDA continues food box program By Kellie Miller | January 8, 2021 at 8:46 AM CST - Updated January 8 at 9:18 AM HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) - On Monday, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced an extension of the Farmers to Families Food Box Program. This means USDA will purchase an additional $1.5 billion worth of food for nationwide distribution. In total, USDA has distributed more than 132 million food boxes since the program kicked off in May. In this fifth round, USDA will again purchase combination boxes of fresh produce, dairy products, milk, meat and seafood from local distributors suffering due to the pandemic. Those boxes will then be transported to food banks and non-profits across the nation.