Art King has sold some sweet corn and kale from his family's Harvest Valley Farms in Middlesex Township to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Foodbank, which distributes food to food banks in the county.

He said he didn't have the time or manpower to harvest those crops and sell them at Harvest Valley's farm market and bakery in Richland Township, Allegheny County, so he sold it to the food bank for the cost it would have taken to harvest instead of letting it go to waste.

The state recently added $10 million from its federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act allocation to the $1.5 million in annual funding for the Pennsylvania Agricultural Surplus System (PASS), which buys surplus farm products and distributes them to food banks.

The Department of Agriculture has a contract with Feeding Pennsylvania, a Harrisburg-based affiliate of Feeding America, to buy the products and distribute them to 13 regional food banks across the state.

The Butler County farmer said he occasionally sells excess products through the program to get some return for his produce.

“They're not giving me what it's worth wholesale, but it's something and it avoids waste,” King said.

Without the PASS program, surplus food products would likely be left to rot in the field, plowed under, dumped or sent to a landfill, according the department.

The $10 million added to the program will go a long way toward providing relief to farmers who lost sales due to the coronavirus and residents in need of food during the pandemic, Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding said when he announced the additional funding.

“If there's anything worse than the waste of fresh, local food and the labor of love from Pennsylvania farmers, it's the hunger that more than 2 million Pennsylvanians are facing every day as we fight COVID-19,” Redding said.

“This is $10 million in relief for Pennsylvania farmers who have lost markets, but have not swayed in their commitment to nourishing our commonwealth,” he said.

“It's $10 million in fresh, local food to go on the plates of families who were unsure of where their next meal would come from,” Redding noted.

Enacted into law in 2010, the program was originally funded in 2015 at $1 million annually before funding was increased to $1.5 a year in 2017-18.

The additional $10 million is divided into $5 million for buying dairy products and $5 million for buying a variety of products such as fruit, vegetables, meat and eggs.

The money will be used over the next four months to purchase excess product from state farmers and distribute them to all 67 counties through 13 regional food banks that are members of the Feeding Pennsylvania and Hunger-Free Pennsylvania networks of food banks.

“Our goal is to spend all of it by the end of December,” said Tom Mainzer, director of agricultural partnerships for Feeding Pennsylvania.

Boxes of dairy products such as butter, yogurt and cheese that will be given to people will cost the program about $10 each, he said.

“That money goes back to the farmers, producers and processors. We can use that money very quick,” Mainzer said.

Produce and meat products also will be distributed in family-sized boxes, he said.

Food banks buy products from farmers and then the program reimburses the food banks, Mainzer added.

Since the PASS program started, more than 12 million pounds of food have been distributed. Sixty different foods have been purchased from 137 farmers, processors and growers across the state.

The department cited Feeding America's annual Map the Meal Gap report from 2018, which said more than 1.4 million Pennsylvanians — 10.9 percent of all residents — didn't always know where their next meal was coming from.

In 2020, as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, Feeding America estimates the number of Pennsylvanians facing food insecurity will grow to 15.9 percent — an increase of 45.2 percent in two years.

Farmers interested in the program can visit feedingpa.org or Mainzer at tmainzer@feedingpa.org.