TEFAP Alliance Blog

Foodlinks America - April 11, 2008

In this issue:

• Leaders Pledge Action on Farm Bill
• Appropriations Progressing on Several Fronts
• Millions for Commodities Unspent
• Skyrocketing Food Prices Contribute to Hunger Woes
• School Food News and Notes
• Reports from the Field
• Small Bites

Foodlinks America is published 24 times a year by California Emergency Foodlink in Sacramento, CA and distributed by Weinberg & Vauthier Consulting, 6412 CR 116, Burnet, TX 78611; Zy Weinberg and Barbara Vauthier, Editors; email: bvauthier@tefapalliance.org.

Foodlinks America is not copyrighted, so the information can be freely shared with colleagues and friends, though attribution for reprinted articles is appreciated. For archived issues of Foodlinks America, go to: www.tefapalliance.org. To request a free subscription to the newsletter or to submit story ideas, contact Barbara Vauthier at: bvauthier@tefapalliance.org.

Leaders Pledge Action on Farm Bill

As Congress’ self-imposed April 18 deadline rapidly approaches, Congressional leaders are voicing their commitment to resolving the Farm Bill impasse that has persisted for more than six months. The ultimate outcome may be another short-term extension of current law, expiration of current programs and a reversion to permanent laws that are decades old, or the fashioning of legislation to implement new agriculture and food policies.

“I’m pulling every available lever to get this bill done,” said Senate Agriculture Committee chair Tom Harkin (D-IA) in an April 9 news conference. “I’m not focused on simply kicking the ball down the field with another short-term extension. We need to chart the course, set the schedule, and wrap up the bill,” Harkin added.

Harkin summarized the current situation by noting that, “Two big obstacles remain to finishing the Farm Bill: 1) detailing the source of the $10 billion in added Farm Bill funding that was set several weeks ago; and 2) resolving a very sharp disagreement between the Senate and the House on whether to include a tax package of several billion dollars as an attachment to the Farm Bill.” He also referred to the “unprecedented role” that other committees, notably the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee which control government purse strings, have played in the ongoing negotiations.

Identifying funding mechanisms that all parties agree upon is the main challenge and new ideas continue to pop up. Last week, House Agriculture Committee chair Collin Peterson (D-MN) suggested cutting payments to crop insurance agents and companies to save $1.4 billion over the next decade. “Frankly, we don’t think that insurance agents need a 200 percent increase in commissions, given the situation we’re in,” commented Peterson.

Meanwhile, interests both inside and outside of the Congress are getting impatient. Representative James McGovern (D-MA), an outspoken supporter of anti-hunger programs, urged speedy resolution of the Farm Bill to help low-income Americans in need. “Families going to food banks aren’t enthusiastic about their struggles. People applying for food stamps aren’t enthusiastic about the tough choices they’re forced to make because their food stamp benefit isn’t keeping up with the price of milk. Seniors aren’t enthusiastic about having to take their medicines on an empty stomach,” McGovern said in an April 3 statement on the House floor. “Farm Bill conferees should do the right thing and properly fund the nutrition title. Anything less is shameful,” McGovern scolded.

“Hungry Americans can not wait any longer,” emphasized Vicki Escarra, president and chief executive officer of America’s Second Harvest in an April 4, 2008 news release. “We are seeing absolutely tragic increases nationwide in the number of men, women and children in need of emergency food assistance, many for the first time ever. Meanwhile, more than 1.3 million more people are enrolled in food stamps compared to a year prior. Hungry Americans need a Farm Bill enacted now.”

Harkin stressed that Congressional leadership must intervene in the negotiations in order to complete the Farm Bill. It appears that is happening. On April 9, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointed 49 members of the House, including 32 Democrats and 17 Republicans, as Farm Bill conferees. The appointees were drawn from the Agriculture Committee and 11 other committees with jurisdicton beyond the Agriculture Committee. “The Members serving on this conference committee have a challenging job as we work to come to an agreement that will move the Farm Bill forward,” said Chairman Peterson. “I’m confident that if everyone comes to the table willing to negotiate and compromise, we can pass a new Farm Bill.”

Appropriations Progressing on Several Fronts

Federal funding for food and nutrition assistance programs this year and next remains in a state of flux, as Congress attempts to address potential program shortfalls due to caseload increases and rampant food price inflation that is eating away at program resources. Actions currently pending in the Congress include a fiscal year 2008 supplemental appropriation to shore up program funding, completion of a fiscal year 2009 budget resolution to set spending parameters for next year, and a second economic stimulus package to jump-start an economy that appears headed for recession.

Rising food costs have already negatively affected nutrition programs and could do more damage unless adjustments are made. For example, the additional $815 million provided to the WIC Program in fiscal year 2008 is now predicted to be at least $150 million short of funds needed to avoid caseload reductions later this year. An extra $33 million provided this year to the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) that supporters hoped would be targeted to initiate new programs in five states, has been absorbed by ongoing operations impacted by food price increases.

A fiscal 2008 supplemental appropriations bill is presently being considered to provide more money for WIC and other needed services. More economic stimulus measures, beyond the tax rebate already approved, could be piggybacked onto the supplemental bill. Candidates for a “Stimulus II” package could include a temporary increase in food stamp allotments and additional money for The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), along with an extension of unemployment benefits and more money for home energy assistance.

Meanwhile, on a separate track, Congress has begun the fiscal year 2009 appropriations process. Both the House and Senate passed budget resolutions last month to outline spending priorities and a conference committee has been formed to iron out the differences between the two chambers. Simultaneously, appropriations committees are holding hearings on next year’s budgetary needs.

Although the usual appropriations process has been initiated, it is uncertain how Congress will ultimately finalize next year’s spending plans. Because this is an election year, legislators will want to adjourn the current session by early October in order to hit the campaign trail. Postponing spending decisions until year-end is unlikely, although Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, increasingly confident of election year victories, may opt to delay spending directives until a new Administration takes office in January 2009.

Millions for Commodities Unspent

While millions of hungry Americans besiege food banks and food pantries across the country with requests for emergency assistance, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) returned $81 million in fiscal year 2007 funds to the Treasury that could have been spent to purchase bonus commodities, according to a recent report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

The money in question was allocated to Section 32, a permanent appropriation that since 1935 has earmarked the equivalent of 30 percent of annual customs receipts to support agriculture activities and the farm sector, including child nutrition and emergency food programs. By statute, Section 32 funds are to be used only for: (1) encouraging the export of farm products through producer payments or other means; (2) encouraging the domestic consumption of farm products by diverting surpluses from normal channels or increasing their use by low-income groups; and (3) reestablishing farmers’ purchasing power.

Under the second purpose, USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) purchases surplus commodities – everything from grapefruit juice to bison meat – for domestic food assistance programs, such as the School Lunch Program, The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP). These surplus or “bonus” buys have been a mainstay of emergency food providers nationwide for the last decade, although declining supplies in the past four or five years have significantly reduced government foodstuffs provided to the poor.

Instead, USDA policy under President Bush seems to be favoring the third purpose of the law – reestablishing farmers’ purchasing power. Section 32 has been used in recent years for disaster initiatives and other purposes, such as compensating livestock owners for animals lost in the droughts of 2001-2002, helping Florida citrus growers replace trees lost in hurricanes and freezes, and supporting AMS administrative expenses for direct food purchasing, including the establishment of a new computer system.

AMS officials told Foodlinks America that the agency has considerable discretion under Section 32 and is under no obligation to spend the funds just because they are available. They noted that any bonus purchases must be economically and legislatively justified and approved by the Secretary of the Department. Nonetheless, with USDA proactively implementing initiatives such as bartering excess commodities (see Foodlinks America of September 14, 2007 and March 14, 2008) in order to try to pump more product into the emergency food system, it is curious that available funds went unused.

CRS noted that “AMS had a potential ‘carryout,’ or unobligated balance, of $581 million at the end of the [2007 fiscal] year. However, the Section 32 law permits no more than $500 million to be carried into the subsequent fiscal year. So AMS returned the excess, or $81 million, to the U.S. Treasury.”

State commodity distribution agencies were concerned and perplexed by USDA’s failure to utilize all available funds to address growing hunger needs. “Our EFOs [Emergency Feeding Organizations] have seen on average a 20 to 40 percent increase in demand mainly due to high energy costs this winter,” said Randy Mraz, emergency food assistance director for the Maine Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources. “Our food supply is at a five-year low. It is unfortunate that the USDA chose not to use available funds to bolster the supplies for the emergency feeding networks,” he added.

Skyrocketing Food Prices Contribute to Hunger Woes

The rapidly rising cost of groceries is severely squeezing the budgets of low-income American households. Even for families receiving food stamps and other nutrition assistance, prices are increasing faster than benefits, sending numerous households to emergency food sources such as food banks and food pantries to try and cover the difference.

Officially, according to the federal government, the cost of food at home rose 5.1 percent between February 2007 and February 2008. But double-digit increases on many staple items generated consumer concern. During the same time period, bread prices rose by 12 percent, rice and pasta by 13 percent, cheese by 15 percent, milk by 17 percent, and eggs by 25 percent.

As a result, low-income families are facing difficult choices. “In a crunch, for many households food costs are the main area where they choose to cut back on spending, albeit at a price to their health,” noted the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) in its recent issue paper entitled The Impact of Rising Food Costs on Low-Income Americans. “Bills for rent or mortgage, child care and transportation to work must be paid, as well as heating costs and the water bill. Cutting back on groceries, as painful as it may be, can seem like the only choice to make.”

FRAC also explained that food stamp households are particularly disadvantaged in regard to increasing food prices. The cost of the “Thrifty Food Plan,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s basis for food stamp allotments, rose 6.3 percent between February of last year and February 2008, more than a full percentage point higher than overall food price increases. Though food stamp benefits are indexed for inflation, they are adjusted only once a year – in October – and are perpetually behind actual food costs.

For low-income people, there is little relief in sight. “Increasing food costs may prove to be a greater problem for families than soaring oil prices,” FRAC observed. “The average household spends three times as much for food as for gasoline, with food accounting for 13 percent of household spending compared to four percent for gas.” To view the FRAC paper, go to: http://www.frac.org/pdf/factsheet_foodcosts_apr08.pdf.

School Food News and Notes

Eligibility guidelines updated: The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has published updated income eligibility guidelines for use in child nutrition programs during the upcoming school year. Annual inflation adjustments to the income guidelines for free and reduced price meals for the period of July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009 appear in the April 9, 2008 Federal Register. The new eligibility levels affect the School Lunch, School Breakfast, Child and Adult Care Food, Summer Food Service, and Special Milk Programs. For details, go to: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/pdf/E8-7475.pdf.

Privatization may not be advantageous: Michigan schools that utilize private food service companies to prepare their meals may not be saving much money and may actually be hindering learning opportunities for their students, according to recent research results from the University of Michigan. Investigations by Roland Zullo of the University’s Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations found that while public schools that privatize their food operations save about 15 percent on labor and four percent on food, they end up spending 11 percent more on contractor fees and four percent more for supplies. Zullo also found that private food services tend to offer more foods with high fat and sugar content in their a la carte menus.

Moreover, Zullo noted that districts with private food services have more crowded classrooms – an average of 1.1 more children per teacher – and student scores that are one to three percent lower on the standardized Michigan Educational Assessment Program test. “While I hesitate to conclude that privatization increases class sizes, the results do not indicate that privatizing food services liberates resources for the classroom,” Zullo said. To learn more, see: http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=6422.

Comments sought on suppers: Proposed rules for the reimbursement of afterschool meals – normally suppers – served to at-risk children under the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) were issued by USDA in the March 27, 2008 Federal Register. Eight states – DE, IL, MI, MO, NY, OR, PA, and WV – are currently authorized to serve suppers under the CACFP in a pilot program. Comments are due by May 27, 2008. For details, visit: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/pdf/E8-6235.pdf.

Obesity Round-Up

Sleeping babies stay slim: Infants who fail to get enough sleep are prime candidates for overweight later in childhood, according to a new Harvard University study. Researchers who recorded the sleeping habits of over 900 children ages six months, one year, and two years found that the more sleep babies got, the less likely they were to be overweight at age three. Infants who slept less were twice as likely to be overweight as children who slept more, according to results of the study published in the April 2008 issue of The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

The research results on sleep were also correlated with television viewing. Children who slept less and watched more than two hours of television a day were at the highest risk for childhood obesity. “The two (factors) are acting independently,” said Dr. Elise Taveras, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard, though “In combination, they are particularly risky.”

Taveras said that for parents, what is “Most important is to practice good sleep hygiene techniques.” Those include “No TV in the bedroom, no caffeinated drinks, and so on. Getting a good night’s sleep,” she emphasized, “is not just to be at our best the next day; it’s really to assure good health.” For further information, see the study results at: http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/162/4/305.

Heavy equipment needed: Emergency response teams around the country are finding that they need stronger ambulances and stretchers to accommodate obese patients and prevent injuries to their personnel. Many Fire Departments are purchasing special gurneys that can carry patients weighing up to 600 pounds, twice the capacity of a normal stretcher. Ambulances that can transport patients weighing up 1,000 pounds are also in demand.

Like many other effects of obesity, however, the heavier equipment comes at a cost. Reinforced stretchers can cost around $4,000, about four times the cost of a regular one. A stronger ambulance may cost $110,000 versus $70,000 for the standard model.

“I think everybody is moving to a stretcher that has a higher weight capacity,” said Jerry Johnston of Iowa, president of the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians. “We have to be able to deal with it and have the equipment to take care of those people appropriately. It’s part of our job. If something collapses, you injure a patient and yourself,” he noted. “We’re in the people business. We’re about taking care of people who get sick and hurt, and we have to be prepared for anything.”

Fatness and mental fitness: Having a big pot belly in middle age increases the risk of dementia in later years, according to new research findings. Overweight and obesity are already known risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes, but this is the first indication of a connection to dementia. And the larger the belly, the higher the risk.

Researchers measured the sagittal abdominal diameter, or S.A.D. (in lay terms, how far a belly protrudes) of more than 6,500 men and women in their 40s from 1964 to 1973 and then examined their records 36 years later. They found more than 1,000 cases of dementia, with those with the highest S.A.D. three times more likely to lose mental capacity than those with the lowest S.A.D. “People should be concerned not only about weight, but about where they carry it,” commented Rachel Whitmer, a researcher at Kaiser Permanente in California and lead author of the study, whose results appeared in the April 8, 2008 issue of the journal Neurology at: http://www.neurology.org/cgi/content/abstract/…resourcetype=HWCIT.

Reports from the Field

Hunger in the U.S. appears to be increasing most poignantly among the working poor, as described in the following excerpts from an article titled, “Blue Collar, Bare Cupboards,” that appeared in the March 26, 2008 issue of the magazine In These Times:

Ten miles outside Eugene in west central Oregon, little wooden houses and mobile homes make up the town of Alvadore. The homes are too far apart to give the town – population 1,358 – the appearance of a city, yet too close together for it to come off as true countryside. Old, domestically manufactured cars line the streets, as well as a few rundown mom-and-pop convenience stores.

Small farmers, mill workers and construction people live here. And they work hard – or at least they do when they can get employment. There’s a dry nuts and prunes plant just outside town, as well as a Country Coach facility that manufactures motor homes. Many of the residents hold down several jobs to make ends meet. Yet for an increasing number of people in Alvadore, getting a paycheck – or even several paychecks – is not the same as earning enough to put food on the table.

Alvadore, like many dilapidated towns in modern-day America, is at the wrong end of an array of economic changes – from globalization to higher energy costs – and many of its citizens are falling through the social safety net. The result: increased hunger.

Many of the town’s residents turn to the corner of 8th and B Streets, where the large wooden Alvadore Christian Church stands. On the fourth Thursday of each month, a sign is staked in the churchyard: Food Pantry. During the winter months, around 40 families show up to receive bread, muffins, applesauce, canned soups, canned vegetables and other staples. In the summers the number of families served increases.

In one corner of the church is a table of food provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The rest – the vast majority – comes from donations by the local community. It’s a model that works during flush times, but it isn’t a particularly effective way of feeding the hungry during down times, when more people are struggling to make ends meet and fewer are able to donate food to charity.

Becky Darnall, 34, volunteers at the pantry and also relies on the food boxes from it. She says that when the pantry first opened two years ago, “we had 26-to-28 families. Within the last six months, it’s gone up to 40.” Becky’s husband is a cook at a restaurant in nearby Springfield. In 2006, he earned $24,000. Last year, $27,000. This year, with a pay raise, he hopes to earn $30,000. As for Becky, she works part time as house-help for one of her neighbors, which brings in $8 an hour.

They have three kids, are raising a nephew, and are living in a 30-year-old mobile home with a leaky roof and dubious electrical wiring. They drive an old Chevy Blazer with a malfunctioning engine that they cannot afford to repair, and that reduces the vehicle’s fuel efficiency to a ludicrous – and prohibitively expensive – seven miles per gallon. Becky’s husband spends $15 per day just driving to and from work.

Until this year, the family was unable to afford co-payments on the health insurance offered through her husband’s work. As a result, the Darnalls were saddled with $1,000 in emergency room bills when Becky came down with asthmatic bronchitis last year. The bills got sent to a collection agency, and the family is now struggling to pay them off. This past November, Becky’s husband needed an MRI, which landed the family with an additional $1,200 to pay off.

“We can get by,” Becky says cautiously, “but the difference between volunteering [at the church] and not is vegetable soup with macaroni thrown in.” Before she started coming to the pantry, she says her family jumped through hoops to qualify for food stamps, and still ended up with hardly enough food to survive. “There were a few times it was really tight. But we got by.”

At first, Becky says, they borrowed from friends. Then they started borrowing against their future income. “The payday loan thing, which is a nightmare,” she says, referring to the practice many low-income Americans have resorted to in recent years of borrowing against their paychecks in order to make it through the last days of the pay period. It’s an exploitative – and usurious – financial trap that, over the years, has contributed to the economic crippling of America’s poor. “It took us almost a year to get out of it,” Becky acknowledges.

The Darnalls have been married 17 years, but only in the last year have they had to decide, month to month, which bills to pay and which services will get shut off. “And my husband’s worked the whole time,” Becky says. “We didn’t sit back and live off the system.”

Across America, close to 40 million people are listed as being “food insecure,” according to the USDA. That means that even if they don’t actually go hungry, they constantly worry about how to put food on the table. The Darnalls fit this category. And they are the lucky ones. Of the nearly 40 million who fear going hungry, an estimated 11 million-plus Americans occasionally miss meals, according to the USDA. They include many adults in a family who sacrifice their own portions to ensure their children are fed.

Americans who cannot afford to stock their houses with food are now classified as experiencing “very low food security.” In the decades since the Great Depression of the 1930s, this category would have been made up largely of the long-term unemployed, the homeless, perhaps the mentally ill and other marginalized groups. These days, however, increasingly it is the working poor – whose wages have stagnated, whose cost of living has gone up with higher gas, food and healthcare expenses, and whose time is now spent standing in line at food banks.

Over the past decade, the percentage of food bank clients in Oregon who are members of a family with at least one person employed has gone from 30 percent to 47 percent – an increase that translates into tens of thousands of Oregon families.

“For a lot of folks, the emergency food box system was set up to respond to family emergencies,” says Ryan McCambridge of the Linn-Benton County Food Share in Corvallis. “Over the last eight to nine years, instead of emergencies, people are relying on food boxes to a greater extent. It’s really becoming a supplement to incomes. The biggest demographic is folks who have jobs and can’t make enough to make ends meet.”

Small Bites

Filling up on flour: Foods made from wheat flour account for about 20 percent of the calories in the American diet, with bread accounting for nine percent, cakes and pastries six percent, pasta three percent, and crackers, pretzels, and other items, two percent.

Growing on grains: Wheat contributes an estimated 768 calories a day to America’s per capita food supply, with corn adding 554 calories, soy another 257 calories, and rice 91.

Carnivorous nation: Annual per capita meat consumption in the U.S. today is 102 pounds of chicken, 98 pounds of beef, 67 pounds of pork, 17 pounds of turkey, and three pounds of lamb.

Animal sacrifice I: 96 million hogs are slaughtered annually in the U.S. to meet Americans’ desire for pork, ham, and bacon.

Animal sacrifice II: 35 million cattle are processed annually to satisfy Americans’ appetite for steak, hamburger, and taco meat.

Animal sacrifice III: Eight billion chickens are killed annually in the U.S. to provide 43 billion pounds of chicken breasts, wings, and nuggets.

mvauthier :: Apr.10.2008 :: Foodlinks America :: No Comments »

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