TEFAP Alliance Blog

April 2005

In This Issue:
• Nutrition Cuts Possible for 2006 Budget
• Dry Milk Supplies Dry Up
• Fiscal Year 2005 State Allocations Finalized
• Bonus Buys Continuing
• Views from the Field
**********
Nutrition Cuts Possible for 2006 Budget
Congressional action on a budget for fiscal year 2006 appears stalled, but it is beginning to appear likely that food and nutrition assistance programs will take a hit if and when a budget resolution is finalized. Congress has met its own self-imposed April 15 deadline for a budget resolution only six times in the past 30 years.
Last month, the House voted to reduce Agriculture Department spending by $5.3 billion next year, while the Senate approved cuts at a $2.8 billion level. House and Senate conferees may meet soon to decide on a final figure and give general direction, in a process known as reconciliation, on where to reduce the spending. The Senate has appointed its conferees, but House negotiators have yet to be named. Senate budget conferees are: Gregg (R-NH); Allard (R-CO); Domenici (R-NM); Grassley (R-IA); Conrad (D-ND); Murray (D-WA); and Sarbanes (D-MD).
Leaders of House and Senate Agriculture Committees who will need to provide the specifics on how to achieve budget-mandated savings are Southern Republicans who are trying to protect commodity program payments for their constituents and have been hinting that nutrition and conservation programs are more likely targets for the cuts.
Though the President’s budget proposed to reduce food stamp spending by $57 million next year, Administration representatives are finding that nutrition cuts are not popular among the public. “It’s a very tough sell to say we’re going to get out there and cut food programs for the most needy Americans,” Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns told the press on April 9.
At this point, it is probable that funding for TEFAP food purchases, which is in an entitlement account under the food stamp budget, will be spared any cuts. However, support for TEFAP storage and distribution costs, which are in the discretionary portion of the Agriculture budget, are vulnerable to across-the-board reductions, like those experienced the past two years.

Dry Milk Supplies Dry Up
Since 1999, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has had unlimited supplies of non-fat dry milk (NDM) available as bonus for TEFAP, other commodity programs, and child nutrition programs under USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS). There was, at one point, a 1.4 billion pound surplus of NDM. However, within the past 12 months, USDA has distributed more than one billion pounds of milk and all remaining stocks are committed.
In addition, the Farm Service Agency (FSA), the arm of USDA that purchases surplus dairy products, reports that it is currently buying only nominal amounts of NDM because the markets have not behaved as predicted and the value of the dollar has dropped relative to the Euro. As recently as 2004, FSA was often buying more than 20 million pounds of NDM per week; however, FSA has only bought a total of 32 million pounds during the past five months. “We’re running out [of NDM],” stated FNS officials recently. As a result, NDM will no longer be a bonus item in TEFAP.
However, a small portion of the remaining NDM inventory has been reserved for FSA’s National Non-profit Humanitarian Initiative (NNHI), and 10 million pounds will be processed into Ultra-High-Temperature (UHT), shelf-stable liquid milk for TEFAP. Under the NNHI, non-profits may use a portion of their NDM share to be converted into various end products by designated vendors. Potential end products could include puddings, soups, UHT milk, and energy bars.

Fiscal Year 2005 State Allocations Finalized
In the current fiscal year, states were offered up to $59.6 million for TEFAP storage and distribution expenses – $49.6 million in appropriated funds and $10 million that could be converted from food dollars. FNS allocates these funds on a statutory formula based upon updated poverty and unemployment figures. For fiscal year 2005, six states (IN, KS, MN, NH, RI, and SD) and the District of Columbia saw their share increase by at least five percent, while five states (GA, HI, OK, VT, and WY) and Puerto Rico saw their allotment decrease by five percent or more. Overall, 30 jurisdictions experienced increases and 25 endured decreases.
As reported earlier, nine states kept their commodity amounts intact, choosing not to convert food funds to storage and distribution. That number is up from five in fiscal year 2004. FNS officials expect the conversion option to be available again in fiscal year 2006, once Congress finalizes appropriations.

Bonus Buys Continuing
USDA staff announced earlier this month that, thus far in fiscal year 2005, the Department had purchased 81 million pounds of bonus items for TEFAP worth $78 million. Among the 10 bonus products are dried cranberries, fresh sweet potatoes, and pudding. On April 18, apples and apple products were added to the list. USDA announced that it would purchase 78 million pounds of fresh apples, canned and frozen apple slices, apple juice, and applesauce. The apple products will be provided to child nutrition and commodity distribution programs, including TEFAP.
Another potential bonus item in the near future may be potatoes. “Nationally and locally, we could easily have over 12 million hundredweight excess potatoes,” Jerry Wright, president of United Fresh Potato Growers of Idaho told the Twin Falls Times-News on April 9, 2005. He urged a buy-out program to encourage potato farmers to reduce their plantings.

Views from the Field
There has been a lot of buzz about potential cuts to nutrition programs in the fiscal year 2006 budget. Here are some examples:
·From an editorial in the March 15,2005 Billings Gazette in Montana: “It’s unconscionable that [Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Saxby] Chambliss is suggesting cuts in food stamps and the school lunch program as a substitute for limiting subsidies to the biggest ag operations.”
“Suppose Chambliss and other champions of rich Southern cotton growers succeed in cutting food stamps. They would deliver the pared-down USDA budget Bush wants. But they wouldn’t save money. Impoverished people would have to rely more on local food banks and charities. Their other alternative would be to eat less. The food stamp ‘savings’ would mean more hunger in America and a greater burden on local community agencies.”
·“After weeks of posturing about a single feeding tube, Congress can now get back to what it really wants to do: Cutting back on feeding people,” David Sarasohn, an assistant editor of The Oregonian wrote on April 1, 2005. “After arguing about whether a feeding tube was actually medical treatment,” he continued, “House leaders are preparing to resolve the issue by cutting back on both nutrition and Medicaid.” Sarasohn went on to quote hunger numbers in his state before concluding, “We now return to our regularly scheduled congressional messages on the vital importance of compassion toward the most vulnerable among us…”
·“The people we serve are out on a limb, and the limb is going to get cut off,” said Adele LaTourette, director of the Statewide Emergency Food and Anti-Hunger Network at a statewide roundtable on hunger in New Jersey on March 29, 2005. Emergency food there is already in short supply. “Sometimes there is just pasta and beans left by the end of the month,” noted Sharon Reilly-Tobin, director of Catholic Charities Emergency Food and Nutrition Network. “We don’t have juice and fresh vegetables. They get powdered milk.”
·“It’s a desperate thing. Every level of government seems to have the same mantra, that these programs are vulnerable. We’re bracing that all three levels of government are coming down at the same time,” Reverend Bill Greenlaw, director of charitable activities at the Church of the Holy Apostles in New York City was quoted as saying in The New York Times on April 8, 2005. Holy Apostles is one of the largest among the City’s 1,300 community kitchens and food pantries – more than 70 percent of them faith-based – that regularly help one million low-income New Yorkers.
“We’re faith-based by the old rules, not the new ones,” commented Father Greenlaw. “We’ll be feeding more guests unless and until society decides we don’t have to tolerate a huge underclass in our cities.” To accomplish the task, Holy Apostles has prioritized feeding people over proselytizing. Dining tables now fill the church where pews used to be.

___________
Foodlinks America is published 24 times a year by California Emergency Foodlink and distributed by Weinberg & Vauthier Consulting, 6412 CR 116, Burnet, Texas 78611; Zy Weinberg and Barbara Vauthier, Editors; email: bvauthier@281.com.

Washington Update
Monday, April 25, 2005

mvauthier :: Apr.25.2005 :: Washington Update :: No Comments »:: Print This Post

Trackback this post | Feed on Comments to this post