TEFAP Alliance Blog

Foodlinks America - March 17, 2006

In this issue:

· Congress Wary of More Budget Cuts in 2007
· CFNP Loss Will Diminish State Anti-Hunger Services
· Food Stamp Briefs
· Farmers’ Market Funds and Resources Offered by USDA
· Innovative CSA Being Tested in Maine
· Child Nutrition Eligibility Guidelines Updated
· Obesity Round-Up
· Reports from the Field
· Small Bites

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.

There is no copyright on Foodlinks America, so the information can be freely shared with colleagues and friends, though attribution for reprinted articles is appreciated. To receive the newsletter directly, contact Barbara Vauthier at: bvauthier@281.com.

Congress Wary of More Budget Cuts in 2007

The annual budget process is underway in Congress, with the Senate completing work on a Budget Resolution for fiscal year 2007 on March 16, 2006 after a week-long debate. The final budget plan diverges significantly from President Bush’s proposed budget unveiled last month. Floor amendments added $16 billion in additional spending for social, low-income energy, and job safety programs above the Administration’s proposed ceiling.

Throughout the budget process in the Senate, there was little enthusiasm, even among Republicans, for further cuts in domestic program budgets, with key members of Congress rejecting President Bush’s call for more reductions in Medicare and other benefit programs.

Less than two months have passed since Congress narrowly approved (by two votes in the House and a tie-breaking vote in the Senate) a budget reconciliation bill that cut entitlement programs by nearly $40 billion over the next five years. In spite of a burgeoning federal deficit that will increase by over $1.2 trillion in the next 10 years if the President’s plan is enacted, members are hesitant to trim spending any further.

Leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee petitioned their Budget Committee counterparts to spare their programs from any future cuts. “We respectfully request that the FY07 Budget Resolution not require a new round of reductions in Agriculture Committee mandatory spending programs this year,” stated chairman Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and ranking Democrat Tom Harkin (D-IA) in a March 2, 2006 letter to the budget panel. “We strongly believe it is simply not realistic, substantively or politically, to expect additional reductions from these mandatory spending programs this year.”

Chambliss and Harkin also sought to protect nutrition assistance and discretionary programs under the Committee’s purview. “Protecting Food Stamps from spending cuts was a decision that received broad bipartisan support in the Senate last year, and that sentiment enjoys the same broad bipartisan support this year,” they noted. “We also ask that the FY07 Budget Resolution provide for adequate discretionary spending for the important programs within our Committee’s jurisdiction that rely on annual appropriations.”

Even a central congressional figure in the budget planning, Judd Gregg (R-NH), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said that although he was committed to holding down spending, he could not rule out cuts in military appropriations. “The White House has approached budgeting as if they are running two sets of books: One for the general government and one for national defense,” said Gregg. “And the one for general government is subject to severe budget restraint and the one for national defense is subject to absolutely no restraint.”

Gregg garnered little support this year in devising a second budget-cutting bill. “I went to the chairmen of the committees which were responsible for reconciliation and all of them felt that in this climate it would be very difficult for them to do that,” Gregg noted. Consequently, he termed the process of developing a non-binding 2007 Budget Resolution a “vanilla exercise” that ignores most of the President’s controversial cuts in this election year.

On the Senate floor, Iowa’s Harkin also successfully teamed up with Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), chair of the Labor-Health and Human Services-Education Appropriations Subcommittee, to add $7 billion in funding for discretionary programs under their jurisdiction, such as Head Start, meals on wheels, and the Community Food and Nutrition Program. “Health and education are the two major capital assets of this country,” said Specter. His colleagues generally agreed with him and approved the additional spending by a vote of 73 to 27. However, the final vote on the overall Budget Resolution was close, with the bill passing by a 51-49 vote.

CFNP Loss Will Diminish State Anti-Hunger Services

Anti-hunger groups around the country are facing a more than $7 million shortfall in general support this year due to the termination of the Community Food and Nutrition Program (CFNP). For more than 30 years, CFNP has provided a core of flexible funds that states and localities have used to provide nutrition education, outreach, and advocacy for low-income communities. The program, which received over $7.2 million in fiscal year 2005, was not funded by Congress in fiscal year 2006.

Nearly 60 percent of CFNP funds were allocated to states using a federal anti-poverty formula, with the remaining funds offered to public and private non-profit groups annually in a national discretionary competition. State formula monies are generally distributed on a state fiscal year basis in the fiscal year after the federal funds are released. Consequently, most CFNP state formula grantees are currently funded through the summer of 2006. But dislocations are imminent.

In Texas, CFNP funds support the Texas Association of Community Action Agencies (TACAA) in operating the Share Our Surplus (SOS) food recovery hotline that received and distributed over three million pounds of fresh produce last year, in addition to the Hunters for the Hungry program, a wild game donation effort that provided 715,000 servings of meat to hungry Texas in 2005. TACAA also uses CFNP funds for Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) assistance, a hunger relief hotline, and a monthly newsletter.

“Texas now has the dubious distinction of having the highest rate of food insecurity in the nation,” said Pam Robers, TACAA’s manager of hunger relief programs. “The void in services from CFNP funding being eliminated will not be easily filled, and TACAA does not have alternative funding at this time” to continue these vital activities.

In Utah, the relatively small CFNP allocation of just over $25,000 has helped Utahns Against Hunger increase participation in the SFSP, provide community education on gardening, and offer program outreach through the NEED FOOD HELP brochure, published in English and Spanish in 15 regional editions around the state.

In Wisconsin, CFNP has supported the development of an on-line statewide eligibility guide to 20 federal nutrition and related programs called “Wisconsin Connections.” The guide is the product of an ongoing collaboration between the Wisconsin Community Action Program Association (WISCAP) and the University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension. WISCAP’s CFNP project also provides an Internet-based resource guide for food pantries, and support for a statewide Food Security Consortium.

“Without CFNP funding, there will be a loss of state-level support — coordination, resources, food, and funding — for emergency food providers which will adversely impact food pantry clients,” WISCAP food security director Jonathan Bader told Foodlinks America, “CFNP provides irreplaceable, flexible funding to states to target a variety of hunger issues, particularly at the level of statewide coordination between public and private programs and outreach. There is no other source of federal funds to fill that gap,” Bader added.

Food Stamp Briefs

· Numbers drop post hurricane assistance: National participation in the Food Stamp Program (FSP) dropped in December 2005 by some 2.9 million people, after disaster relief and eligibility for many persons affected by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma peaked in November. Nonetheless, about 1.2 million more people were receiving food stamps in December 2005 than a year earlier.

· Food stamp outreach applications invited: The U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued a request for applications (RFA) for food stamp participation grants for fiscal year 2006. Up to $5 million is available for projects that, in partnership with state agencies, simplify the food stamp application process and eligibility systems or improve access to benefits for eligible households. Proposals are due by June 7, 2006. For more details, see the RFA at: http://www.fns.usda.gov/fsp/government/grants/2006-RFA.pdf.

Farmers’ Market Funds and Resources Offered by USDA

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced the availability of approximately $1 million in competitive grants to expand opportunities for direct producer-to-consumer marketing under the Farmers’ Market Promotion Program (FMPP). The FMPP was authorized in the 2002 Farm Bill, but did not receive funding until this year.

Agricultural cooperatives, local governments, non-profit, public benefit, and economic development corporations, regional farmers’ market authorities, and Tribal governments are eligible to apply for projects of up to $75,000 to help improve and expand domestic farmers’ markets, roadside stands, community supported agriculture programs, and other direct marketing mechanisms. FMPP applications are due by May 1, 2006.

USDA has also released a Farmers’ Market Resource Guide, which lists grant opportunities, programs, and other financial and information resources available from public and private organizations that aid in farmers’ market development. The Guide contains information on more than 100 projects and grant sources available to help start or improve farmers’ markets.

To review the Farmers’ Market Resource Guide, go to: http://www.ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets/Consortium/ResourceGuide.htm. Additional information on FMPP funding may be found at: http://www.ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets/FMPP/FMPPInfo.htm.

Innovative CSA Being Tested in Maine

A new method of helping low-income and other members of the community increase their access to fresh produce is emerging in Portland, Maine. Cultivating Community, a grass-roots non-profit engaged in youth development and sustainable agriculture, is implementing what it believes to be the first barter-based community supported agriculture (CSA) project in the nation.

In a standard CSA, consumers make a cash payment to a farmer at the beginning of the season for a weekly share of fresh produce. But in the Cultivating Community model, payments can be made to the farmer in Time Dollars instead.

Cultivating Community is partnering in the project with New England Time Banks (NETB), which operates a network of Time Dollar exchange programs allowing people to earn a sort of local currency by providing services to others. Time Dollar programs reject the charity approach of “You need me” and work instead to create reciprocal, mutually supportive exchanges in the community that foster a “We need each other” attitude. People earn Time Dollars by offering their services (babysitting, income tax preparation, driving a person to the grocery store, etc.) to the community in any way they choose.

“The currency is whatever skills and services people have to offer,” Craig Lapine, Cultivating Community’s executive director, told Foodlinks America. “Everybody has something to offer.”

The barter-based CSA idea was developed by Cultivating Community staff and youth gardeners who wanted to help get more food into low-income neighborhoods. “They wanted the food to have value, not just be a giveaway,” according to Lapine. Barter-based CSA members will be enrolled in the NETB if they have not already joined. They can then earn Time Dollars and redeem them anywhere else in the network – for example as a Cultivating Community CSA share. The NETB works like a bank, tracking and issuing monthly statements of Time Dollars earned and spent by its members.

Cultivating Community successfully piloted the concept last summer with 17 families, utilizing its urban gardens. In 2006, the organization has recruited an additional farmer in order to expand the CSA and offer more units for people living alone, couples, and larger households. Lapine hopes the effort will help cement relationships between the mostly white, middle class membership of Cultivating Community and the low-income immigrants in public housing served by the organization. Within two years, Cultivating Community hopes to be running a full-fledged, five-acre CSA that is supported half by shares paid in cash and half through the barter system.

“Hunger and access to high-quality produce for low-income people are major community needs we have identified,” said Lapine. “The barter-based CSA represents a strategy for strengthening our community and ensuring access to high-quality locally grown food over the long term while easing hunger in the short term.”

To learn more, contact Craig Lapine at clapine@cultivatingcommunity.us.

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Foodlinks America wants to write about innovative approaches that increase food security and develop communities. Tell us about efforts that work. Email: bvauthier@281.com.

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Child Nutrition Eligibility Guidelines Updated

The U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has issued its annual adjustments to the income eligibility guidelines used in determining eligibility for free and reduced price meals in child nutrition programs. The new guidelines, effective July 1, 2006 to June 30, 2007, are used by schools, institutions, and facilities participating in the National School Lunch, School Breakfast, Child and Adult Care Food, and Summer Food Service Programs. The adjustments reflect a 3.36 percent increase in the cost of living compared to last year’s level for a family of four.

The updated guidelines were published in the March 15, 2006 Federal Register at: http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20061800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2006/pdf/06-2476.pdf.

USDA also released, in the March 16, 2006 Federal Register, revised and updated income eligibility guidelines for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC Program). The new levels, which take effect on July 1, 2006, may be viewed at:
http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20061800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2006/pdf/06-2526.pdf

Obesity Round-Up

o Obesity worse than terrorism: America’s obesity epidemic may be worse for U.S. society than terrorism, a key federal official believes. “Obesity is the terror within,” said U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona in a lecture at the University of South Carolina on March 1, 2006. “Unless we do something about it, the magnitude of the dilemma will dwarf 9-11 or any other terrorist attempt.”

“Where will our soldiers and sailors and airmen come from,” asked Carmona. “Where will our policemen and firemen come from if the youngsters today are on a trajectory that says they will be obese, laden with cardiovascular disease, increased cancers, and a host of other diseases when they reach adulthood?”

Carmona stated that too many Americans are health illiterate and do not understand medical terms and instructions from their doctors. However, the Surgeon General reportedly offered few specific public policy solutions on obesity, explaining common-sense health decisions cannot be legislated.

o It’s a bigger world: Scientists report that the number of overweight children in the world will grow significantly by the end of this decade, with resultant impacts on health care, national economies, and other issues. By 2010, nearly half of all children in North and South America will be overweight and an estimated 38 percent of children in the European Union will be, too. Significant increases are also expected in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, and Egypt.

“We have a truly global epidemic, which appears to be affecting most countries in the world,” said Dr. Philip James, chair of the International Obesity Task Force and author of an editorial addressing a new study published in the International Journal of Pediatric Obesity. “They are being bombarded like they are in the West to eat all the wrong foods. The Western world’s food industries, without even realizing it, have precipitated an epidemic with enormous health consequences,” James said.

“This is going to be the first generation that’s going to have a lower life expectancy than their parents,” noted Dr. Philip Thomas, a Manchester, England surgeon who works with obese patients, in commenting on the study. “It’s like the plague is in town and no one is interested.”

o Sugary sodas linked to teenage weight gain: Additional evidence has been provided that drinking sugar-sweetened sodas can lead to obesity in teens, according to researchers testing outcomes of teenagers who agreed to forego sweetened beverages for 25 weeks versus those who kept on guzzling them. The study group was provided all the waters, diet drinks, and other unsweetened drinks they wanted. The results, published in the March 2006 issue of Pediatrics magazine, found that the teens who had been the most overweight had significant reductions in their body mass index at the end of the test period.

Adolescents are challenged to avoid sugared soft drinks, said Dr. David Ludwig of Children’s Hospital Boston, the lead researcher on the study, because “They’re basically everywhere – schools, cafeterias, vending machines around town.” Teen subjects in the study were urged to “Think before you drink.” To learn more about the study results, go to: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/117/3/673.

o Maybe they are thinking: Sales of soda in the U.S. during 2005 dropped for the first time in 20 years, according to figures released by Beverage Digest, an industry trade publication, on March 8, 2006. Total sales were down 0.7 percent, to 10.2 billion cases. Among standard cola brands, sales of Coca-Cola Classic were down two percent and sales of original Pepsi were off 3.2 percent.

Though soft drinks are still the nation’s most popular beverage, their market share is losing ground to bottled water, sports drinks, and energy drinks. Sixty-four percent of the growth in bottled water sales has been fueled by people switching from soda. “Traditional carbonated soft drinks have got a tough road ahead,” commented John Sicher, publisher of Beverage Digest. “The migration to water and sports drinks and other non-carbonated drinks seems to be permanent.”
Reports from the Field
· Hunger is rampant in New York City, according to local reports, and on February 19, 2006, the New York Daily News ran an editorial urging residents to help “put an end to hunger in our city,” citing local experts on the problem:
“When every fifth child in New York City lives in a home that doesn’t have enough food, it is clear that New York City is facing a hunger crisis,” Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, was quoted as saying. “You could fill Yankee Stadium more than seven times with these children. Such numbers should be a wakeup call for government leaders, business executives and average residents alike.”
“Given that it would take more than three quarters of a billion dollars to entirely end hunger and food insecurity in New York City,” said Berg, “it is clear that we cannot solve this problem simply by increasing food drives and expanding charitable donations.”
New York has the dubious honor of being the only city in the U.S. with more than 1 million inhabitants where poverty went up in 2004, the last year for which Census figures are available. Not very encouraging.
· Hunger is rampant in Idaho, according to a story in the Idaho State Journal in Pocatello that ran on February 24, 2006:
More than 14 percent of Idahoans are uncertain about where their next meal is coming from, according to a report released Thursday, making Idaho the eighth hungriest state.
Bannock County Commissioner Larry Ghan, Pocatello City Councilman Roger Bray and Chubbuck Mayor Steven England joined Roy Lacey, manager of the Pocatello and Lewiston Food Banks, at a press conference where the Food Bank’s Hunger in America 2006 Idaho Report was released.
Bray said there is not only a need to resolve the immediate issues but to find resolutions to the causes as well.
“Not only are we called to action to get these people out of the river before they go over the waterfall, but we need to find why they are falling in to begin with,” Bray said.
Nearly 90,000 people were served by Idaho Food Bank and its partners in 2005. Lacey said the Idaho Food Bank has always known those using its services have been growing.
They just haven’t had the concrete numbers to show just how much it’s growing and who is going hungry.
“Idaho has never been included in this study because it costs money,” Lacey said. “We decided this year we need to participate to put a face on who we serve.”
The report breaks down those being serviced by the Food Bank by age, income, education, household size, among other data. Lacey is concerned about much of the data he saw in today’s report.
“The results that came out of this report are very discouraging,” Lacey said. “The number of kids who are going hungry at night and the number of people who have to choose between buying food and paying a utility, paying rent or buying medicine is alarmingly high in Idaho.”
Roughly 10 percent of those served by Idaho Food Bank, or 8,905, are children. Of those, 6,500 are “food insecure children that are experiencing hunger,” according to the report.
About 54 percent of those serviced are forced to choose between buying food and paying other living expenses.
“There’s a lot of difference in what most families need and what they are getting,” Lacey said.
Small Bites

Water, water, everywhere: The world’s oceans cover 70.78 percent of the planet.

The liquid diet: One in every five calories in the American diet is liquid. Soda is the single biggest “food.”

Other liquid consumption is down: The average daily intake of milk among white girls aged nine and 10 declined from 352 grams in 1987 to 241 grams ten years later.

Cola on a roll: Those same 9-10 year-old girls downed 135 grams of sweetened carbonated beverages in 1987 and 377 grams ten years later.

A cut above: Sales of fresh-cut produce in the U.S. have increased from $5 billion in 1994 to $12 billion in 2003, the latest year for which numbers are available.

TV dinners in Japan: The Japanese are hooked on cooking programs. An estimated 40 percent of all domestic TV programming in the island nation is about cooking or gourmet food preparation.

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