Foodlinks America - July 31, 2009
Foodlinks America - July 31, 2009
In this issue:
• Upsurge in Child Hunger Pre-Dates Recession
• Appropriations Bills Making Progress
• Proposed Legislation
• SNAP Shots
• Child Nutrition News and Notes
• TEFAP Tidbits
• Reports from the Field – South Burlington, VT
• Small Bites
Foodlinks America is published 24 times a year by California Emergency Foodlink in Sacramento, CA and distributed by Weinberg & Vauthier Consulting, 122 South Main Street, No. 9, 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.
Upsurge in Child Hunger Pre-Dates Recession
Increasing numbers of American children are living in poverty and experiencing food insecurity and hunger, according to both government and private sector reports released in July 2009. Statistics analyzed reflect circumstances in 2007, before the economic downturn gathered steam.
Of the 74 million U.S. children 17 and younger that year, 18 percent were living in poverty, up from 17 percent in 2006, according to America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, a report compiled by a forum of 22 government agencies along with private partners. Moreover, those living in households with “very low food security” – in which parents described children as being hungry, having skipped a meal, or gone without eating the entire day – increased from 0.6 percent in 2006 to 0.9 percent in 2007.
Federal officials expressed concern that the data, some two years old and pre-dating the current recession, portends dark times ahead. “It foreshadows greater changes we’ll see when we look at these figures next year,’ said Duane Alexander, director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, one of the government agencies participating in the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, which is charged with producing annual reports on children’s well-being.
Focusing more on the economic impact of childhood hunger, a national food bank organization said on July 1, 2009 that the hunger problem has direct implications for American taxpayers. “Child hunger is robbing us of the best of America’s imagination and ingenuity,” said Dr. John Cook of Boston Medical Center and he Boston University School of Medicine, who authored a report, Child Food Insecurity: The Economic Impact On Our Nation, for Feeding America. “Sustainable economic recovery depends on freeing children of the burden of hunger and malnutrition and supporting their optimal growth and development,” Cook added.
“The impact of child hunger is more far reaching than one might anticipate,” Cook noted. “Child hunger affects a child’s health, education and job readiness,” he said, problems that can cost society billions of dollars. “The report’s sobering statistics serve as a wake-up call to the price we pay when even one child goes hungry in the United States,” said Chris Kircher, president of the ConAgra Foods Foundation, which provided grant funding for the Feeding America report.
For additional information, see the 216-page federal interagency report at: http://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/ and the 36-page Feeding America document at: http://feedingamerica.org/SiteFiles/child-economy-study.pdf.
Appropriations Bills Making Progress
Congressional actions to finalize fiscal year 2010 spending are still on target for completion prior to the October 1, 2009 start of the new fiscal year, although the press of other business – specifically the lengthy and complex debate over health care – could cause a delay.
The Agriculture appropriations bill (H.R. 2997) passed the House on July 9, 2009 by a vote of 266-160. The bill contains funding of more than $61.3 billion for a growing caseload in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a substantial increase in funding for the WIC Program next year, and modest growth for key commodity programs such as The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP). The legislation was endorsed by the Senate Appropriations Committee on July 6; consideration by the full Senate is expected prior to the August recess.
A bill with fiscal year 2010 appropriations for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), and Education is also proceeding on schedule. H.R. 3293 passed the House on July 24, 2009 and is currently being reviewed in the Senate. The legislation includes a $37 million increase in nutrition services for elderly Americans.
Earlier this summer, in presenting a tentative schedule for consideration of appropriations bills in subcommittee, full committee, and on the floor, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-WI) said, “This schedule would allow the House to complete action on all fiscal year 2010 appropriations bills before the August recess, provided that consideration of other high priority legislation does not intervene.” Thus far, Obey has been successful in pushing his timetable, but the health care overhaul that President Obama hoped to have completed by August appears now to be slipping into the fall.
Proposed Legislation__
Among bills recently introduced in the 111th session of the U.S. Congress are the following:
House Resolution (H.R.) 3144: Introduced by Representative Kathleen Dahlkemper (D-PA) and nine bipartisan co-sponsors, the Healthy Communities Act would promote obesity prevention, proper exercise, and nutrition through a Community Obesity Prevention Program.
H.R. 3227: Introduced by Representative Sander Levin (D-MI) and nine bipartisan co-sponsors, this legislation would amend the Internal Revenue Code to permanently extend and expand the charitable deduction for contributions of food inventory.
H.R. 3241: Introduced by Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), the Access to Books for Children (ABC) Act would provide vouchers for the purchase of educational books for infants and children participating in the WIC Program.
H.R. 3277: Introduced by Representative Gwen Moore (D-WI) and 10 co-sponsors, the Student Breakfast and Education Improvement Act would establish a program to improve the health and education of children through grants to expand the school breakfast program.
Senate (S.) 1480: Introduced by Senator herb Kohl (D-WI) and six co-sponsors, the Student Breakfast and Education Improvement Act would establish a program to improve the health and education of children through grants to expand the school breakfast program.
S. 1500: Introduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), this legislation would amend the school lunch act to prohibit schools that participate in the federal program from serving foods that contain trans fats derived from partially hydrogenated oils.
For bill summary and status information, along with the text of legislation, visit: http://thomas.loc.gov/ and enter the bill number.
SNAP Shots
Participation still on the rise: More than 33.7 million Americans received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits in April 2009, setting another monthly record. Total participation was 33,758,104 that month, an increase of 600,000 over March. Program growth was driven by large increases in Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Washington, Florida, and Vermont.
Telephone deduction policies clarified: For over 30 years, SNAP has allowed a deduction for the cost of telephones in determining a household’s eligibility and benefits. However today, about 20 percent of Americans, including some 30 percent of adults in poverty, have no land-line and use only wireless service. A July 14, 2009 memo from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) details which expenses are deductible as actual telephone expenses and what states must consider in calculating a telephone allowance for SNAP purposes. To learn more, review the USDA memo at: http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/rules/Memo/2009/071409.pdf.
On-line state services catalogued: All states operating SNAP make some application and eligibility information available on their websites, but the extent of such information varies greatly. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) in Washington, D.C. tracks such services and recently updated its listings. CBPP findings show which states offer printable applications, eligibility screening tools, benefit calculators, and policy manuals on-line, among other things. To examine the content of state web pages, go to: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=618.
Child Nutrition News and Notes
Millions still missing summer meals: Only one in six low-income children who gets a school lunch during the regular school year gets fed during the summer when school is not in session, according to an updated analysis released in early July 2009 by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) in Washington, D.C. FRAC’s annual status report, Hunger Doesn’t Take a Vacation, found that in 2008 only 17.3 percent of the 16.8 million eligible low-income children received a meal from the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) or a school nutrition program that operated during the summer months.
The District of Columbia offered substantial coverage, providing meals to some 88.8 percent of its low-income children. However, only four other states – New Mexico, South Carolina, Nevada, and New York – topped the 30 percent mark. In Mississippi, only 4.4 percent of poor children got a summer meal; Oklahoma served just 4.6 percent of its eligible children; and eight other states fell below the 10 percent level. For more details, view the 17-page report at: http://www.frac.org/pdf/summer_report_2009.pdf.
Meal reimbursement rates updated: The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has issued national average payment/maximum reimbursement rates for school lunch and breakfast programs for the period of July 1, 2009 through June 30, 2010. The rates, published in the July 15, 2009 Federal Register at: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-16745.pdf, reflect a 4.23 percent increase for the cost of inflation. A separate notice in the same issue of the Federal Register (http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-16746.pdf) announced that an additional 19.50 cents in donated commodity foods will also be provided to schools for each lunch served, a figure that dropped 1.25 cents from the previous year.
National average payment rates for meals and snacks served in the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), along with administrative reimbursement rates for sponsoring organizations, also appeared in the July 15, 2009 Federal Register at: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-16748.pdf. As in the lunch program, these rates increased 4.23 percent.
School meal participation analyzed: Results of a large national study on school lunch and breakfast participation funded by USDA reached the following conclusions: Although eligible students are very likely to participate in the programs, eligible elementary school students are more likely to participate than are middle or high school students; students who like the taste of the meals are more likely to participate than are students who do not like the taste; and if students now eligible for reduced-price lunches were instead given free lunches, they would participate more than they do now. For further information, see: http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/CCR53/.
Majority of schools offer vegetarian options: Almost two-thirds of school nutrition programs now offer a vegetarian school lunch on a consistent basis, up from 22 percent in 2003, according to the School Nutrition Association (SNA) in Alexandria, VA. There has been a 41.6 percent increase in vegetarian meal options during the past six years, though challenges to serving such meals remain. To learn more, see the SNA news release at: http://www.schoolnutrition.org/Blog.aspx?id=12656&blogid=564.
Study examines school breakfast participation: A USDA-funded study on the determinants of participation in the school breakfast program found that, among third graders in public schools, students are more likely to participate when breakfast is served in the classroom, when time available for breakfast in school is longer, and when they come from lower income or time-constrained households. Additional details may be viewed at: http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/CCR54/.
TEFAP Tidbits
Majority of administrative funds directed to local level: A majority of states and territories operating The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) in fiscal year 2008 opted to pass through most of the federal administrative funds received to local recipient agencies, according to recently-released statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Of the 54 jurisdictions running the program, 37 passed through more than 90 percent of the monies to local entities to help cover the costs of commodity storage and distribution. State percentages and dollar amounts may be viewed at: http://www.fns.usda.gov/fdd/programs/tefap/TEFAP_Admin_Passed_to_RAs.pdf.
Certain SNAP benefits excluded for TEFAP eligibility: Low-income persons participating in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) pilot projects
or work programs should not have their SNAP benefits counted as income when applying for TEFAP. A June 29, 2009 USDA policy memorandum noted that in the five states (Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon, Utah, and Vermont) where some households receive cash allotments in place of regular SNAP benefits or in the two states (Arizona and Oregon) where public assistance recipients are in SNAP work programs, income must be treated differently for TEFAP eligibility purposes. For further information, see the memo at: http://www.fns.usda.gov/fdd/policymemo/pmfd091_CSFP-TEFAP-SNAP.pdf.
Bonus blueberries to be purchased: USDA has announced that it will purchase up to $14.7 million in cultivated blueberry products for distribution through federal nutrition assistance programs, including TEFAP. Additional information may be found at: http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1RD?printable=true&contentidonly=true&contentid=2009/07/0314.xml.
Reports from the Field – South Burlington, VT
If you like good food grown sustainably, the proximity ofan organic farm may be a consideration in your next move, according to the New York Times, which discussed organic farms as the latest “subdivision amenity,” in the following article from the July 1, 2009 issue of the newspaper:
The bewildered Iowan who converted his farm into a ballpark in “Field of Dreams” in 1989 might reverse the move today. From Vermont to central California, developers are creating subdivisions around organic farms to attract buyers. If you plant it, these developers believe, they will buy. Increasingly, subdivisions, usually master-planned developments at which buyers buy home sites or raw land, have been treating farms as an amenity. “There are currently at least 200 projects that include agriculture as a key community component,” said Ed McMahon, a senior fellow with the Urban Land Institute.
In 2001, investors in a stalled project with an agriculture component outside Boise, Idaho, recruited Frank Martin to take over their development. Mr. Martin had been a manager at Prairie Crossing, a subdivision built around a working farm in the Chicago suburb of Grayslake. By 2008, the 1,756-acre Idaho development had repaid a $12 million loan from the financing arm of General Motors; realized a 61 percent premium on the sale of its sites, compared with similar parcels with no farm nearby; and claimed a $2.8 million pretax profit by selling 785 of 800 lots, while keeping 1,000 acres open.
The success of the two developments proved the concept, and like-minded developers around the country are trying it on inactive farmland and even on formerly industrial land. “Open space improves the return for a developer,” Mr. McMahon said. “We have 16,000 subdivisions around golf courses, where developers found they could charge a lot premium of 25 to 50 percent over comparable tract subdivisions. But most people who live on golf courses do not play golf.”
The latest variation on this is blending in working agriculture, Mr. McMahon said. Living with a farm, he noted, can bring a buyer permanent views, wholesome activities for children, access to walking and riding trails and inclusion in an epicurean club.
Here in South Burlington, David Scheuer, a developer, runs a firm called Retrovest that specializes in pedestrian-friendly subdivisions. He is adapting the Prairie Crossing model with a 220-acre project called South Village, where he eventually hopes to sell 334 homes at prices of $200,000 to nearly $700,000. A 16-acre segment of the property, which was not previously used for farming, is now producing lettuce, garlic and other crops, which are harvested for sale to homeowners and others from the area who have joined a local community-supported agriculture group. “Agriculture can be the caboose on the train,” Mr. Scheuer said, “and housing can be the engine.” Once he is selling 20 homes a year, he said, he hopes to pay the salary of a full-time farmer.
At the 220-home Serenbe project near Atlanta’s airport, the cachet of local produce has been added to retiree-friendly businesses, including galleries, a bed-and-breakfast and three restaurants. Steve Nygren, an Atlanta restaurant impresario, started the project on his 900-acre farm. “We preserved forest and pasture, and there were 20 acres left for an organic farm, and we also have a large wildflower meadow,” Mr. Nygren said. “We’ve set up the design so 90 percent of the houses back up to one of those natural amenities. We are selling our lots at a premium that’s probably three times what the raw lot is.” Mr. Nygren has focused Serenbe’s second phase on “edible landscaping,” he said. “At street corners there are blueberry bushes, fig bushes, peach trees and spotted apple trees.”
And in more rural areas, developers are buying big tracts of ranchland and selling small lots to buyers. David Hamilton, a principal in Qroe Farm Preservation Development, is pursuing this approach at the sprawling Bundoran Farm subdivision outside Charlottesville, VA. “We go through a mapping process to see functional agricultural units, if they are good for apples or cattle or whatever, then see where they go together. Qroe (pronounced “crow”) leases some of the land to cattle ranchers and orchard managers. A buyer of a home site hires a builder from a developer-approved list. Qroe is marketing lots of under four acres for less than $400,000, Mr. Hamilton said. “You’re buying two acres but access to 2,000 acres,” he said.
Grady Lewis, a Virginia native who closed on his 2.67-acre lot in 2007 and moved into his 1,800-square-foot house at Bundoran with his wife, Diane, this spring, responded to Qroe’s idea of preserving “rural quality.” When all the house lots have been sold, the rental income from the farmers, which currently goes to the developer, will go to the homeowners’ association. “Beyond it being great to see 300 head of Angus scattered across the acres,” Mr. Lewis said, “it’s a cash-flow issue.”
Farm-focused developers must juggle financing a few houses at a time with cultivating crops on a yearly cycle, so many rent farmland to professionals. Mr. Scheuer hired David Miskell, a veteran Vermont organic farmer with a white beard, to help convert the property’s damaged soil. Working organically, which Mr. Miskell translates to “a lot of manure,” he and two hired farmers replenished the soil with enough nitrogen to grow greens, root crops and sunflowers this year. “Upfront costs are high to build fertility, but I doubt they are any higher than any golf course,” Mr. Miskell said. “Mainly, we are growing healthy organic food for healthy homeowners.”
Gus Burti, who lives with his wife, Maggie, at South Village, says the farm helped clinch their purchase after a two-year search of the area. “We used to live on a golf course in North Carolina and wanted to come back to Vermont,” he said. “My wife loves to cook, and we like that it’s organic.” Because a farm’s open space takes land from the tax rolls, a developer often donates some land for public use. Hidden Springs sold a parcel to the local school district for $10,000, and Retrovest deeded South Burlington some land with road frontage for a soccer field and playground.
But developers stress that their housing units should stand on their own for the idea of the farm-as-amenity to click. Mr. Scheuer, driving around a competing subdivision with nondescript open space, is convinced that despite the work that goes into a farm, it adds real value to a development. Scoffing at the look of the traditional development, he said, “If I have to do this to make money, I’ll find some other way to spend my time.”
Small Bites
Outdoor activities available for children: Fifty-nine percent of parents say their children have access to a community playground.
Playgrounds underutilized: A full 92 percent of parents claim today’s children spend less time playing outside than their moms and dads did when they were growing up.
Parked at home: Health professionals say that a majority of children do not spend enough time outdoors.
With electronic diversions instead: Two-thirds of children have a television in their bedroom.
Taking them up a notch: In some places, children can play aloft. An increasing number of city dwellings, schools, and other buildings are creating “green roofs” to moderate urban heat, reduce storm runoff, and grow plants, both edible and decorative.
More green on top: The number of green roof projects in the U.S. increased by more than 35 percent last year, covering more than 10 million square feet.
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