TEFAP Alliance Blog

Foodlinks America - April 27, 2007

In this issue:

• Farm Bill Action Set to Get Underway in Congress
• Time to Advocate for TEFAP
• Government Wastes Millions of Meals
• Problems and Responses Outlined for Rural Food Deserts
• Proposed Legislation
• Obesity Round-Up
• Resources
• Whittier Model Offers Holistic Help for the Homeless
• 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.

Farm Bill Action Set to Get Underway in Congress

Within a matter of weeks, Congress will begin to formulate the 2007 Farm Bill, broad-based legislation that will direct the nation’s agriculture and nutrition policy for the next five years. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials will begin sending draft legislative language to Capitol Hill by the end of April and both the House and Senate Agriculture Committees plan to mark up bills in May. Passage of a final Farm Bill is anticipated before the end of September.

Potential improvements in food stamps and commodity distribution programs will depend on two key factors – budget allocations for Farm Bill programs and policy decisions on price supports. Senate Agriculture Committee chair Tom Harkin (D-IA) said he expects to have a budget for the new Farm Bill in early May and is “reasonably sure” that it will include a reserve fund of $20 billion above the current baseline to support changes in nutrition programs and meet other needs.

And this Farm Bill will likely emphasize actual food like no previous bill. Growers of “specialty crops,” i.e. fruits, vegetables, and tree nuts, are pushing to get federal help that has been denied them before. Specialty crop interests do not want price supports; they seek funds for research and government purchases that will deliver their products to nutrition programs such as school lunch. Indeed, USDA has proposed to target $5 billion in new specialty crop purchases for food assistance programs over the life of the 2007 Farm Bill.

Nonetheless, funding for nutrition initiatives must contend with price supports for sugar, corn, and other commodities that are facing stiff international competition and trade limitations. “I’m not a big fan of direct payment programs,” said Collin Peterson, chair of the House Agriculture Committee, who acknowledged that, “It’s hard to explain to people why farmers are getting payments when they’ve got the best crops they’ve ever had the last couple years.”

But Peterson is very aware of the strong influence commodity crop interests have in the Congress. “I don’t want to put a Farm Bill together that doesn’t have a chance to pass,” Peterson stated. “If you don’t have peanuts, rice, and cotton in the bill, there’ll be no way to pass it.” USDA will also be endorsing the continuation of price support programs. Direct payments are “a predictable form of aid in a rather unpredictable profession,” commented USDA Secretary Mike Johanns.

Time to Advocate for TEFAP

With Congressional committees beginning to make decisions on the 2007 Farm Bill, now is an excellent time to remind Members of the need to boost funding for The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP). The TEFAP Alliance supports mandatory funding of $500 million annually for TEFAP food purchases and $175 million a year to address storage and distribution needs. Contact your Senators and Representatives today! For more information and assistance, see: www.tefapalliance.org and click on the “Take Action on TEFAP” button.

Government Wastes Millions of Meals

Millions of prepared meals, stockpiled last year for disaster assistance by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), have spoiled and had to be discarded, agency officials admitted recently. Food worth an estimated $70 million, mostly box lunches and some civilian versions of the military’s Meals Ready to Eat (MREs), have been dumped. FEMA’s lack of storage space and inadequate refrigeration caused the problem.

Following up on the 2005 disasters in the Gulf Coast when, in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, FEMA was unable to deliver sufficient quantities of emergency food in a timely manner, the agency pledged to be better prepared. In preparation for the 2006 hurricane season, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and FEMA director R. David Paulison boasted of storing enough food to feed one million people for a week.

However, the 2006 hurricane season turned out to be a mild one, with no major storms making landfall. FEMA overloaded its climate-controlled storage space and most of the food was left stored inside trailers parked out-of-doors in Selma, AL. The Alabama summer was a hot one, with FEMA staff in that location recording temperatures of 120 degrees inside the trailers. In the extreme heat, the food spoiled and plastic water bottles burst, soaking the food. An undetermined portion of the lunches, reportedly still edible, were donated to America’s Second Harvest.

This year, FEMA will alter its strategy anew and plans to ship fewer supplies to states ahead of time. The agency will also make greater use of military facilities which have cold storage. Nonetheless, the whole situation infuriated politicians. “I am angry about this senseless waste of taxpayer money and hopeful that the FEMA reorganization that our committee recommended will put an end to screw-ups like this,” said Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

Problems and Responses Outlined for Rural Food Deserts

Hundreds of rural counties across the U.S. face significant food access issues because of a lack of grocery stores. In these “food deserts,” residents tend to be older, poorer, and less educated and their health may be compromised by the limited availability of nutritious foods, especially fruits, vegetables, dairy, and protein items. These areas also have higher numbers of convenience stores and gas stations per capita.

These circumstances are detailed in “Starved for Access: Life in Rural America’s Food Deserts,” an article by Lois Wright Morton and Troy Blanchard published in the latest issue of Rural Realities, the newsletter of the Rural Sociological Society based in Columbia, MO. The authors define food deserts as counties in which all residents must drive more than 10 miles to the nearest supermarket or supercenter. Counties in which at least half the population lives more than 10 miles from these large food stores are termed “low-access” places.

Analyzing government maps and census data, Morton and Blanchard tallied 803 low-access counties and 418 food desert counties among the 3,090 counties in the country for the year 2000. The bulk of the food desert counties are in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain regions, in a swath that extends from Montana and North Dakota through West Texas. Low access is also prevalent in parts of the Deep South and Appalachia.

To examine the effects of living in a food desert, the researchers did a case study and survey of four counties in rural Iowa. They found that 45 percent of residents did not consume adequate amounts of fresh fruit, nearly two-thirds ate inadequate amounts of vegetables, more than a third lacked sufficient dairy in their diet, and nearly 30 percent had inadequate levels of protein.

Interestingly, a companion cost analysis found that groceries purchased at supermarkets and supercenters are not always lower priced. The large retailers had higher prices on more than half of the fresh vegetables studied and on three high-volume dairy products – cottage cheese, 2% milk, and whole milk.

To address the needs of rural food deserts, the authors recommended: encouraging independence and innovation among grocers; shopping locally; enhancing safety net programs for disadvantaged residents; and augmenting transportation services. For more details, see: http://www.ruralsociology.org/pubs/RuralRealities/Issue4.html.

Proposed Legislation

Among bills recently introduced in the 110th session of the U.S. Congress are the following:

House Resolution (H.R.) 1938: Introduced by Representatives James McGovern (D-MA) and Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO), the Hunger Free Communities Act would follow-up on the U.S. pledge at the 1996 World Food Summit to cut the number of undernourished people in half by 2015 by setting goals of reducing domestic hunger and food insecurity by 2010 to two and six percent, respectively, through the issuance of hunger reports and an appropriation of $50 million a year for the implementation of collaborative, infrastructure, and training and technical assistance grants.

Senate (S.) 1090: Introduced by Senator Debbie Stabenow and two bipartisan co-sponsors, the Senior Nutrition Act would modify the eligibility criteria for the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) to take into account high out-of-pocket medical expenses that some low-income seniors pay.

For bill summary and status information, along with the text of legislation, visit: http://thomas.loc.gov and enter the bill number.

Obesity Round-Up

Few meet government benchmarks: Only one in seven Americans is exercising enough and consuming enough fresh produce to meet federal government recommendations, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention reported on April 5, 2007. Just 14.6 percent of Americans met both dietary and exercise standards, with women doing slightly better than men.

Based on a 2005 telephone survey of over 350,000 people, just 16.6 percent of women and 12.4 percent of men ate at least five servings of fruits and vegetables daily and engaged in moderately intense exercise for at least half an hour on five days each week. Levels of attainment were even lower for minority groups, with 11.2 percent of Black men, 12.6 percent of Black women, 11.7 percent of Latino men, and 14.8 percent of Latino women meeting the standards. Among all ethnic groups, American Indian and Alaska Native men (17.5 percent) and women (19.6 percent) scored highest.

“The population right now really needs to take responsibility for their own health,” noted Mary Kay Solera, head of the CDC’s National Fruit and Vegetable Program. “Poor diet and lack of physical activity cause chronic disease,” she said. “As our good habits decrease, then chronic disease is going to increase, health care costs will increase. There are consequences to what we’re doing.” To learn more, go to: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5613a2.htm.

Homeless heavies: Obesity may be stalking America’s homeless population. Results from a small but revealing study at Johns Hopkins University Children’s Center in Baltimore found a high percentage of both homeless children and their caregivers were overweight or obese. Nearly half of the 60 children examined in the study were overweight or at risk of becoming overweight and a full 77 percent of their caregivers were also overweight or obese. “It appears that being both poor and homeless may increase one’s obesity risk,” said gastroenterologist Kathleen Schwarz, of the Children’s Center, the study’s lead author.

“Not long ago, homeless people were undernourished,” Schwarz noted. “Our study shows the pendulum has swung the other way. Obesity might be the new form of malnutrition among the homeless.” With an estimated 14.5 million homeless people in America, the findings are cause for concern. “If what we saw in Baltimore’s homeless turns out to be a national trend, we’re headed for a crisis that would cost us hundreds of millions of dollars,” Schwarz said. “That’s before we even try to measure the toll in terms of human suffering and loss of life.”

For more details, see: http://www.jhu.edu/~gazette/2007/19mar07/19obese.html.

A weighty problem: The number of Americans who are severely obese – 100 pounds or more overweight – increased by more than 50 percent between 2000 and 2005, according to a study released on April 9, 2007 by the RAND Corporation, a non-profit research organization. This population of “morbidly obese” people is growing faster than any other segment of the population.

Some three percent of all Americans – about 6.8 million adults – now fall into this category, up from two percent or 4.2 million people five years earlier. To be classified as severely obese, a person must have a body mass index of 40 or higher. The typical severely obese man weighs 300 pounds at a height of 5 feet 10 inches tall, while the typical severely obese woman weighs 250 pounds at a height of 5 feet 4 inches.

“The proportion of people at the high end of the weight scale continues to increase at a brisk rate despite increased public attention on the risks of obesity and the increased use of drastic weight loss strategies such as bariatric surgery,” said Roland Strum, a RAND economist and author of the report. Severe obesity is no longer a rare condition, he noted. For more details, visit: http://www.rand.org/news/press.07/04.09.html.

50 million pound challenge launched: An astonishing 80 percent of African American women and 67 percent of African American men are overweight or obese, the highest percentage of any ethnic group. To address this health crisis, Dr. Ian Smith, State Farm Insurance Company, and a host of Black celebrities initiated the 50 Million Pound Challenge on April 7, 2007.

“The numbers are unimaginable,” said Smith, a prominent Black physician, television fitness personality, and author of the best-seller, Fat Smash Diet. “It’s not just [an individual’s] problem; it’s a problem for all of us. Too many African Americans are dying from preventable illnesses,” he said, urging people to take the initiative, get fit, and lose weight. To learn more, visit: http://www.50millionpounds.com/.

Resources

Addressing funding needs: A concise new publication offers information on how and where to find funding support for your organization. Filling Our Bowls: A Grassroots Guide to Fundraising is now available from World Hunger Year (WHY) in New York. The 10-page document from WHY’s Food Security Learning Center contains information on government, foundation, and corporate grants, as well as guidance on social enterprise activities, in-kind donations, finding grants on-line, and grant writing. The Guide may be found at: http://www.worldhungeryear.org/info_center/funding_guide.pdf.

Better planning for food security: Only within the last few years have professional planners recognized the importance of food systems to the communities they serve. Now, activists within the American Planning Association (APA), led by Jerry Kaufman of the University of Wisconsin, Madison and Kami Pothukuchi of Wayne State University in Detroit, have pushed the envelope with a draft Community and Regional Food Planning Policy Guide that was approved by the Association earlier this month.

Although APA committee amendments must still be incorporated and approved before the document is finalized, the 30-page guide examines food planning at the community and regional levels, stressing actions that strengthen the economy, improve health for the region’s residents, are ecologically sustainable, and preserve and sustain diverse traditional food cultures of native inhabitants and ethnic minorities. The development of state and federal legislation to support these goals is also discussed. For additional information, contact Ms. Pothukuchi at k.pothukuchi@wayne.edu.

Whittier Model Offers Holistic Help for the Homeless

In the 1990s, the City of Whittier, California was like many other middle-sized, middle class American suburbs – a healthy, intact, 1950s-style community based on the Quaker principles upon which it was first founded in the 1880s. But being located a mere 12 miles from the City of Los Angeles meant that a host of urban influences, not all of them positive, affected Whittier, too.

When advocates for the homeless said they wanted Whittier to test a new concept in serving homeless people, local residents were skeptical to say the least. “The comprehensive, four-phase, ‘Recovery from Homelessness’ approach was heavily protested at first,” said Ted Knoll, executive director of the Whittier Area First Day Coalition. “It took two years to get through the NIMBY process.”

The Recovery process starts with emergency shelter facilities for up to 45 unattached adults, both men and women. “It is vastly different from the ‘mission model’ that only provides shelter in cold weather,” explained Knoll, a 25-year recovering alcoholic who spent five years working with the homeless on Los Angeles’ skid row. “We wanted to bring recovery out of the shadows and put it on Main Street,” he said.

An array of case management and supportive services are provided, including three meals a day, seven days a week, served at the shelter, an on-site health and wellness clinic, mental health referrals, transportation, clothing, education, money management, and employment assistance. The shelter facilities, which are available to individuals for up to six months, get homeless people off the street and on the way to a new life.

Health care services and education are integrated into client recovery plans. The health and wellness clinic, staffed by a nurse practitioner and physician and backed by a local hospital, has not only helped residents overcome their addictions, but the primary care services it offers have cut hospital emergency room visits by 87 percent.

The shelter operation is self-managed, with residents providing their own meals. Knoll noted that the outside community’s “culture of love” tended to focus on providing sweets (donated cookies, cakes, etc.); starchy carbohydrates that only contribute to poor nutrition and obesity. Residents, with guidance from health professionals, added more choice by serving fresh fruits for snacks.

And more is being done on the food and nutrition front. A 2006 Community Food Projects planning grant to the Coalition will assist in the conduct of a community food assessment, explore opportunities for local food production activities, engage in social marketing to boost the Food Stamp Program and local farmers’ markets, and promote long-term food security.

Education is also strongly emphasized in First Day programs. Whittier College, a private school, provides gardening and horticulture instruction at the shelter. Rio Hondo Community College holds classes at the shelter facility with other college students coming there to learn. “Residents have life experience to offer. Professors understand this,” said Knoll.

At the heart of the program is community – a community of the residents themselves and the “reciprocal community engagement philosophy” that creates a purpose and place for them in the larger, external community. A unique aspect of the program is the First Day Angels, a volunteer corps of homeless individuals who give back to the community that hosts them. “We have utilized the First Day volunteer Angels for everything from event planning, set-up, tear-down, and to being part of the activity,” said Larry Trujillo of the business-backed Uptown Association. “They have truly been angels to the Uptown Association. It is a great win-win opportunity.” The Angels even have a float in the City’s annual Christmas parade.

The program’s retention rate is an astounding 90 percent, as residents regain trust and connections to the community. Public officials now laud the effort. “The Whittier Area First Day Coalition is a service model that has worked well in Whittier and could be effectively replicated in other communities,” said Whittier Mayor Owen Newcomer. We “commend the Whittier Area First Day Coalition for designing a unique and innovative program to address the issues of homelessness by bringing the whole community together and engaging them in a community-wide solution,” proclaimed the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

For more information, contact Ted Knoll at ted@whittierfirstday.org.

Small Bites

Modern conveniences almost universal: New Census Bureau figures for 2003 show that most American homes now have food-related appliances, with 99.3 percent having a refrigerator, 98.9 percent having a gas or electric stove, and 90 percent with a microwave.

More energy used at home: Of total energy used by the U.S. food system, 31 percent goes for home refrigeration and cooking, 21 percent for agricultural production, 16 percent for processing, 14 percent for transportation, seven percent each for packaging and meals away from home, and four percent for food retailing.

Well-traveled, international foods: The average item in a U.S. supermarket travels 1,500 to 2,500 miles from farm to table and contains ingredients from at least five countries.

Space tomatoes: The amount of fossil fuel expended just supplying fresh tomatoes to New Jersey for a year is equal to driving an 18-wheeler to the moon and back 13 times.

Nutrition by phone: At a McDonalds in Japan, customers can receive nutrition information about their hamburger by pointing their cell phone at a code on the wrapper.

Packaging food history: Bar codes on Japanese meat and egg products now provide the name of the farmer that produced the food as well as an expiration date.

mvauthier :: Apr.27.2007 :: Foodlinks America :: No Comments »:: Print This Post

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