TEFAP Alliance Blog

Foodlinks America - August 31, 2007

In this issue:

• Appropriations Stall in Senate
• Farm Bill Future in Senate is Cloudy
• Poverty Rate Declines; Number of Poor Does Not
• Food Stamp Facts
• School Food News and Notes
• Resources
• 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.

Appropriations Stall in Senate

Spending levels for government programs in fiscal year 2008, which begins October 1, 2007, remain undetermined, as the annual appropriations process appears to have bogged down in the Senate. Observers now say that a continuing resolution (CR) of at least several weeks duration is likely. Under a CR, most programs would be maintained at current (fiscal year 2007) funding levels.

Although the House of Representatives passed every necessary appropriations bill between mid-June and the August 5 beginning of the summer recess, the full Senate has approved only one spending bill, for the Department of Homeland Security. Individual appropriations bills are not expected to be considered on the Senate floor in September due to the press of other business and the increasing partisanship of Senate operations.

The war is certainly getting more attention than next year’s funding concerns. “All September will be all Iraq,” a Senate staff member recently told Foodlinks America. Neither the agriculture appropriations bill nor other appropriations bills are expected to see floor action. They will probably be bundled together into a CR before the end of the fiscal year on September 30.

Moreover, party politics are influencing when and how funding decisions are made. The narrowly-divided Senate, where a 60-vote supermajority is needed to move most legislation, is becoming increasingly partisan, in part due to the number of Senators running for President in 2008. In the House, more than half of all Republicans walked out of the chamber on August 2, 2007 rather than cast a vote on the final agriculture appropriations bill to protest Democratic rules to limit amendments on the bill.

Farm Bill Future in Senate is Cloudy

Although Congress has begun working on a 2007 Farm Bill that will guide federal agriculture and food policy into the next decade, it is uncertain whether a final bill will be completed this year. The House of Representatives passed its version of the bill on July 27, 2007, but action has yet to be scheduled in the Senate.

Senate action will depend, in part, on whether Senate Agriculture Committee chair Tom Harkin (D-IA) and/or Senate Budget Committee chair Kent Conrad (D-ND) can identify funds to offset the cost of desired improvements in conservation and nutrition programs. Harkin, who is committed to nutrition program expansion, recently said, “We can’t let this Farm Bill go through without a really strong nutrition title and have some of the gaps [in the Food Stamp Program] filled.”

Little progress is expected in revising commodity program payments, one of the more controversial aspects of the Farm Bill and a possible source of funds for new priorities. After the House essentially maintained the status quo on commodity payments, the momentum for change in the Senate began to fizzle. “Political expediency trumped moral responsibility in the House’s vote on the Farm Bill,” commented Reverend David Beckman, president of Bread for the World, a Christian lobbying organization in Washington, D.C. “In the end, the House made only cosmetic changes to the outdated commodity payment system. While obviously disappointing, the passage of the House’s version of the 2007 Farm Bill is by no means the end of the push for broad reform,” said Beckman.

Also potentially complicating the Farm Bill picture in the Senate are World Trade Organization (WTO) issues. The potential need to settle costly trade disputes through the Farm Bill may add financial pressures. It was reported on August 29, 2007 that agricultural trade talks under the WTO, stalemated for almost six years, may resume and move forward in early September. The WTO “could actually blow this whole thing up,” Representative Collin Peterson (D-MN), chair of the House Agriculture Committee has warned in reference to world trade and the Farm Bill. A reduction of up to $16 billion annually in “trade-distorting subsidies,” like commodity program payments, could be required of the U.S. in WTO rulings.

Consequently, Farm Bill outcomes in the Senate are currently anybody’s guess. “The Senate leadership can reclaim the moral high ground by giving priority to reform of farm commodity programs when they take up the bill in September,” noted Reverend Beckman, who remains optimistic change can occur. “Eventually, the flood of constituents calling for a fair Farm Bill will overwhelm the narrow interests of the select few.”

Poverty Rate Declines; Number of Poor Does Not

The nation’s median household income increased in 2006 and the percentage of people in poverty dropped to 12.3 percent, though the number of low-income Americans remained unchanged at 36.5 million, according to statistics released by the Census Bureau on August 28, 2007. The Bureau also reported that the number of Americans without health insurance increased during the year by nearly five percent, to 47 million.

The positive news that median income rose was hollow. Household earnings increased only because more people per family joined the workforce or worked longer hours. The average wage of full-time workers – both men and women – actually dropped by more than one percent. “There’s a lot of evidence that more people are working,” said Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. “The important theme going on here is a labor market that’s definitely offering people more work and more hours, but at lower wages.”

For the most part, historic disparities in poverty profiles remained unchanged in the national and state statistics provided by the Census Bureau. Only 8.2 percent of whites lived in poverty last year, compared to 10.3 percent of Asians, 20.6 percent of Latinos, and 24 percent of African Americans. Rural residents remained poorer than those in metro areas, with a national rural poverty rate of 15.2 percent. The five states with the highest poverty rates were: Mississippi, 21.1 percent; District of Columbia, 19.6 percent; Louisiana, 19.0 percent; New Mexico, 18.5 percent; and West Virginia, 17.3 percent.

The only relatively good news among the Census numbers was for seniors. Elderly poverty dropped to 9.4 percent, the lowest rate ever recorded, from 10.1 percent in 2005. However, the poverty rate for working age adults was 10.8 percent and it was 17.4 percent for children.

The loss of employer-sponsored health care coverage fed the growth in the number of people without medical insurance. A total of 15.8 percent of all Americans lacked coverage in 2006, up half a percentage point from 2005. More than half of the newly uninsured are full-time workers.

Democrats laid the troubling economic news at the Administration’s doorstep. “Too many Americans find themselves still stuck in the deep hole dug by economic policies favoring the wealthy,” said Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY), chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. “Income remains lower than it was six years ago, poverty is higher, and the number of Americans without health insurance continues to grow. This is not an economic success story,” he noted. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi concurred: “Enormous tax cuts for the wealthy and massive budget deficits have failed the vast majority of the American people. The rich have gotten richer, but every other income group under the Bush Administration has lost ground.”

For additional details, go to: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/poverty06.html.

Food Stamp Facts

Participation climb continues: Nationwide participation in the Food Stamp Program (FSP) continues to rise with a May 2007 caseload of 26,417,307 people receiving benefits, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). More than 138,000 people joined the program that month, and the May 2007 caseload was nearly 7.1 million people above the caseload of five years earlier in May 2002.

Commodity recipients generally not getting food stamps: Only about a third of the more than 440,000 elderly low-income Americans nationwide who receive benefits under the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) are also getting food stamps, according to a recent survey from the National CSFP Association. Based on information from over 26,000 CSFP participants, only 34.4 percent were receiving food stamps, 39.5 percent had applied for food stamps but were not receiving assistance, and 28.9 percent had not applied.

The Bush Administration has proposed to terminate the CSFP and transition most of its beneficiaries to the FSP next year. But Congress has rebuffed those efforts and tentatively approved a funding increase for the CSFP in fiscal year 2008.

“CSFP plays a critical role in helping some of our most vulnerable residents put food on the table and stay healthy,” said Frank Kubik, president of the Association. “CSFP and food stamps are two distinctly different programs, but both play supporting roles in targeting populations at risk from compromised food choices, whether because of age or finances. Both programs need to be strengthened, not cut or eliminated,” he explained. For further information, see survey results at: http://www.csfpcentral.org/.

Program standards updated: Annual adjustments in FSP income eligibility standards – (participants must meet both gross and net income eligibility levels), monthly allotments, and deductions for fiscal year 2008 have been determined by USDA and are being publicized by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) in Washington, D.C. For details, see: http://www.frac.org/html/federal_food_programs/programs/fsp.html#fy08.

Food stamp policy updates announced: USDA, which regularly issues clarifying guidance for state food stamp agencies on a variety of issues, has recently released policy updates on the following topics: exemptions for able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs); terminating cases when a household does not spend their food stamps; waiver criteria on face-to-face interviews; and fees for collecting child support. For details, go to: http://www.fns.usda.gov/fsp/whats_new.htm.

School Food News and Notes

Big City Schools Failing Breakfast Test: Several of America’s largest cities – including Chicago, New York, and Denver – have some of the nation’s lowest school breakfast participation rates, with half of the urban districts (11 out of 23) reviewed in a recent study failing to provide breakfast on a daily basis to a majority of their low-income students. The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) in Washington, D.C. looked at 23 large school districts, selected on the basis of size and geographic representation, and examined the operations and reach of their breakfast programs, in Breakfast in America’s Big Cities, released on August 7, 2007.

The survey found that school strategies that make breakfast part of the school day were the most effective ways to reach children. These strategies include universal breakfast, where all children can eat regardless of income, “grab and go” breakfast from carts in the hallway, and breakfast in the classroom. According to the report, the five school districts – Portland, Newark, Minneapolis, Detroit, and Los Angeles – that most heavily used these options served an average of 72.5 low-income students with breakfast for every 100 low-income students that ate school lunch during the 2005-2006 school year.

Other top scoring school districts in terms of participation were: Portland, OR, where 98 percent of eligible kids got free breakfast, Newark, NJ at 94 percent, and Boston, MA at 64 percent. Local advocates in low-scoring cities pledged to redouble their efforts to do better. “While it is always a sad day when we lose to Boston in baseball, it is truly heartbreaking when we lose to them and 20 other cities in feeding our children,” said Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger.

For more information and FRAC’s report, Breakfast in America’s Big Cities, go to: http://www.frac.org/Press_Release/08.07.07.html.

School meals getting more nutritious: In most places where school meals – both breakfast and lunch – are served, the meals are becoming healthier. More than 87 percent of school districts nationwide now have nutrition requirements for both foods and beverages sold by school food service, up from just 30 percent in 2005, according to the School Nutrition Association (SNA) of Alexandria, VA, in its recently-released School Nutrition Operations Report: The State of School Nutrition 2007. The Association also noted that more than three out of five school districts also have policies in place for nutritious foods and beverages sold by groups outside the cafeteria.

Report data was generated by a nationwide survey of over 1,200 school nutrition directors. Widespread healthful practices reported included: offering non-fat or low-fat milk (97 percent of schools); fresh fruits and vegetables (96 percent); salad bars or pre-packaged salads (88 percent); yogurt and yogurt drinks (81 percent); from-scratch baked items (63 percent); and vegetarian meals (52 percent). SNA also found a significant decline in the number of branded fast food items offered by school food services. Only about seven percent of districts now offer food from fast food chains.

“The findings from this survey are a clear indication of the tremendous strides made by school nutrition directors, managers, and employees nationwide to help children make the right food choices,” said Mary Hill, director of child nutrition for Jackson, MS schools and president of SNA. For more details, see the SNA report at: http://www.schoolnutrition.org/Index.aspx?id=2485.

Resources

The following items may be of interest to the Foodlinks America readership.

County-oriented guide for food systems available: The National Association of Counties (NACO) has published a 22-page document, Counties and Local Food Systems: Ensuring Healthy Foods, Nurturing Healthy Children, to aid local governments, the private sector, and community groups in developing policies and programs that will lead to economic enhancement, environmental stewardship, and social well-being. Sections are included on food councils, farm-to-school, infrastructure for local producers, and agricultural conservation easements. To review the guide, go to: http://www.naco.org/Template.cfm?Section=technical_assistance&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=24784.

Planners take note: Another professional association that has begun delving into food security issues is the American Planning Association, which includes urban and regional planners. The group’s recently-approved Policy Guide on Community and Regional Food Planning not only includes findings on the subject, but also touches on food system links with the economy, health, ecological systems, social equity, and native/ethnic food cultures. The document includes APA policy positions on a number of these concerns. To view the guide, see: http://www.planning.org/policyguides/food.htm.

Improving hospital food: Direct sales from farmers to hospital food service departments are helping ill people eat better and recover faster. A new six-page brochure, Farm to Hospital: Supporting Local Agriculture and Improving Health Care, from the Community Food Security Coalition and the Center for Food & Justice (CFJ) at Occidental College addresses the ins and outs of developing partnerships between hospitals and local farms, looks at ways hospitals can improve the food they offer, tells how farmers can effectively market to hospitals, and provides case studies of successful efforts. To get the brochure, visit: http://www.foodsecurity.org/F2H_Brochure.pdf.

Farm to school historical perspectives: Farm to school programs were initiated a decade ago in California and have been growing ever since. In A Growing Movement: A Decade of Farm to School in California, CFJ tells the story of how these programs evolved and tracks their impact on students, farmers, and communities throughout the state. To view the 40-page report, go to: http://departments.oxy.edu/uepi/publications/a_growing_movement.pdf.

Reports from the Field

Hunger can be severe in some parts of Maine, as related in this July 23, 2007 story from the Kennebec Journal in Kennebec, ME:

The old crumpled farmhouse looks as if it has taken its last breath, exhaled and given up. Covered with more bare clapboards than painted ones, it slumps along the edge of a narrow country road in Farmingdale, surrounded by trailers.

Sandy Kalloch whizzes out of the house on her motorized wheelchair. The double amputee, who lost her legs to thrombosis, throws her arms up and shouts, “We’re over here!” in a raspy, cigarette-colored voice. She whirls around, races back up an uneven wooden ramp, knocks open her back door and enters her dark, hot and smoke-filled kitchen.

This is where 64-year-old Kalloch lives. This is where her refrigerator holds a few bottles of salad dressing, half a dozen eggs, a jar of mayonnaise, a plastic container of leftovers from the night before, a turnip and a cabbage. This is the place where Kalloch gets her monthly food box delivered by the Gardiner Food Bank. This is where a woman who worked hard all her adult life, earning $500 a week as a stitcher, and equally good money at AMHI and at the county jail, now lives on $657 a month in Social Security disability payments plus a little more in state aid.

“Hungry? I’ve seen times when I have been,” says Kalloch. Here’s the math at Kalloch’s house: $657 in Social Security comes in each month, plus $10 a month from the state. She pays $250 for rent, $30 for electricity, $25 for the phone, $60 every month for fuel, $50 for cigarettes and $45 for cable television. That leaves $48 a week for everything else, which is why she qualifies for $123 a month in food stamps.

How does she do it? “Very gently. You can’t buy the nutritious things you’d like to,” she says. “Especially when groceries have gone up astronomically. You can’t really buy the food you want because you can’t afford it. You go to buy something at the grocery store, it seems as though right before you got there they raised the price.”

That’s where the Gardiner food pantry comes in. “The food pantry, they’re awesome. They’re just awesome,” says Kalloch. “They deliver my stuff – bread, soups, Rice-a-Roni, canned fruits, potatoes, sometimes meat if they have it, hot dogs, sandwich meat, cereal and, when the gardens are up, all kinds of vegetables.”

But, she adds, “When the food bank is low, you don’t get much – a package of hot dogs, fruit pudding, juice drinks, which don’t help because I’m a diabetic, jello and soup, maybe some cereal. And maybe some salami,” adds Kalloch with a wicked smile, “which is real good for you because you need to keep that cholesterol going.”

Kalloch is actually one of the relatively lucky ones in Maine, as long as a costly disaster doesn’t strike. Her housing costs are low because she rents from her son, which leaves a little more money for food. Others aren’t so fortunate.

Consider the elderly woman in rural Jefferson whom Suzanne Kearns visited a few weeks ago. “It was so pitiful, she was sitting by her chair, with her door open. I got there and she had nothing, nothing to eat, just sitting there very lonely, almost with a blank stare,” says Kearns, who works as nutrition administrator for Senior Spectrum in Augusta, which provides Meals on Wheels for seniors. She was making a delivery that day because the regular volunteer couldn’t do it.

“Someone walking in would think maybe this woman has some form of dementia,” says Kearns, who says the woman simply sat at the table, silent and glassy-eyed. “But it could be a vitamin deficiency.” Among low-income seniors, she says, “poor nutrition is very prevalent and it can really mimic a lot of illnesses.”

The face of hunger in Maine is varied. It’s elderly people who pay so much for rent, heating, gas and medicine that there’s not enough left every month for nutritious food. It’s young families with parents who, between them, hold down three or four jobs, but need to frequent food pantries and soup kitchens to get the food they need.

It’s veterans like the 85-year-old man in western Maine who doesn’t want to be identified.
“I just barely make it,” the veteran says in a whisper, his red-rimmed eyes squinting in the bright light from his kitchen window. “There’s a lady from the food pantry who brings … all kinds of stuff, once a month, cereals and soups and all that stuff. If they didn’t bring it to me, I’d just have to get by best I can.”

“Best I can” for this elderly veteran is a refrigerator filled with two eggs, a few bottles of salad dressing, some margarine and a packet of baloney that belongs to a young man who is staying in the house for a few days. There’s a little cereal in the pantry, too. The veteran’s son says, “He doesn’t get the food he needs, he’s missing a lot of different vitamins … Right now he has enough food for another couple of days, he’s down pretty close.”

While the veteran accepts his predicament with a kind of detached resignation, that’s not his son’s attitude. “My father’s worked hard in his life, he’s served his country, he doesn’t ask for nothing and he deserves a lot better than he’s got,” he says. What would he say to someone who doesn’t believe there’s real hunger in Maine? “If they haven’t seen this kind of life,” says the son, “they’re one lucky person.”

Small Bites

What did you eat this summer?: Summertime is the season of state and county fairs, where the food focus is on deep-fried. Just about anything can be deep-fried, as long as it is somewhat solid and has a high combustion point, leading to fair offerings of some of the weirdest gastronomical concoctions available anywhere, as evidenced below.

Get your five-a-day the fried way: At the Los Angeles County Fair in Pomona, CA, you can find deep-fried olives, avocados, and strawberries.

Minnesota main courses: At the Minnesota State Fair you can dine on spaghetti-and-meatballs on a stick.

Just desserts, Minnesota style: At the Minnesota State Fair you can also find deep-fried Oreos and Twinkies.

Texas snacks: Treats sold at the Texas State Fair in Dallas include deep-fried peanut butter, jelly, and banana sandwiches.

Don’t forget the drinks: Texas State Fair concessionaires also offer deep-fried cherry Coke, made by mixing the soda into a batter that is covered with cola syrup, sugar, whipped cream, and a cherry.

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