TEFAP Alliance Blog

Foodlinks America - September 14, 2007

In this issue:

• Appropriations Delays Expected
• Different Approaches Stall Senate Farm Bill Action
• Barter Plan Yields Results for Feeding Programs
• Nutrition Ratings Increase Healthy Food Purchases
• Proposed Legislation
• Obesity Round-Up
• 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 Delays Expected

Federal fiscal year 2008 begins on October 1, 2007 and the government is not ready. The House has passed all 12 appropriations bills necessary to fund federal agencies next year but the Senate has passed only three. Only the spending bill for Homeland Security has been finalized and it appears doubtful Congress will dispose of the others prior to the end-of-the-month deadline. Consequently, a continuing resolution (CR) will be needed to keep government operating in the new fiscal year. The CR will likely maintain most programs at their current (fiscal year 2007) funding levels.

A final decision on whether to enact a CR will not be made until shortly before the September 30 end of the fiscal year, but the length of a proposed CR is already being discussed. Although some lawmakers are pressing for a short-term fix, it appears that the Democratic congressional leadership will recommend a CR through mid-November, giving both chambers time to complete their business and adjourn for the year. A relatively short-term extension is anticipated that will include authority to continue Farm Bill and child health programs that expire. However, vetoes being threatened by the Bush Administration over a number of Democratic legislative priorities may require Congress to return for a brief session in December.

Different Approaches Stall Senate Farm Bill Action

The House of Representatives passed its 2007 Farm Bill on July 27, 2007. In the Senate, Agriculture Committee chair Tom Harkin (D-IA) has not yet brought his committee together to discuss the five-year legislation that outlines American agriculture and food policy, including food stamps and commodity distribution programs. Unresolved funding issues and differing viewpoints on Farm Bill priorities among Democratic leaders have brought action to a halt.

Finding funding for new initiatives remains the main stumbling block to Farm Bill progress. With Democrats sticking to their pledge to avoid deficit financing, identifying new revenues or cutting existing programs to support others are tough challenges. Harkin is relying on colleagues like Budget Committee chair Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Finance Committee chair Max Baucus (D-MT), both also senior members of the Agriculture Committee, to find financial support, but they have yet to deliver a workable solution.

Differing policy perspectives among Farm Bill leaders has also frustrated progress in the Senate. On September 11, 2007, Baucus, whose committee has jurisdiction over taxes, announced an agricultural tax package that would allocate between $8 billion and $10 billion to new agriculture spending. However, the funds would be earmarked for Baucus’ priorities, primarily a permanent disaster relief trust fund.

“We haven’t been able to get anything from Finance,” said Harkin, whose Farm Bill interests emphasize conservation, nutrition, renewable energy, and rural development. “But I am not going to let up in my effort to secure the funds we need to get a good Farm Bill,” he added. “We are continuing discussions regarding both the details of the Finance Committee’s ideas and the level of funding help they could provide toward the Farm Bill,” he stated.

Even if the Agriculture Committee meets and sends a bill to the floor, it faces a crowded schedule; the Farm Bill would have to wait in line behind appropriations and discussions of the Iraq war. No Farm Bill debate on the Senate floor is expected before October. “I just got bumped again,” Harkin said earlier this month in response to the leadership’s postponement of Farm Bill consideration.

The delay means that an extension of the current law will be necessary until Congress completes action on a new Farm Bill. Harkin and Agriculture Secretary Mike Johannes still think a new Farm Bill can be completed during this session of Congress. However, failure to pass a new Farm Bill before 2008 might result in a longer-term holding action. “I doubt you’d write a Farm Bill during a presidential election cycle,” commented Johannes.

Ultimately, the issue hinges on funding. The budget endorsed by Congress earlier this year provides the Agriculture Committee with a $20 billion reserve fund to boost Farm Bill programs, but only if funds can be found from other sources – new revenues or program cuts. “The biggest challenge is to find critical funding for the Farm Bill … It is a very difficult process,” observed Harkin, and, “When you are spending $10-12 billion a month in Iraq, and with Defense appropriations spending at an all-time high, that doesn’t leave much” for Farm Bill funding.

Barter Plan Yields Results for Feeding Programs

A unique arrangement under which the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is swapping government-owned bulk commodities for processed food products to bolster both domestic and international programs seems to be working, bringing in millions of pounds of nutritious foods for emergency food providers across the nation.

USDA Secretary Mike Johannes announced on July 6, 2007 that approximately $50 million worth of uncommitted commodity inventories would be exchanged for end products used in child nutrition and domestic food assistance programs at no additional cost to the government. Offers were made to food manufacturers, who submitted bids to make the trades.

As of September 12, 2007, USDA reported that it had completed four trades, exchanging $22.3 million worth of corn, soybeans, and wheat for vegetable oil and canned poultry. Canned poultry worth $11.7 million will be provided to The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP). USDA also received vegetable oil and a corn-soy oil blend for the McGovern-Dole Food for Education Program that operates worldwide to feed schoolchildren.

Further exchanges are expected to be completed in the near future, with USDA currently offering to trade wheat for canned beef and canned pork. The Department then plans to follow-up and offer wheat to be traded for vegetables, Cathie McCullough, director of USDA’s Food Distribution Division, told Foodlinks America.

The bartered items will help USDA and emergency food groups offset the huge decline in bonus commodities that has occurred over the past two years. The only bonus items USDA expects to receive between July 2007 and June 2008 are limited quantities of fresh tomatoes, grape juice, cherry/apple juice, dried cherries, applesauce, canned and frozen asparagus, and peanut butter, which was obtained in a barter for peanuts. McCullough said USDA will treat bartered items like bonus commodities for ordering and distribution protocols. “This is something new for all of us. We’ve never tried to exchange dissimilar products,” she added.

Nutrition Ratings Increase Healthy Food Purchases

The stars have it. Hannaford Brothers Company, a 160-store supermarket chain based in Falmouth, ME, which instituted a healthy food rating system last year for over 25,000 items in its stores – no stars for unhealthy foods, one or two stars for more healthful products, and three stars for the most healthy – has discovered that nutrition sells.

Hannaford’s “Guiding Stars” program, billed as “the first-ever storewide nutrition navigation system … to help find the most nutritious foods in our stores,” recently reported that its rating system has made a significant difference in food sales of both healthy and unhealthy products. In almost all product categories, sales of starred items increased while purchases of items without stars declined. Only 28 percent of items in the store received one or more stars.

“I have to say, I’m thrilled,” said Lisa Sutherland, a nutritionist and professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth Medical School, who was part of Hannaford’s advisory panel that devised the system. Results “were pretty much what I would have expected with an objective system that wasn’t designed to promote or negate one food or another,” she added. Hannaford shoppers said they found the system simple and easy to understand, even for children.

The biggest difference was among packaged foods, especially cereal, canned goods, bakery items, and snack foods; sales of products that got stars grew twice as fast as less healthy similar items. Purchases of star-rated frozen food dinners increased at four times the rate of unstarred ones. Sales of lean ground beef products with stars grew seven percent while sales of other ground beef brands dropped five percent. Sales of fat-free milk rose one percent while whole milk sales went down five percent.

“The fact that the movement of products with stars has been growing steadily since the introduction of the program suggests to me that customers are using the program,” commented Caren Epstein, a Hannaford spokesperson. Store surveyors found that over 80 percent of customers knew of the star system and half of them claimed to use it “fairly often.”

The Hannaford Brothers chain is owned by the international Delhaize America corporation, which is expanding the Guiding Stars program to two of its other U.S. subsidiaries, Sweetbay Supermarkets in Florida and Food Lion, which operates in 11 Southeast and Mid-Atlantic states.

Proposed Legislation

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

House Resolution (H.R.) 3172: Introduced by Representative John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) and 10 co-sponsors, this bill would increase the exclusion level of certain assets used to determine eligibility in the Food Stamp Program, the temporary assistance for needy families (TANF) program, the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

H.R. 3243: Introduced by Representative Jerry Weller (R-IL) and one co-sponsor, the Poverty Measurement Improvement Act would direct the Bureau of the Census to publish improved annual measures of family income for use in more accurately determining the extent of poverty in the U.S.

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

Overweight toddlers face iron deficiency: Toddlers in the U.S. are at high risk for iron deficiency if they are overweight, according to a new study. The risk increases if they are Hispanic and not in day care.

The findings, from a study done at the Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, TX, found that 20 percent of obese toddlers have iron deficiency, compared to seven percent in the normal weight category. Hispanic toddlers, ages one to three, were twice as likely as white and Black children to be iron deficient. However, children in day care centers were found to be 50 percent less likely to have iron deficiency problems than children not in day care.

Study results were published in the September 2007

issue of Pediatrics at: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/……issue=3&resourcetype=HWCIT.

Big in the South: Southern states have some of the highest rates of adult obesity in the nation. As part of its series on vulnerable populations in the region, the Southern Rural Development Center in Mississippi has published a report, Overweight and Obesity in the South: Prevalence and Related Health Care Costs Among Population Groups, that discusses overweight and obesity in the South and their impact on health care spending. Learn more at: http://srdc.msstate.edu/focusareas/health/fa/fa_13_kolbo.pdf.

Weighting to miss school: The heavier a child, the more likely he or she is to be absent from school. The results of a new study by the University of Pennsylvania found that overweight children are at greater risk of school absenteeism than their normal-weight peers, missing 20 percent more school days, on average.

Over 1,000 fourth- to sixth-graders at nine schools in Philadelphia were divided into underweight, normal weight, overweight, and obese groups and their school attendance tracked. “The four indicators of increased absenteeism among school children have traditionally been race, socioeconomic status, age, and gender,” the researchers noted. “However, in this study, BMI [body mass index] was a better indicator of poor classroom attendance than these traditional factors or any others.”

The study raised as many questions as it answers. “I believe that psychosocial factors, not physical ones, are keeping overweight kids from going to school,” said Andrew Geier, lead researcher and a doctoral student at Penn. For more details, see:
http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/article.php?id=1196&print=1.

Reports from the Field

In Alaska, food is scarce but hunger is not. The following description, published in the “Community Voices” section of the Anchorage Daily News on August 30, 2007, was written by Shawn Powers, who works for the Food Bank of Alaska.

Whenever I hear doubts that hunger is a serious problem in Alaska – whether voiced by a state legislator or an everyday Alaskan – I think of a man I met whose kitchen was stocked with Tang and mayonnaise.

Shortly after I began working at Food Bank of Alaska, I was sent to a village in Western Alaska to help establish a new food distribution site. While interviewing some local residents who were applying to receive a monthly food box, I met “Stan,” a fairly young man who suffered seizures that left him unable to work. He survived on his monthly disability checks and a little bit of support from his parents.

Later that day, I happened to walk by Stan’s modest home, and he saw me and invited me inside. He wanted to show me his most prized possession, a plaque signifying his graduation from a technical school in a regional hub community. As my eyes adjusted to the unlit interior of his house, I scanned the kitchen. There were no cabinets, no refrigerator or freezer, and only two food items visible: a tub of Tang and a half-eaten jar of mayonnaise. Surely, I hoped, there must be more food somewhere.

People who have lived or traveled in rural Alaska have probably heard stories like Stan’s. However, it was not until very recently that hard data on hunger in rural Alaska became available, based on the 2006 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a statewide telephone survey measuring health indicators, including questions on hunger and food insecurity.

The BRFSS showed that hunger is a problem everywhere in Alaska, but the results for rural Alaska were especially heartbreaking. Eleven percent of adults and 14 percent of children in rural Alaska had to skip or cut down on meals last year because there was not enough money for food. Twenty-six percent of rural Alaskans reported that they could not afford to eat balanced meals, and 34 percent struggled to make their food last through the month.

Unfortunately, the situation could get worse as food prices continue climbing. So far this year, food prices nationwide have increased at an annual rate of 5.3 percent, up from 2.1 percent in 2006. An increase in bypass mail rates this summer – which would have been worse if not for some last-minute intervention by Alaska’s U.S. senators – could push the price of a healthy diet even further out of reach for many rural families. Since most rural Alaskans cannot live on subsistence alone, store-bought food is an increasingly expensive necessity.

Rural Alaskans also face an extreme version of the dilemma confronting consumers across America: Nutritious food costs more than junk food. The American system of farm subsidies makes highly processed corn- and soy-based foods more affordable than fresh milk, meat, and produce. Add in rural Alaska’s high transportation and storage costs, and the price gap between fresh and processed food grows even more. When a household’s food budget is limited, the first order of business is filling hungry bellies. Nutrition, by necessity, comes in a distant second.

Not surprisingly, the data on nutrition in rural Alaska are no more encouraging than the data on hunger. A 2004 survey by the Alaska Native Health Board found that consumption of soda and other sugared beverages topped that of any fruit, vegetable, or subsistence food in five rural health regions. At the same time, rates of heart disease, diabetes, and other diet-related illnesses are skyrocketing among Alaska Natives. The Tang and mayonnaise in Stan’s kitchen may be the ultimate expression of the awful math of food and poverty in rural Alaska.

Small Bites

What we want: The average American age 18 and older bought a snack or a meal from a restaurant five times a week on average last year.

When we want it: Sixty-eight percent of American consumers are unwilling to wait more than five minutes for a meal from a drive-through restaurant.

Where we want: Nineteen percent of American meals are eaten in the car.

Going to the dogs: Dog food is the most profitable food on the market; people spend four times as much on dog food as they do on baby food.

Unspoiled: The only food that does not spoil is honey.

Unchanged: The only edible commodity that has not significantly increased in price in the past 150 years is salt.

mvauthier :: Sep.14.2007 :: Foodlinks America :: No Comments »:: Print This Post

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