TEFAP Alliance Blog

Foodlinks America - December 7, 2007

In this issue:

• Nation’s Poor Face Holiday Food Shortages
• Fiscal 2008 Funding Remains Stalemated
• Farm Bill Still Pending in Senate
• School Food News and Notes
• Obesity Round-Up
• Bonus Juice and Tomato Products Being Sought
• 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: http://www.tefapalliance.org. To request a free subscription to the newsletter or to submit story ideas, contact Barbara Vauthier at: bvauthier@tefapalliance.org.

Nation’s Poor Face Holiday Food Shortages

A nationwide scarcity of emergency food supplies means that low-income Americans from coast-to-coast are getting by with less food in the house this holiday season. With limited resources and fewer donated items, food bank and food pantry networks around the nation have begun an urgent and focused campaign to seek more food and funds for hungry households.

“There is usually an increased demand for food at this time of the year, as fall turns into winter and the holidays begin,” said Vicki Escarra, President and CEO of America’s Second Harvest, the national food bank system based in Chicago. “This year, however, demand is unusually high. Our food banks across the country are reporting significant increases in the number of people seeking emergency food assistance.”

“We are very concerned that we will not have enough food to feed everyone who needs help,” stated Escarra in a November 21, 2007 news release announcing a nationwide effort to respond to “an immediate food shortage of 15 million pounds – the equivalent of more that 400 truckloads or 11.7 million meals – by the end of the year.” Escarra said Second Harvest would also “turn to the food and grocery industry, which already generously supports our work, to ask for more donations of food to help fill this gap.”

The shortfall has resulted from a significant decline in government commodities, flat levels for private donations, and a dramatic increase in emergency food requests from working families who do not receive a liveable wage. Second Harvest’s Escarra blamed government inaction, in part, for the looming crisis, headlining her news release “Millions Have No Food on the Thanksgiving Table as Farm Bill Stalls in Senate.”

She emphasized that food banks “need a strong nutrition title in the Farm Bill enacted as soon as possible to begin replenishing dwindling inventories,” referring to the proposed increase in funding for food purchases under The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP). The Farm Bill also contains potential expansions of the Food Stamp Program. Even with increased federal support, “Additional help is needed from corporate and individual donors to help us replenish empty food bank shelves,” Escarra added, noting that food banks are seeing increases in need as high as 20 percent in areas such as Denver, Orlando, and Phoenix.

“It’s one of the most demanding years I’ve seen in my 30 years [of food banking],” said Catherine D’Amato, president of the Greater Boston Food Bank. The Northeast seems particularly hard hit with the Vermont Food Bank noting its supplies were down 50 percent from last year and the New Hampshire Food Bank reporting a 40 percent increase in demand coupled with a 30 percent drop in food. “Every week there’s less and less food,” Matthew Whooley, a public housing resident in Manchester, NH told the media as he waited in line with his wife and four children for a weekly ration from the food bank. “It used to be potatoes, meat, and bread; last week we got Doritos and flour. The food is getting shorter, and the lines keep getting longer,” he said.

Fiscal 2008 Funding Remains Stalemated

Congress and the Bush Administration have yet to come to terms on appropriations for fiscal year 2008, which began October 1, 2007, and various programs – including food assistance efforts – are beginning to be affected by the delay. Government operations are currently covered under a continuing resolution (CR) effective until December 14, but the path funding decisions will take after that deadline remains unknown. Congress is expected to enact another CR before its end-of-the-year holiday recess, delaying decisions until early 2008.

Though action has not been forthcoming, rhetoric on budget and appropriations matters remains plentiful. “The President placed the blame at the feet of Congress for the delays in enacting 11 of the 12 annual appropriations bills,” said Senate Appropriations Committee chair Robert Byrd (D-WV) in a December 4, 2007 statement. “But finger-pointing does nothing to solve the impasse, which began with White House threats to veto 10 of those funding bills. With just three short weeks left in this session of Congress, it is time to close down the political posturing and recognize that we have a responsibility to govern,” Byrd asserted. “I urge the President to stop the stale veto threats which have been the albatross around the neck of responsible budgeting for months.”

When Congress does begin to delve into details regarding agriculture appropriations, it will face a conundrum on funding for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC Program) which, due to high food prices and recent caseload growth, faces a more than $500 million shortfall in the 2008 fiscal year. WIC is a discretionary program, meaning any increased funding for it will have to be offset with cuts in another program. WIC advocates are urging full funding to avoid removal of half a million women and children from the program’s rolls, but have not suggested a source for the supplemental funds.

Farm Bill Still Pending in Senate

A two-week recess and the fast-approaching end of this session of Congress have had no impact on partisan divisions that have stymied progress on the 2007 Farm Bill in the U.S. Senate for nearly a month. Democrats are ready to move the bill, which was initially brought to the floor on November 13, but Republicans are insisting on consideration of a raft of amendments, many of them unrelated to food and agriculture issues.

Predictions vary on when a Farm Bill will be passed by the Senate. If the Senate passes a bill, it will still be subject to conference negotiations with the House and would have to be made agreeable to the Administration, which has threatened a veto. Representative Collin Peterson (D-MN), chair of the House Agriculture Committee, said recently he expects the Senate to pass a bill before the Christmas holidays. But Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), a senior member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said “It’s more likely we’ll pass a continuing resolution extending the life of the current Farm Bill and then work to pass a new bill in January, if cooler heads prevail.” Given the lengthening stalemate, Republicans and even some Democrats are now looking at a one or two-year extension of the 2002 Farm Bill that expired in September.

Once the Farm Bill is debated on the floor of the Senate, efforts will be made to improve the nutrition of government-funded meals. Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) announced on December 4, 2007 that they plan to offer an amendment to revise decades-old guidelines and “establish appropriate school nutrition standards for foods and beverages offered in school vending machines, school stores, and other venues outside of the school meal programs.” The Senators explained that “School sales of candy, snacks and soft drinks have gone way up in recent years even as more and more kids are overweight or obese or have chronic diseases such as diabetes. This is a dangerous equation for the health of America’s kids – now and in their adult lives. This amendment is a step towards countering the youth obesity epidemic.”

Harkin and Murkowski claim their amendment has broad support from the food and beverage industry, including Coca Cola, Frito-Lay, and General Mills, education groups like the American Federation of Teachers and American Association of School Administrators, and health advocacy organizations such as Center for Science in the Public Interest and the American Dietetic Association. But when and how the bill will be returned to the floor for consideration of the amendment remains unclear as this issue of Foodlinks America is distributed.

School Food News and Notes

Assessment finds school meals improving: The latest dietary study of school nutrition by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) catalogued modest improvements in meal quality and found that most meals – over 85 percent – meet standards for targeted nutrients and are now lower in saturated fat. Based on a national sample of school districts, schools, and students for the 2004-2005 school year, the School Nutrition Dietary Assessment Study III, issued in November 2007, also found that although most schools offered an opportunity for students to select a balanced meal, few students made healthful choices that resulted in a low-fat meal.

The study also reported that: more than two-thirds of schools now offer and serve breakfast; competitive foods were readily available on campus, especially at high schools; and school lunch participants were more likely than non-participants to consume nutrients at lunch and ate fewer competitive foods. For more details, view the study at: http://www.fns.usda.gov/cga/PressReleases/2007/FNS-0003.htm.

States get poor grades on healthy meal policies: Only two states in the nation have adequate healthy school food policies and more than two-thirds have no or weak nutrition standards covering school children, according to a school food report card from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) in Washington, D.C. “Over the last ten years, states have been strengthening their school nutrition policies,” said Margo Wootan, CSPI’s director of nutrition. “But overall, the changes, while positive, are fragmented, incremental, and not happening quickly enough to reach all children in a timely way.”

No state received an A grade, though Kentucky and Oregon earned an A-. Six states (AL, AR, CA, NM, NV, and WA) received a B+, but seven states got Ds and 20 states got an F. CSPI based its scores on beverage and food nutrition standards and the grade levels, times of day, and locations on campus to which the policies applied, “The majority of states still rely on the USDA’s outdated school nutrition standards,” added Wootan, “Those national standards limit only the sale of jelly beans, lollipops, and other so-called ‘foods of minimal nutritional value.’ Those standards don’t address calories, saturated and trans fat, sodium, or other key nutrition concerns for children today.” See the report card at: http://www.cspinet.org/new/200711281.html.

Healthy meals do sell: University researchers have found that healthier school meals do not negatively affect lunch sales, according to an article in the December 2007 issue of Review of Agricultural Economics. Researchers from the University of Minnesota reviewed data and analyzed meals for 330 Minnesota school districts to derive recommendations for improving the nutritional quality of school lunches. They found, “Contrary to widely held views, that lunch sales do not decline when healthier meals with less fat, for example, are served.” They also conclude “that more nutritious lunches do not necessarily cost more. Healthier meals have higher labor costs, but lower costs for processed foods.” View an abstract of the study at: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9353.2007.00380.x.

School meal application rules revised: USDA issued an interim regulation in the November 13, 2007 Federal Register regarding applications for free or reduced price meals in the school lunch and breakfast programs. The rule adds a statutory definition for “local education agency” and specifies that a family only has to submit one annual application for all children in the household. For details, see: http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20071800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2007/pdf/E7-22053.pdf.

Procurement rules updated: USDA has also published revised rules governing procedures relating to the procurement of goods and services for school lunch and breakfast programs in the October 31, 2007 Federal Register. The rules address audits and program reviews, responsibility of school food authorities for contracts, and clarifies review and approval authority. For particulars, go to: http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20071800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2007/pdf/E7-21420.pdf.

Obesity Round-Up

Obesity rates may be peaking: After more than 25 years of increases, the prevalence of obesity among American adults appears to have stopped growing, according to the latest government statistics. Figures for 2003-2004 recently released by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found that, “Since 1999, there appears to have been a leveling off in obesity among women. Among men, there was an increase in obesity prevalence between 1999 and 2006. However, there was no significant change in obesity prevalence between 2003-2004 and 2005-2006 for either men or women.”

The CDC also noted that: adults aged 40-59 had the highest prevalence of obesity compared to other age groups; there were large race and ethnic disparities in obesity among women, with non-Hispanic Black women and Mexican-American women having the highest obesity rates; and, overall, more than one third of American adults – over 72 million people – can be counted among the obese. For more details, go to: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/07newsreleases/obesity.htm.

Eating together overshadows TV effects: Although television viewing has long been implicated in promoting poor eating habits among adolescents, new research shows that family togetherness for a meal counts more than whether the TV is on. “Obviously, we want people eating family meals, and we want them to turn the TV off,” said Shira Feldman of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and lead author on a study published in the November 2007 issue of The Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior. “But just the act of eating together is on some level very beneficial, even if the TV is on,” she added. The study, based on statistics from 1998-1999, may be viewed at: http://www.jneb.org/article/PIIS149940460700471X/abstract.

Bonus Juice and Tomato Products Being Sought

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced plans to purchase up to 34 million pounds of grapefruit juice and 10.6 million pounds of canned tomato products for donation to child nutrition and other domestic food programs, including The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP). USDA will survey potential recipients to determine how much to purchase and then invite bids from the industry to supply it. The grapefruit juice and canned tomatoes are some of the few surplus, or bonus, items that USDA has purchased in recent months.

Reports from the Field

Editor’s Note: The following opinion piece appeared in The Washington Post of November 18, 2007 under the title, “When Handouts Keep Coming, the Food Line Never Ends.” It was written by Mark Winne, former director of the Hartford Food System, a long-time leader in the community food security movement, and author of the forthcoming book, “Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty,” to be released next month.

How can anyone not get caught up in the annual Thanksgiving turkey frenzy? At the food bank I co-founded in Hartford, CT, November always meant cheering the caravans of fowl-laden trucks that roared into our parking lot. They came on the heels of the public appeals for “A bird in every pot,” “No family left without a turkey,” and our bank’s own version – “A turkey and a 20 [dollar bill].”

Like pompom girls leading a high school pep rally, we revved up the community’s charitable impulse to a fever pitch with radio interviews, newspaper stories, and dramatic television footage to extract the last gobbler from the stingiest citizen. After all, our nation’s one great day of social equity was upon us. In skid row soup kitchens and the gated communities of hedge-fund billionaires alike, everyone was entitled, indeed expected, to sit down to a meal of turkey with all the fixings.

And here we are, putting on the same play again this year. But come Friday, as most of us stuff more leftovers into our bulging refrigerators, 35 million Americans will take their place in line again at soup kitchens, food banks and food stamp offices nationwide. The good souls who staff America’s tens of thousands of emergency food sites will renew their pleas to donors fatigued by their burst of holiday philanthropy. Food stamp workers will return to their desks and try to convince mothers that they can feed their families on the $3 per person per day that the government allots them. The cycle of need – always present, rarely sated, never resolved – will continue.

Unless we rethink our devotion to food donation.

America’s far-flung network of emergency food programs – from Second Harvest to tens of thousands of neighborhood food pantries – constitutes one of the largest charitable institutions in the nation. Its vast base of volunteers and donors and its ever-expanding distribution infrastructure have made it a powerful force in shaping popular perceptions of domestic hunger and other forms of need. But in the end, one of its most lasting effects has been to sidetrack efforts to eradicate hunger and its root cause, poverty.

As sociologist Janet Poppendieck made clear in her book “Sweet Charity,” there is something in the food-banking culture and its relationship with donors that dampens the desire to empower the poor and take a more muscular, public stand against hunger. It used to be my job to scour every nook and cranny of Hartford for food resources, and I’ve known the desperation of workers who saw the lines of the poor grow longer while the food bank’s inventory shrank. The cutback in federal support for social welfare programs triggered by the Reagan administration in the 1980s unleashed a wave of charitable innovation and growth not seen since the Great Depression. As demand for food rose unabated – as it does to this day – our food bank’s staff became increasingly adept at securing sustenance from previously unimaginable sources.

No food donation was too small, too strange, or too nutritionally unsound to be refused. I remember the load of nearly rotten potatoes that we “gratefully” accepted at the warehouse loading dock and then promptly shoveled into the dumpster once the donor was safely out of sight. One of our early food bank meetings included a cooking demonstration by a group of local entrepreneurs who were trying to develop a market for horse meat. The product’s name was Cheva-lean, taken from “cheval,” the French word for horse. The promoters reminded us that the French, the world’s leading authorities on food, ate horse meat, implying that therefore our poor clients could certainly do the same.

The only thing that topped that was when we had to secure recipes from the University of Maine to help us use the moose parts proudly presented by representatives of the Connecticut Fish and Game Division who’d been forced to put down the disoriented Bullwinkle found wandering through suburban back yards.

We did our job well, and everything grew: Over 25 years, the food bank leapfrogged five times from warehouse to ever-vaster warehouse, finally landing in a state-of-the-art facility that’s the equal of most commercial food distribution centers in the country. The volunteers multiplied to 3,000 because the donations of food, much of it unfit for human consumption, required many hands for sorting and discarding. The number of food distribution sites skyrocketed from five in 1982 to 360 today.

But in spite of all the outward signs of progress, more than 275,000 Connecticut residents – slightly less than 8.6 percent of the state’s residents – remain hungry or what we call “food insecure.” The Department of Agriculture puts 11 percent of the U.S. population in this category. (The department also provides state-by-state breakdowns.)

The overall futility of the effort became evident to me one summer day in 2003 when I observed a food bank truck pull up to a low-income housing project in Hartford. The residents had known when and where the truck would arrive, and they were already lined up at the edge of the parking lot to receive handouts. Staff members and volunteers set up folding tables and proceeded to stack them with produce, boxed cereal and other food items. People stood quietly in line until it was their turn to receive a bag of pre-selected food.

No one made any attempt to determine whether the recipients actually needed the food, nor to encourage the recipients to seek other forms of assistance, such as food stamps. The food distribution was an unequivocal act of faith based on generally accepted knowledge that this was a known area of need. The recipients seemed reasonably grateful, but the staff members and volunteers seemed even happier, having been fortified by the belief that their act of benevolence was at least mildly appreciated.

As word spread, the lines got longer until finally the truck was empty. The following week, it returned at the same time, and once again the people were waiting. Only this time there were more of them. It may have been that a donor-recipient co-dependency had developed. Both parties were trapped in an ever-expanding web of immediate gratification that offered the recipients no long-term hope of eventually achieving independence and self-reliance. As the food bank’s director told me later, “The more you provide, the more demand there is.”

My experience of 25 years in food banking has led me to conclude that co-dependency within the system is multifaceted and frankly troubling. As a system that depends on donated goods, it must curry favor with the nation’s food industry, which often regards food banks as a waste-management tool. As an operation that must sort through billions of pounds of damaged and partially salvageable food, it requires an army of volunteers who themselves are dependent on the carefully nurtured belief that they are “doing good” by “feeding the hungry.” And as a charity that lives from one multimillion-dollar capital campaign to the next (most recently, the Hartford food bank raised $4.5 million), it must maintain a ready supply of well-heeled philanthropists and captains of industry to raise the dollars and public awareness necessary to make the next warehouse expansion possible.

Food banks are a dominant institution in this country, and they assert their power at the local and state levels by commanding the attention of people of good will who want to address hunger. Their ability to attract volunteers and to raise money approaches that of major hospitals and universities. While none of this is inherently wrong, it does distract the public and policymakers from the task of harnessing the political will needed to end hunger in the United States.

The risk is that the multibillion-dollar system of food banking has become such a pervasive force in the anti-hunger world, and so tied to its donors and its volunteers, that it cannot step back and ask if this is the best way to end hunger, food insecurity and their root cause, poverty.

During my tenure in Hartford, I often wondered what would happen if the collective energy that went into soliciting and distributing food were put into ending hunger and poverty instead. Surely it would have a sizable impact if 3,000 Hartford-area volunteers, led by some of Connecticut’s most privileged and respected citizens, showed up one day at the state legislature, demanding enough resources to end hunger and poverty. Multiply those volunteers by three or four – the number of volunteers in the state’s other food banks and hundreds of emergency food sites – and you would have enough people to dismantle the Connecticut state capitol brick by brick. Put all the emergency food volunteers and staff and board members from across the country on buses to Washington, to tell Congress to mandate a living wage, health care for all and adequate employment and child-care programs, and you would have a convoy that might stretch from New York City to our nation’s capital.

But what we have done instead is to continue down a road that never comes to an end. Like transportation planners who add more lanes to already clogged highways, we add more space to our food banks in the futile hope of relieving the congestion.

We know hunger’s cause – poverty. We know its solution – end poverty. Let this Thanksgiving remind us of that task.

Small Bites

12-day supplies cost more this year: The bean counters who keep track of such trivia note that this year it would cost $78,100 to purchase all of the items mentioned in the carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” up four percent from last year.

Pear tree costs branching out: The cost of a partridge held steady at $15, but the pear tree it sits in will cost $150 this year instead of $130.

Gold gone north: In 2007, the cost of five golden rings rose to $395 from $325 last year.

Goosed on food costs: Higher expenses for food items in the carol drove up the total cost. One would need $360 to procure six geese a-laying, up from $300 last year.

Minimum wage milk maids: This year’s increase in the minimum wage – the first in more than a decade – bumped up the cost of the eight maids a-milking from $41 to $47.

Musicians and dancers get a pay hike, too: Increased wages for the 10 Lords a-Leaping, 11 Pipers Piping, and the 12 Drummers Drumming also drove up the cost of the 12-day celebration, at least on a per performance basis.

mvauthier :: Dec.07.2007 :: Foodlinks America :: No Comments »:: Print This Post

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