Senate unveils draft of Child Nutrition Act

Today, Senator Blanche Lincoln unveiled her version of the Child Nutrition Act and announced that the Senate Agriculture Committee will begin marking up the bill next week, on Wednesday, March 24.

Lincoln’s draft boosts funding for child nutrition programs by $500 million per year, and includes stronger nutrition standards and some support for Farm to School programs. She called it a “record investment in child nutrition programs,” which is technically true – but only because Congress has consistently under-funded school meals in every Child Nutrition Act until now. It’s encouraging to see that there’s any new funding, but Lincoln’s draft only has half of the $1 billion proposed by President Obama, which isn’t enough to transform school lunch in a time when nearly 1 in 3 children is obese or overweight.

If your Senator serves on the Agriculture Committee, you have a short window of time to make an impact. Please take three minutes to make a phone call to your Senator’s office in D.C. and ask them to support:

• Helping schools serve healthier food by making the full investment of $1 billion per year for child nutrition programs.
• Including $50 million for Farm to School programs, which link schools to local farms and support the local economy.

Email staff member if you have questions. When you’re done, reach out to friends and colleagues – especially parents, teachers and school meal providers – and ask them to make a call, too.

You can learn more about Slow Food USA’s campaign to help schools serve healthier food at www.slowfoodusa.org/timeforlunch.

Riots or Rebellions? Eric Holt-Giménez Looks at the World Food Crisis

by intern Julia Landau

“Food riot??” asked an indignant Eric Holt-Giménez at a talk he gave in New York City on March 5, referring to protests in response to the 2008 food crisis. According to Holt-Giménez, the Executive Director of Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy, “food rebellion” would be more accurate. 

Between 2007 and 2008, approximately 40 food protests occurred around the world. In Mexico, corn prices made tortillas prohibitively expensive for the nation’s poor. In Haiti, soaring food prices led people to the streets, and eventually to overthrow the Prime Minister.

These protests were not spontaneous outbursts fueled by mob-mentality – hence they were not riots. Instead, they were conscious, political acts: rebellions. The agency and intention implied by the word rebellion are essential: they are not just a reaction to food prices, but a protest against a flawed system. It’s the difference between responding to symptoms and curing the sickness.

The commonly-cited reasons for hikes in food prices are grain speculation, increased use of land for agro-fuel production, increased meat consumption, and a particularly poor harvest season – what Holt-Giménez calls proximate causes. While in 2007-2008 these forces were certainly at work, a deeper look reveals that the food crisis was actually a long time in the making. We have a vulnerable food system – one in which 91% of our crops are maize, cotton, wheat, rice, and soy. With such a lack of diversity in our agricultural repertoire, we leave our crops open to environmental and economic shock. Think Irish potato famine.

There is a danger in conflating the proximate and root causes of the food crisis, Holt-Giménez warns. When we focus only on the symptoms of the problem, we easily reach the conclusion that genetically modified food and industrial agriculture present a “solution,” or an immediate fix to world hunger. But if we look at the root causes, we see that this “quick fix” leaves us vulnerable to loss of crop diversity, market flooding, and farmer bankruptcy. The consolidation of land and power are at the heart of the problem.

More after the jump

A Local School Food Victory in Massachusetts

by Alex Loud, leader of Slow Food Boston

For a number of years now, a host of organizations in Massachusetts have been pushing to reduce the amount of junk food being marketed in public schools in the state.  Before this year, however, these efforts had been consistently rebuffed in the Massachusetts legislature and cafeterias around the state have continued to hawk a sorry collection of chips, sugary cereals and soda.  Last week, however, all that changed.  

On March 11th, the Massachusetts state Senate voted unanimously in favor of a bill known as the “School Nutrition Bill.”  The bill as written currently will ban junk food, sodas and sports drinks from being sold in schools either in vending machines or cafeterias.  As the Boston Globe put it:

“The measure establishes nutritional standards for items available at vending machines, school stores, and snack bars during school hours, and it essentially bans the sale of soda, candy bars, fried chips, and even sports drinks, which health officials say can sometimes have more sugar than their carbonated counter parts.

The bill calls for selling nonfat and low-fat dairy products, non-fried fruits and non-fried vegetables, whole grains and related products, and beverages without additives or carbonation, non-sweetened water, and 100 percent fruit juices.”

More after the jump

One take on the soda tax

by intern Valerie Scott

I wish I was virtuous enough to stick to just water and wine, but I’m not – like most of America, I like soda. So why do I support the controversial proposal in New York to impose a tax on soda? Because taxes like this one are proven to reduce weight and lower risk of diabetes. And I think that’s worth a few extra pennies of punishment for a guilty pleasure.

All week, I’ve been hearing commercials from the Alliance for a Healthier New York in favor of the proposed NY “soda tax.” New York state health officials are aiming to levy a penny-per-ounce tax on sugary soda. New York Governor David Paterson proposed the soda tax in January and last week Mayor Michael Bloomberg urged state legislators to impose the tax.

I was still on the fence until a new study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill convinced me that a soda tax is worthwhile. The study followed more than 5,000 participants for 20 years, tracking the average price of fast food and soda in the counties in which the participants lived. The diet, weight and insulin levels of the participants were also analyzed. The results show that weight and risk of diabetes decreased for people in communities where soda and fast food prices increased.

The senior author of the study, Barry Popkin, Ph.D, states, “Our results provide robust evidence to support the potential health benefits of taxing selected foods and beverages as a way of improving public health.”

Of course, at the end of the day, a tax is about raising revenue and the New York soda tax will do that. The tax could raise up to $1 billion annually to fund health care programs across the state. State Health Commissioner Richard Daines told the NY Daily News, “It’s a triple play. We would reduce obesity, earn revenue to support health care and, in the long run, cut health care costs.”

President Obama has said that soda taxes are “an idea worth exploring,” but since the failure of Governor Paterson’s first attempt to tax soda in 2009 and ongoing health care reform woes, the administration has not proposed a similar tax on the national level. A success story in New York would be one step towards changing that.

Bottom line – I think the soda tax could be an important way to reduce obesity and diabetes and fund health care programs overburdened with the high costs of chronic disease.

If you live in New York and want to contact your legislators about the soda tax, click here!

Update on the Child Nutrition Act

On March 3, Senator Blanche Lincoln told a conference of school meal providers that she plans to start marking up the Child Nutrition Act before March 26, when Congress goes on Easter recess. If the Senator is true to her word, this will be the first progress on the bill since Congress passed a one-year extension last fall.

Lincoln also said that she’s seeking the biggest increase ever in funding for child nutrition programs, citing President Obama’s proposal to add $1 billion per year. While that amount isn’t enough to transform school lunch, it is an important step forward and we encourage everyone to let Congress know it’s a priority.

Our other policy goals – strengthening nutrition standards for all the food at school, and linking schools to local farms – have strong support from the USDA and will likely be included if Congress supports the funding increase. We’re already seeing progress: two bills to support Farm to School programs have recently been introduced in the House and Senate. A quick way to help these bills get included in the Child Nutrition Act is to call your legislators and ask for their support.

The other important news is that legislators will be home in your district for Easter recess from March 26 to April 11. This is a great opportunity to get their attention. Some easy things you can do are:

• Submit a Letter to the Editor or Op-Ed to your local paper. One fantastic story would be to gather a group of parents to eat school lunch, and then write about it in an Op-Ed.

• Schedule a meeting with your legislator or his/her staff. Bring kids, parents, teachers and school meal providers, and let them do the talking.

• Invite your legislator or his/her staff to eat school lunch.

Learn more about the Time for Lunch Campaign at www.slowfoodusa.org/timeforlunch, and email Slow Food USA staff member Gordon Jenkins (gordon [at] slowfoodusa [dot] org) if you’d like to get involved.

Busting Big Ag in Iowa

by Siena Chrisman, WhyHunger

Last night in Ankeny, Iowa, just north of Des Moines, a standing-room-only crowd of over 250 people called on the Justice Department and USDA to “bust up big ag!” and put the needs of people before corporations.  Today is the official listening session where the government agencies will hear from all interested parties on the issue of corporate concentration in the food system—particularly, this round addresses “Issues of Concern to Farmers"—but the scheduled panels today are heavy on business and light on actual farmers. Several local groups organized Thursday’s town hall as a venue for farmers to voice their real concerns.

The evening began with a panel of independent farmers from Iowa, Wisconsin, and Missouri addressing concentration in seeds, dairy, and livestock; a representative from the United Food and Commercial Workers Union; and good food advocates talking about consumer issues (I had the great privilege to be one of those last speakers).

And then the floor was open to public comments. About 50 people spoke, almost all of them farmers. They told heartbreaking stories: The 29th anniversary of one man’s parents was a farm foreclosure. “The American Dream has turned into the American nightmare” for a southern Iowa dairy farmer, whose milk prices have been so low he can’t afford his feed costs. The 15-year-old son of a fifth generation dairy farmer wants to become the sixth generation, but if things don’t change in the next six months, they’re not going to have a farm.

Things are dire for farmers—as they are for so many of people who don’t have control over their food—but they’re ready to fight. They made powerful demands of the Department of Justice and Congress to enforce antitrust laws and break up the hugely concentrated ag industries. But government isn’t quite the last hope; people are. A family farmer from near Des Moines wanted to talk about power: “Industry cannot turn one wheel unless people make those machines work,” he said. “We have the power here, and we need to understand what that power means.”

More after the jump

Obama Justice Dept. is investigating Big Ag companies

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice will hold the first of five workshops to determine whether a handful of food and farming companies are exercising monopoly control over the industry. This is a big deal. If the Dept. finds that companies like Monsanto are violating antitrust law, regulators could move to break up the companies in order to protect farmers and consumers from further harm.

Friday’s workshop takes place in Ankeny, IA, near Des Moines. USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney will speak on a panel, as will a selection of crop and livestock farmers from around the country. (The farmers were added at the last-minute amidst outcries that a workshop about agriculture didn’t feature any actual farmers.) Other panels will feature a Monsanto Vice President, a former President of the Iowa Soybean Association and a representative from the organization Food & Water Watch.

Farmer and consumer groups who are concerned that the Justice Dept. workshop is bent towards corporate special interests are organizing a People’s Antitrust Hearing in Ankeny on the evening prior. At the event, Iowa farmers and community leaders will share their perspective on how food company monopolies lead to higher food prices and lower farmer profits.

In December, Slow Food USA joined other groups in asking the public to submit comments to the Justice Dept. The DoJ reported receiving over 15,000 comments, and has begun posting them online.

If you’re an Iowa resident who believes in good, clean and fair food, considering joining Slow Food and getting involved in one of our Iowa chapters.

House Ag Committee Rejects Obama Cuts in Farm Subsidies

by intern Valerie Scott

In his 2011 budget President Obama proposed to make cuts in farm subsidies and the crop insurance program that would save almost 11 billion dollars over 10 years. This proposal – Obama’s second attempt to cut farm subsidies - was rejected last Wednesday by the House Agriculture Committee .

Since the passage of the 2008 Farm Bill, farmers eligible to participate in the subsidy program must make no more than $500,000 in adjusted gross income (AGI) from off-farm sources and no more than $750,000 on-farm AGI. The newest Obama farm cuts would have lowered these eligibility caps to $250,000 off-farm AGI and $500,000 on-farm AGI. Direct payment caps were targeted for cuts of 25%, from $40,000 to $30,000 annually. A cut of $8 billion from the Federal Crop Insurance Program was also proposed.

The Obama administration’s first unsuccessful attempt to cut farm subsidies in 2009 focused on phasing out direct payments to farmers with annual sales of more than $500,000. Direct payments are a highly controversial subsidy given to farmers based on the size of their farm and the commodity they grow - regardless of crop prices or production levels. In 2007, a year of high crop prices and record net income for farmers, taxpayers paid out $5 billion in direct payment subsidies. Despite the current deficit crisis, cuts in even the most controversial subsidies to wealthy farmers clearly remain an uphill political battle.

Farm subsidies primarily benefit growers of just five crops – corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton and rice. With Congress currently giving school lunch programs just $1 per meal for a generation of children afflicted with epidemic levels of obesity and diabetes – can we really afford not to put those 11 billion dollars towards better nutrition programs?

New Obama program to bring healthy choices to food deserts

by intern Jackie Fortin

“We can create the best nutrition education and physical education programs in the world, but if dinner is something off of the shelf of a local gas station or convenience store, because there’s no grocery store nearby, all our best efforts are going to go to waste,” the First Lady said during a speech at Philadelphia’s Fairhill School on Feb. 19 to launch the Obama Administration’s new Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI).

Currently, the USDA estimates that 23.5 million Americans, including 6.5 million children live in “food deserts,” or economically distressed areas that are typically served by fast food restaurants and convenience stores offering little or no fresh produce.

“Food deserts,” which can now be identified using USDA’s new Food Environment Atlas, are one of the many results of the nation’s broken food system preventing individuals from making better choices and denying them the ability to vote with their forks. When an area lacks healthy, affordable food options, its inhabitants are prone to higher levels of obesity and other diet-related diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

In order to achieve the Obama Administration’s goal of eliminating “food deserts” nationwide in the next seven years, the HFFI will fund a movement of bringing grocery stores and other healthy food retailers to underserved urban and rural communities across America. The effort will also include providing grocery stores on wheels for less densely populated areas, said Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan during her “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” presentation at The New School Feb. 25.

The $400 million initiative, which will use a mix of federal tax credits, below-market rate loans, loan guarantees, and grants aimed to attract private sector capital, is being made possible through a partnership between the departments of Treasury, Agriculture and Health and Human Services.

Modeled after the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative (FFFI), the HFFI will ideally not only provide access to healthy food, but will also invest in communities by removing financing obstacles and operating barriers, as well as by creating living wage jobs and qualified work forces.

More after the jump

Food Environment Atlas Shows Locations of Food Deserts

by intern Christine Binder

On February 9th, Michelle Obama unveiled Let’s Move, an initiative with the ambitious goal of solving the childhood obesity epidemic within a generation. As part of the initiative, the First Lady and her team also launched an interactive Food Environment Atlas. It is an important source of food environment statistics and a great way to visualize the ability of different communities to access healthy food, but it’s also a lot of fun to play with and explore.

You can look at 90 different characteristics of the food environment by state, region, or county. Who pays the most for milk? In which states do people eat the most fruits and veggies, or drink the most soda? Where are the greatest numbers of grocery stores or farmers’ markets located? How much money do Americans spend on fast food every year? Where are obesity levels the highest?

As you look at all of the different maps, you’ll probably notice that there are a lot of places in this country where healthy foods are not readily available – and even more places where unhealthy foods are. One of the four pillars of Let’s Move is Accessible and Affordable Healthy Food. This is important because 23.5 million Americans, 6.5 million of which are children, live in what are called “food deserts.”

A food desert is a neighborhood with little or no access to fresh, healthy foods, due to a lack of grocery stores or farmers markets’, often in combination with high food prices. Most food deserts are located in urban or rural areas. Even though they lack grocery stores, food deserts often contain plenty of fast food restaurants and convenience stores where cheap and unhealthy processed foods are sold. It’s not hard to see that eating healthfully in a food desert is extremely challenging.

More after the jump