Archives for the 'Farm to School' Category

Lincoln Introduces Child Nutrition Bill for Markup

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

This morning, Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) unveiled her “markup vehicle” for Child Nutrition Act reauthorization and scheduled Committee markup of her draft bill for next Wednesday, March 24.  The proposal is titled “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010.”

Farm to School would receive just $25 million in the current Lincoln draft.  However, moves are underway to try to increase the amount to $50 million to match the $50 million proposed in Senator Leahy’s  Growing Farm to School Programs Act (S. 3123), also released today.

Lincoln’s bill also increases the reimbursement rate schools receive for providing meals, includes new initiatives to increase enrollment of eligible low-income children, and expands afterschool feeding programs.

Overall, the proposed bill would increase spending on school meal programs by $4.5 billion over the next 10 years, or a bit less than half of what the President proposed in the budget he released in February.  The Obama proposal asked for an increase of $1 billion a year, or $10 billion over 10 years, but did not suggest a way to offset those costs

The Lincoln proposal addresses the question of the offset by proposing a cut in farm bill conservation spending for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) by about $2.3 billion over 10 years, which would pay for half the cost of the proposed increase in school meal programs.  That cut, if passed and if combined with a cut to EQIP spending in future annual agriculture appropriations bills of a similar magnitude to the one made in recent years, would put EQIP on level funding track rather than the increased funding track it would otherwise be on under the terms of the 2008 Farm Bill.

The other two “offsets” in the Lincoln package are roughly billion dollar cuts over 10 years to the SNAP Education program and a technical change to the bonus commodity program.

Three bill summaries and the full bill text are available under “Current Legislation” on the Senate Agriculture Committee website.  NSAC will continue to follow the development of the markup process and will post information about farm to school funding, EQIP conservation funding, and related issues as it becomes available in the coming week or during the Committee mark-up a week from today.

Conservation / Land Stewardship, Farm to School | 1 Comment

Farm to School Bill Introduced in Senate

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) today introduced the Growing Farm to School Programs Act (S. 3123),  a popular proposal to authorize $50 million to USDA to provide start-up funds to communities across the country linking farmers and ranchers to the school lunch program.  Senator Leahy’s bill  is designed to improve the quality of school lunches while also stimulating local and regional small and medium-sized farms and food systems.

The bill has already been cosponsored by13 senators, including seven members of the Senate Agriculture Committee: Senators Arlen Specter (D-PA), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Robert Casey (D-PA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Patty Murray (D-WA), Bernie Sanders (D-VT), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), and Tom Udall (D-NM).

NSAC strongly supports this legislation and is encouraging Senators to join as co-sponsors.  The companion bill in the House of Representatives is Rep. Holt’s Farm to School Improvements Act of 2010 (HR 4710).

Farm to school programs have emerged in communities nationwide over the past ten years but their growth has been hampered by the lack of consistent, national funding and support.

“Connecting farms to schools makes sense in so many ways, from economic to nutrition.  The school lunch program is a sizable buyer in every community.  There is no need to start from scratch….This bill is a catalyst to forge these connections and let them flourish,”  said Senator Leahy in a press release today.

The Growing Farm to School Programs Act builds on work that Senators Leahy and Specter began in 2004 encouraging farm to school programs through a provision they wrote, which was included in the 2004 Child Nutrition Act reauthorization.

NSAC will continue to follow the progress of farm to school bills in the House and Senate and work to have mandatory funding for the programs included in the final Child Nutrition reauthorization approved by both Houses.

Farm to School | 1 Comment

New Farm to School Bill in House

Monday, March 1st, 2010

On Friday, February 26, Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ) introduced the Farm to School Improvements Act of 2010 (HR 4710), which would provide the USDA with $10 million a year for a competitive grants program to fund projects linking producers with the school lunch program.  The proposed legislation’s goal is to improve nutrition in schools while boosting farm sales and stimulating rural economies.  NSAC strongly supports this legislation and is encouraging Members of Congress to co-sponsor it.

Farm to School projects could include developing a supply chain (aggregating, packaging, distributing) to serve schools, purchasing equipment to minimally process food so it can be used by cafeterias, adjusting menus to take advantage of regional production, or organizing trips for children to local farms.

Similar Farm to School language is included in the Children’s Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Act of 2009 (HR 4333), introduced by Rep. Farr (D-CA) and Rep. Putnam (R-FL), that also includes funds for salad bars in schools and other improvements to school nutrition.

NSAC’s end-goal is to have a mandatory funding provision for Farm to School  included in the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, scheduled for congressional action later this year.  The first step in the process will be consideration of comprehensive reauthorization bills by the House Education and Labor Committee and by the Senate Agriculture Committee.  NSAC will continue to work on the pending Child Nutrition legislation with the aim of ensuring inclusion of Farm to School as part of  the larger bill.

Farm to School, Grants and Programs, Local Food and Marketing, Rural Development | 3 Comments

Grant Opportunity: Community Outreach and Assistance for Risk Management

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Today’s federal register announced the availability of $2.5 million in grants for the Risk Management Agency’s (RMA) Community Outreach and Assistance Partnership Program and $1.1 million for Commodity Partnerships for Small Agricultural Risk Management Education Sessions.

The Community Outreach and Assistance Partnership Program targets limited resource, socially disadvantaged and other traditionally underserved producers with training, informational opportunities and assistance to understand risk management tools including crop insurance and forward contracts, as well as broader risk management topics such as crop and enterprise diversification, conservation planning, new and value-added markets, debt reduction, and asset building strategies.

In 2010 the Risk Management Agency (RMA) has expanded the scope of risk management projects it will fund to include Farm to School, Food Safety and addressing Food Deserts (areas underserved by food retailers) with products from small farmers and ranchers.

The awards are unique in that recipients work closely with the Risk Management Agency (RMA) to deliver outreach and assistance in their geographical area.

Applications are due by April 15, 2010 and awards will be made by September 30, 2010.

Read the full RFA here. To apply, complete the full application packet, available online and mail to the address listed in the RFA, or visit Grants.gov to apply online (as of 4pm EST 3/1/10 the application is still not listed in Grants.gov).  If you want to use grants.gov register as soon as possible as the process can take several weeks and do not submit your application online at the last minute as the system has been known to crash.

For further information, contact:

Beginning Farmers, Fair Competition, Farm to School, Food Safety, Grants and Programs, Local Food and Marketing, Rural Development | No Comments

House Ag Appropriation Hearings kick off with questions for Vilsack

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

Yesterday’s hearing before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture kicked off the annual ag appropriations cycle with a round of questions for Secretary Vilsack on the USDA’s budget proposals for 2011.  Members covered a wide swath of issues, and specifically addressed a number of programs of interest to NSAC members, including the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP), climate change, food safety, farm to school, and the recently announced Healthy Food Financing and Rural Innovation Initiatives.

Notably missing from the mix were questions on the Administration’s proposed major cuts to mandatory conservation programs.  Despite urging from NSAC and a number of other farm, conservation and environmental groups to reject cuts to mandatory farm conservation programs, no subcommittee member raised the issue with Secretary Vilsack throughout the three-plus hours of questioning.

But on the other side of the budget spectrum, the ballooning Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) prompted Ranking Member Jack Kingston (GA) to dub it the USDA’s “cash for clunkers” equivalent and admonish that the agency could “do better.”  BCAP was written in the 2008 Farm Bill at an estimated $70 million, but is projected to cost $479 million dollars in FY 2011.

Both Kingston and Representative Tom Latham (IA) also criticized the proposed $50 million within the Agriculture and Food Research Institute (AFRI) on climate change research to develop mitigation and adaptation strategies.  Secretary Vilsack responded in defense of the investment, stating that the research was “consistent with the USDA’s responsibilities” and essential in order for the US to continue to be the “most productive and adaptive” agricultural power in the world.  Kingston later questioned the impact that EPA regulations on greenhouse gases (GHGs) might have on farmers.  The Secretary cautioned that the impact was difficult to assess in the absence of a specific proposal, but that preliminary studies show that GHG regulation could represent an economic opportunity for commodity growers.

Following on her press statement on the release of the budget earlier this month, Chairwoman Rosa De Lauro (CT) questioned the Secretary about the lack of increased funding for the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) in light of growing concerns by consumers and policy makers about food safety.  De Lauro drilled the Secretary on details about terminating School Lunch Program suppliers who violate safety standards, and about the agency’s role in beefing up oversight of the current Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) management system, which she described as “too much industry self-policing.”

Multiple committee members chimed in on the issue of Child Nutrition spending.  Notably, Representative Sam Farr (CA) reminded the committee of his pending Children’s Fruits and Vegetable Act which includes $10 million in competitive grants and technical assistance for farm-to-school programs.  Representative De Lauro asked for a breakdown of spending within the Administration’s proposed $1 billion per year increase for improvements to Child Nutrition Programs.  The Secretary did not outline details, and in particular did not offer additional information on how Farm to School might be funded within Child Nutrition reauthorization, though he did reiterate the USDA’s commitment to the strategy and mentioned the potential for using Rural Development funds to address supply chain development for Farm to School programs in rural areas.

Rural development was another reoccurring theme with questions ranging from broadband spending to housing to electric loans.  In response to each question about specific programs, Secretary Vilsack brought the conversation back to the concept of regional change made tangible in the USDA’s proposed Regional Innovation Initiative.  In response to concerns about the program eating away at existing competitive grant programs (the initiative would establish modest funding set-asides from twenty different programs across the USDA but does not propose additional new funding), the Secretary reiterated the need for a new approach to rural development that leveraged resources from across communities and encouraged strategic planning to create better places to live rather than focusing on individual business development.  With all respect to the work that’s been done, said the Secretary, “rural development is not working.”  Based on 25 years of experience working on these issues, the Secretary views the new initiative as an exciting and innovative alternative make real improvements in the lives of rural Americans.

Click here to view the full webcast.  Or click here to download a pdf of Secretary Vilsack’s testimony.

Conservation / Land Stewardship, Farm to School, Food Safety, Local Food and Marketing, Renewable Energy / Climate Change, Research and Extension, Rural Development | No Comments

Delayed, not diminished: Vilsack on Child Nutrition priorities, including Farm to School

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

After being postponed for two weeks by the blizzard that shut down the capitol, USDA Secretary Vilsack outlined the Administration’s priorities for the Child Nutrition Act reauthorization yesterday at a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.  The Child Nutrition Act includes authorization for the National School Breakfast and Lunch Programs, summer food, Child and Adult Care Feeding Program, and the Women, Infants’ and Children’s (WIC) Program.  With frequent references to the history of the School Lunch program (it was begun during the depression and expanded in 1946 at the urging of the military) the Secretary laid out the pragmatic reasons as well moral imperative to improve and expand the programs with additional funding this year.

The Administration’s emphasis is on increasing access and improving quality of school lunch and they are taking a page from the Department of Education’s Race to the Top competitive grants for excellence by offering grants and/or bonus payments to states that implement effective direct certification of students already enrolled in other assistance programs and increasing the reimbursement rate for schools conditional on their improving the quality of the meals they serve, including increasing the amount of fruits and vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy products.

Farm to school is included by the Administration as a key component of the push to improve the quality of school lunches.  NSAC continues to campaign for a farm to school provision establishing a grants program within USDA to support projects developing links between small and mid-sized producers with the school lunch program in the Child Nutrition Act reauthorization.

The reauthorization plan includes support for increased participation in the school breakfast program, expanding the summer foods program and extending the authority of the Child and Adult Care Food Program to provide food after school in all 50 states.  The emphasis is on finding creative and cost effective ways to extend the reach of the programs with the goal of increasing the number of children participating in USDA nutrition programs by one million within five years.  Nutritional improvements will be extended to all food sold in schools, including what is in vending machines and a la carte lines.  Secretary Vilsack also called for more funds to upgrade cafeteria equipment and increase food service staff training to give schools the capacity to prepare and serve more nutritious food.

Secretary Vilsack pointed out that the Administration’s Child Nutrition proposals support the First Lady’s Let’s Move! Initiative by ensuring that the food children eat in school will be more nutritious and by emphasizing increased attention to nutrition education for both students and their parents.   He also tied better nutrition in schools to increased time and attention for children to exercise during the day — presenting a comprehensive approach to health in schools that will be emphasized and encouraged by expanding the Department’s Healthier US School Challenge to 3,000 schools within three years.

The Administration would like to increase the amount spent on child nutrition programs by $1 billion a year for the next ten years, but the priorities laid out by Secretary Vilsack could far exceed that increase.  The Administration has not announced a funding strategy for this enahnced investment, looking to Congress for leadership on crafting a funding mechanism, nor have they provided any details about specific proposed provisions and their cost.

The nutrition programs are now working under a one-year extension of the Act, which expired on September 30, 2009.  Reauthorization has been slowed down by negotiations over healthcare reform and it now looks as though deliberations in the House and Senate will not begin until the spring.

Farm to School | No Comments

Peterson and Vilsack endorse local and regional food at Home Grown

Friday, February 19th, 2010

More than 200 people braved chilling western Minnesota February weather on Monday and Tuesday to hear House Agriculture Committee Chairman Rep. Collin Peterson and USDA Secretary Vilsack speak about the need to develop better local food systems at the Home Grown Economy conference at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall.  At least another 100 participants joined by video conference from four additional sites.  Both the Secretary and the Chairman emphasized the opportunities that increasing food production for local markets offers rural communities and how USDA programs can help support their development.  (See Dave Swenson’s recent study on the potential in similar SW Iowa region.)

Chairman Peterson opened the conference with an endorsement of the First Lady’s new Let’s Move initiative to reduce childhood obesity and his support for the idea that US agriculture can help by increasing, in particular, the volume of fruits and vegetables produced, and increasing their availability in underserved areas.  He emphasized that any federal support for developing new market relationships will have to happen within the context of fiscal crisis and that he anticipates the possibility of agricultural budget cuts next year, including possible cuts to farm programs, via a congressional budget reconciliation process.

Secretary Vilsack expanded on the theme of using local agriculture to address health, energy, and economic development challenges in rural areas and offered existing USDA Rural Development and Marketing programs to build the supply and capacity to meet local food demand.  He decried the past use of Business and Industry Loan Guarantees (B&I) to fund convenience stores and hotels that “subsidized people driving through rural communities” and pledged that B&I will now be used to help “create good lives in rural America” through investments in businesses, including grocery stores, that can be keystones of sustainable local development.  Data indicates that B&I now has 188 active loans for convenience stores totaling $279,818,036 and only 53 grocery store loan projects totaling $59,677,072.

Secretary Vilsack offered several USDA programs as key to building regional food economies, all programs very familiar to NSAC members.  The five percent set aside in the B&I program for local and regional food enterprises, increased funding for Value-Added Producer Grant including a special funding set-aside for mid-tier value chain development, the creation of the Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program, and doubling farm bill mandatory funding in 2011 for the Farmers Market Promotion Program were all NSAC-led campaigns in the 2008 Farm Bill.

For a quick-guide to these and other Farm Bill programs and grants, click here.

Linking Nutrition and Local Food

An interesting new emphasis of the Secretary’s was on the potential that USDA’s nutrition programs offer to stimulate local food production, processing, retailing, and consumption.  Secretary Vilsack repeatedly mentioned the as-yet unfunded Farm to School program.  In addition, with reference to SNAP (formerly food stamps), he mentioned possible new grants to create incentives for SNAP participants to purchase local food.  (He may have been referring to the proposed $4 million for EBT connections for farmers markets included in the FY2011 budget.  NSAC will stay tuned and let you know as we learn more. Click here to sign up to receive news from NSAC.)

Over $4 million of SNAP purchases are made in farmers markets annually, accounting for only 0.04% of SNAP food purchases, so there is clearly room for growth.  Vilsack pointed out the every SNAP dollar spent generates $1.84 in economic activity.  If SNAP is used to purchase local or regional food products the economic stimulus to the area will be even greater.

The Secretary also mentioned the WIC program.  NSAC submitted comments on the new WIC program fresh fruit and vegetable vouchers encouraging the Department to have all states certify farmers markets as vendors and encourage participants’ access to markets.

B&I Loan for Regional Food System Development

In a related development on Tuesday, USDA announced a $450,000 B&I Loan Guarantee to Organic Renaissance, LLC in Athol, MA to lease a building to facilitate the cost-effective aggregation and distribution of food products grown in MA, southern N.H., southern VT and northern CT to restaurants, retailers and others in the region.  This is the first example NSAC has seen of a B&I loan guarantee for an enterprise designed to build the regional food system.

Farm to School, Local Food and Marketing, Notes from the Field | No Comments

NSAC’s 2010 Policy Priorities

Monday, February 15th, 2010

Each year, the NSAC membership engages in a set of discussions within NSAC’s four policy issue committees and then at our annual face-to-face meeting in January about the coming year’s policy priorities.  The NSAC Policy Council, made up of formally represented members, makes the final decision about the slate of issues the coalition will together advocate for.

As our membership grows in size (we’re 80 organizations strong!) so does our diversity and power.  Our priorities reflect long-standing work on conservation, rural development, and research, as well as emerging issues that are increasing important to sustainable agriculture.

The following are NSAC’s 2010 priorities categorized by issue committee.  To learn more about each of the committees, click on the header of each section.

Conservation, Energy and Environment

Farming Opportunities and Fair Competition

Marketing, Food Systems, and Rural Development

Research, Education, and Extension

Beginning Farmers, Conservation / Land Stewardship, Fair Competition, Farm to School, Food Safety, Local Food and Marketing, Organic Agriculture, Renewable Energy / Climate Change, Research and Extension | No Comments

Farm to School Included In Administration’s Child Nutrition Priorities

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

Secretary Vilsack’s much anticipated speech at the National Press Club outlining the Administration’s priorities for Child Nutrition Act reauthorization was canceled Monday as the federal government remained snowbound, but excerpts of his comments were made available Tuesday in conjunction with the roll-out of the First Lady’s childhood obesity initiative. Monday’s speech included support for the Farm to School program – support which Vilsack reiterated on a conference call on Wednesday.

“Strengthening the link between local farmers and school cafeterias” is item number seven on the Secretary’s list of what the Administration would like Congress to include in this year’s anticipated reauthorization. Increased access and participation in school lunch and breakfast, improved nutritional quality of all foods in schools, better nutrition information, and technology and funds for cafeterias to buy equipment that will allow them to use more fresh produce in lunches lead the priority list.

Secretary Vilsack reaffirmed the Administration’s commitment to an additional $1 billion per year over the next ten years for child nutrition. Nothing issued by the Administration to date, however, designates how exactly they would propose spending the recommended $1 billion a year increase in mandatory funding.

NSAC is working with Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ), who will soon introduce a Farm to School reauthorization bill in the House of Representatives, and with Senator Leahy (D-VT), the original sponsor of Farm to School legislation in 2004, who will soon offer a slightly amended version of his original bill. Both the Holt and Leahy bills are expected to include $10 million a year ($50 million over the 5-year life of the reauthorization) in mandatory funding.

Reps. Farr (D-CA) and Putnam (R-FL) have already introduced the Children’s Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Act of 2009 (H.R. 4333) which includes $50 mandatory funding over five years for farm to school projects nationwide, as well as funding for cafeteria equipment, training and salad bars.

The Farm to School program (originally called Farm to Cafeteria) was authorized by Congress in 2004, but to date has never been funded. Once funded, the program will provide competitive, one-time grants to improve student access to nutritious, locally grown food from area farmers and to assist schools in developing hands-on nutrition education programs.

The release of the Secretary’s Child Nutrition Act reauthorization priorities were timed to coincide with and support the more sweeping agenda to reduce childhood obesity announced by the White House on Tuesday.

Congress is expected to take up the Child Nutrition bill in the coming months.

Farm to School | 3 Comments

Let’s Move to Beat Childhood Obesity

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

First Lady Michelle Obama today unveiled Let’s Move, her comprehensive approach to eliminating childhood obesity in this generation.

The morning began with President Obama establishing the Task Force on Childhood Obesity, a group of government agency representatives tasked with implementing an action plan to improve child nutrition and increase physical activity.

At noon, Tiki Barber hosted a White House event at which several of the speakers emphasized the role agriculture must play in improving the American food system. Will Allen of Growing Power in Milwaukee talked about the need for vibrant family farms to re-stimulate rural communities. Mayor Chip Johnson of Hernando, Mississippi talked about their successful new farmers’ market and Mayor Joseph Curtatone of Somerville, Massachusetts credited Farm to School with improving their district’s school lunch program.

The Let’s Move initiative will focus on four main goals: increasing the useful information parents have about nutrition, improving the quality of food served in the nation’s schools, improving access to nutritious affordable food for all Americans, and increasing physical activity.

In conjunction with Let’s Move, USDA has launched the Food Environment Atlas, an interactive database that paints a picture of the food environment in communities across the country. It includes information on population, health indicators, food dollars in an area, and availability of farmers markets and farm to school programs. The Atlas may prove to be a powerful tool to support the Administration’s proposed $400 million in financing to eliminate urban and rural food deserts within seven years.

Let’s Move links to NSAC member organization Farmers Market Coalition’s website and today’s announcement promotes the additional $5 million the Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP) will receive in FY 2011 as a result of NSAC’s successful farm bill advocacy of mandatory funding for the program.

Companies that collectively provide 20 percent of the nation’s school lunches have pledged to make significant improvements in the lunches they serve, including doubling the amount of produce they use within ten years and increasing the use of whole grains. Some of these companies are already increasing produce selections with local sourcing.

Finally, the First Lady announced that the comprehensive child obesity work would be supported by the Partnership for a Healthier America, a new foundation that is to act as a bipartisan convener to bring together government, non-profit organizations and the private sector to achieve the goal of ending childhood obesity in this generation.

Farm to School, Local Food and Marketing | 1 Comment

Subscribe to RSS