We’re only ten days into December and already it has been a big month for food policy in this country. First, the Child Nutrition Re-Authorization bill passed, then the Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510) passed (sort of), and Wednesday was the final Department of Justice and USDA listening session on Agriculture and Antitrust Enforcement.
I’ve been lax about blogging lately and I hope to rectify that. I’ll start by relaunching my “Friday Round-Up” of food politics news.
• Child Nutrition Re-Authorization, AKA the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act passed on December 1st. “This Bill is far from perfect, and has involved large compromises, but is a great achievement towards our end goal of making kids healthier,” Josh Viertel, President of Slow Food USA, wrote in an e-mail to members. Far from perfect is right: to offset the bill’s cost (a concession Dems felt they had to make in order to win Republican support), legislators swiped $2.2 billion from SNAP benefits, effectively shifting funds from one anti-hunger program to another. (Why the Republicans are O.K. with adding $700 billion to the deficit by maintaining tax cuts for the rich yet can’t abide spending a few billion for the health of our children is really beyond me.)
As one of the activists who went to the Hill last winter to pressure my then senators Schumer and Gillibrand to increase federal reimbursement rates by at least .35 cents per meal (aiming for a .70 cent per meal increase), I’m disappointed. Healthy food costs money, and it should be no surprise that American kids are still getting pre-cooked omelet-like products and breaded fish sticks with plasticky-tasting American cheese on top. (As they were in the Brooklyn elementary school where I volunteered last year to prepare and serve a salad bar. Which was a hit, btw.) The bill does increase federal reimbursement rates for school lunches (over the inflation rate) for the first time since 1973: by a puny 6 cents per lunch. On the bright side, the bill provides $50 million in funding for a competitive grant program supporting Farm to School programs at USDA: which means that some schools and nonprofits, at least, will be able to develop relationships with local farmers, plan seasonal menus, build school gardens, and so on. (Clearly there’s not enough money to go around to all schools, which is why the USDA is staging a competition.) The bill also establishes nutrition standards for all food and beverages sold on school grounds. (Right now these standards, such as they are, only cover what’s served in cafeterias.) Read the Washington Post’s full story here.
• Over at Grist, Bonnie Azab Powell and Tom Philpott have been curating a series of discussions on the Food Safety Modernization Act. At issue is the Tester-Hagan amendment, which exempts small-scale farms (defined as those that make under $500,000 in annual revenues) from some of the more onerous and expensive regulations in the bill. (The bill was written with gargantuan food manufacturers and processors in mind, it seems.) Most family farmers are thrilled that this amendment is part of the bill, but some local food activists and writers who have read the amendment disagree, saying it’s still onerous because small farmers would have to register for an exemption. If you don’t have time to read the latest back and forth, skip to Judith McGeary’s clear summary of the amendment at the very end. Latest news: the revised food safety bill (without a technical glitch in its language) just passed in the House and is awaiting passage in the Senate. Follow Tom Philpott on Twitter for more details…
• The Main Course is one of my favorite shows at Heritage Radio Network, the indie radio station produced out of Roberta’s Pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn. It’s an acquired taste—hosts Katy Keiffer and Patrick Martins are long-winded and a very silly—but it only took me a few shows, and I was hooked. They also interview fascinating people who I would otherwise not know about—such as Radhika Subramaniam, director of the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons (at the New School) and Nevil Cohen, assistant professor of environmental studies at the New School. These two have helped put together a design show that re-envisions urban agriculture and explores the role of design in urban food systems. This discursive conversation got me thinking about the role artists have in conceptualizing social change, particularly when it comes to our food system(s).
• Finally, ObamaFoodorama reports that Deputy Ag Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, Sam Kass, and WH horticulturalist Jim Adams have just installed hoop houses at the White House Kitchen Garden. If you, too, live in a climate where the sun shines throughout the winter, a hoop house is a low-tech, low-cost way to extend your growing season.
Hannah Wallace
Hannah Wallace writes about food justice, integrative medicine, and travel. She is a frequent contributor to Whole Living (formerly Body + Soul), Portland Monthly, and T: Travel, and her articles and book ...
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