Farr, DeLauro: Bill would let schools keep money without serving healthier food or notifying parents
May 21, 2014 | 07:05 PM
Schools that would get waivers from the updated school meal rules would be allowed to keep the 6-cent increase in federal reimbursement under the fiscal year 2015 Agriculture appropriations bill that the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee approved Tuesday, Rep. Sam Farr, D-Calif., noted during the wide-ranging debate on the bill.
Farr, ranking member on the subcommittee, pointed out that the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act gave the schools additional money to buy what were expected to be more expensive, healthier foods including fruits and vegetables, but that the subcommittee would allow schools that say they have lost money on the program for six months to keep the money, even though they are getting a one-year waiver from the rules.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., also noted that the schools are not required to notify parents that they are opting out of the new standards.
Farr also said he considers the provision to require the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) to allow purchases of white potatoes to be an earmark.
USDA has not allowed participants to use the WIC program to buy potatoes because an Institute of Medicine study showed that low-income women and infants are already buying plenty of potatoes and need to be encouraged to consume other vegetables.
Farr said he considers the potatoes provision “clever.”
“I think that is an earmark and it is wrong, particularly in the WIC program,” he said.
House Appropriations Committee ranking member Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., said she was also concerned about the WIC and school meals provisions.
Regarding students leaving the school lunch program, Lowey said schools need more “creative” cooks to make the meals more appealing.
But Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., said he believes the rules keep the cooks from being creative in making school meals.
Responding to criticism that the food industry is behind the school meals waiver, Aderholt also said he is not hearing from industry but from the “lunch ladies” in Alabama who serve the meals.
Lowey also criticized a provision that limits a USDA summer feeding program pilot project to rural areas. Excluding children from urban areas interferes with the pilot project’s intention to study innovative ways to reach hungry children in the summer as well as discriminating against urban children, she said.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., told DeLauro that schools are trying to force children to eat food they do not want, and that the children are leaving the school grounds to eat elsewhere.
Rogers said the program might work if the children were locked up, but that is not possible.
But DeLauro said parents and schools have to try to teach children to eat healthier food to try to deal with the obesity crisis.
She also responded that 91 percent of the schools are already in compliance and that USDA should work with the other schools, rather than be forced to grant waivers.
“This is a way to open a door to roll back” on all the changes toward healthier eating in school meals, DeLauro said.
DeLauro also criticized the bill’s funding levels as too low in a number of areas, including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.
The FSIS budget assumes savings from a change in the poultry inspection system that DeLauro said is unproven.
The United Fresh Produce Association said in a news release that it is “disappointed in the vote to move the bill out of subcommittee, but pleased that so many members raised strong objections to this provision, and will continue to fight any rollback that jeopardizes children’s health.”
“As the Ag appropriations bill makes its way through the Congress, we call on members of both parties to stand up for kids health, and not roll back these very basic nutrition standards for the nation’s school meals,” United Fresh President and CEO Tom Stenzel said.
The Agriculture Department on Tuesday also released a fact sheet on implementation of the new school meals rules.
▪ USDA — Fact Sheeet: Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act School Meals Implementation
Farr, ranking member on the subcommittee, pointed out that the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act gave the schools additional money to buy what were expected to be more expensive, healthier foods including fruits and vegetables, but that the subcommittee would allow schools that say they have lost money on the program for six months to keep the money, even though they are getting a one-year waiver from the rules.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., also noted that the schools are not required to notify parents that they are opting out of the new standards.
Farr also said he considers the provision to require the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) to allow purchases of white potatoes to be an earmark.
USDA has not allowed participants to use the WIC program to buy potatoes because an Institute of Medicine study showed that low-income women and infants are already buying plenty of potatoes and need to be encouraged to consume other vegetables.
Farr said he considers the potatoes provision “clever.”
“I think that is an earmark and it is wrong, particularly in the WIC program,” he said.
House Appropriations Committee ranking member Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., said she was also concerned about the WIC and school meals provisions.
Regarding students leaving the school lunch program, Lowey said schools need more “creative” cooks to make the meals more appealing.
But Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., said he believes the rules keep the cooks from being creative in making school meals.
Responding to criticism that the food industry is behind the school meals waiver, Aderholt also said he is not hearing from industry but from the “lunch ladies” in Alabama who serve the meals.
Lowey also criticized a provision that limits a USDA summer feeding program pilot project to rural areas. Excluding children from urban areas interferes with the pilot project’s intention to study innovative ways to reach hungry children in the summer as well as discriminating against urban children, she said.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., told DeLauro that schools are trying to force children to eat food they do not want, and that the children are leaving the school grounds to eat elsewhere.
Rogers said the program might work if the children were locked up, but that is not possible.
But DeLauro said parents and schools have to try to teach children to eat healthier food to try to deal with the obesity crisis.
She also responded that 91 percent of the schools are already in compliance and that USDA should work with the other schools, rather than be forced to grant waivers.
“This is a way to open a door to roll back” on all the changes toward healthier eating in school meals, DeLauro said.
DeLauro also criticized the bill’s funding levels as too low in a number of areas, including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.
The FSIS budget assumes savings from a change in the poultry inspection system that DeLauro said is unproven.
The United Fresh Produce Association said in a news release that it is “disappointed in the vote to move the bill out of subcommittee, but pleased that so many members raised strong objections to this provision, and will continue to fight any rollback that jeopardizes children’s health.”
“As the Ag appropriations bill makes its way through the Congress, we call on members of both parties to stand up for kids health, and not roll back these very basic nutrition standards for the nation’s school meals,” United Fresh President and CEO Tom Stenzel said.
The Agriculture Department on Tuesday also released a fact sheet on implementation of the new school meals rules.
▪ USDA — Fact Sheeet: Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act School Meals Implementation
