Source:  Rita Jane Gabbett, MEATINGPLACE.COM, 3/17/10

It's hard to find a food-related news release these days that doesn't reference locally-sourced food, school lunch and First Lady Michelle Obama's child obesity campaign. Two bills introduced this week are no exception, one of which would give the administration the authority to set national nutrition standards for all foods sold on school campuses.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.)on Wednesday introduced the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 that would invest $4.5 billion in new child nutrition program funding over 10 years. The investment would dwarf the highest previous increase of $500 million over 10 years. "The legislation is fully paid for," Lincoln said in a news release, but did not elaborate.

The funding would include $3.2 billion under the umbrella of "promoting health and reducing childhood obesity." That portion of the bill would give the Agriculture Secretary authority to establish national nutrition standards for all foods sold on school campuses. It would also establish nutrition requirements for child care providers participating in the Child and Adult Care Food Program.

In addition, the bill would provide mandatory funding for schools to establish school gardens and to source local foods into school cafeterias. Further, it would establish a performance-based increase in the federal reimbursement rate of 6 cents per meal to help schools meet new meal standards and provide children with healthier school meals.

The bill would also include $1.2 billion focused on ending childhood hunger with a number of programs to provide more meals during and after school to low-income children.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack praised Lincoln's bill, but urged Congress to go even further, noting the Obama budget proposal included $10 billion over 10 years in additional food program funding.

Local sourcing

On Tuesday, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and 13 other senators offered the Growing Farm to School Programs Act that would provide $50 million in startup funds to local schools and districts, through competitive grants, for technical help in connecting school food service providers with local small- and medium-sized farms to buy locally produced foods for school lunchrooms.

Leahy expects the new bill to be incorporated into the broader child nutrition reauthorization bill that is nearing action by the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Livestock and meat groups have been watching all of this legislation with concern for anything potentially detrimental to government purchases of meat products.

In fact, there is little in either bill that would help. As one former USDA official quipped, "Unless the school garden includes a pasture for free range chickens, pigs, sheep and cows… And if it did, think of the expansion in the biology curriculum when the kids learn anatomy and physiology processing the critters for the school lunch ladies!"

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