The Missouri Dairy Association (MDA) has asked the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services to reconsider their decision to eliminate cheese from the Womens, Infants and Children (WIC) approved list of foods for young children and some women.
"We were shocked to learn of this after it was reported last week by the Springfield News-Leader," says Larry Purdom, MDA President and a dairy farmer from Purdy. "Their article said the Department made the decision in April but nobody informed us.
"This decision affects an estimated 625,000 pounds of cheese consumption. Cheese is a most versatile product to use in a number of ways and is a great source of calcium.
"Together, low-fat and fat-free milk, cheese, and yogurt provide a unique package of nine essential nutrients including calcium, potassium, phosphorus, protein, vitamins A, D and B12, riboflavin, and niacin (niacin equivalents).
"The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recognize that moderate evidence shows that milk and milk products are linked to improved bone health, especially in children and teens, and a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes and lower blood pressure in adults.
"In addition, cheese for the large part is the economic driver for the milk price received by dairy farmers. This is a real kick in the teeth to Missouri dairy farmers on top of the drought we have been dealing with," says Purdom.
The News-Leader article stated "other states such as Maryland and Utah had chosen other budget cutting ways such as encouraging buying store brands for some foods and cutting out expensive juices".
Furthermore, the News-Leader article quoted Rev. Douglas Greenaway, the CEO and executive director of the National WIC Association in Washington, saying "that he was not aware of any other WIC programs that have eliminated cheese from the children's food packages".
"MDA would hope the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services would look at other alternatives rather than cutting a product made from our milk and processed by Dairy Farmers of America and Schrieber Cheese in our state," concluded Purdom.
Showing posts with label WIC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WIC. Show all posts
Monday, August 13, 2012
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Second Harvest Says Recent Legislation Would Gut Aid Programs
by Second Harvest
After nearly 20 years of bipartisan commitment to ensure funding for critical nutrition assistance to our country's most vulnerable, the House of Representatives voted last week to gut funding for the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program in a move that seeks to deny nutrition assistance to as many as 350,000 newborns, very young children and mothers in HB 2112.
WIC provides funding for supplemental foods, health care referrals, and nutrition education for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum women, and to infants and children up to age five who are found to be at nutritional risk.
Additionally, the same piece of legislation dramatically cut funding to the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) and the Commodity Food Supplemental Program (CSFP). CSFP is a Federally funded program, which has had success improving the health of low-income pregnant and breastfeeding women, other new mothers up to one year postpartum, infants, children up to age six, and elderly people at least 60 years of age by supplementing their diets with nutritious USDA commodity foods. TEFAP supplements the diets of low-income needy persons, including elderly people, by providing them with emergency food and nutrition assistance.
TEFAP and CSFP programs provide more than half of the food distributed by Second Harvest Community Food Bank across our 19 county service territory. Second Harvest will be re-evaluating how to feed the local needy due to these cuts.
Recently Second Harvest joined food banks from around the country in releasing the results of a nationwide study of food access. That study concluded that low income residents of Northwest Missouri and Northeast Kansas are missing 8.7 million meals annually. If enacted as written, this bill would remove access to an estimated 500,000 additional meals exploding our local meal gap to 9.2 million.
“To put that number in perspective, imagine your child or your parent ending a day having missed a meal because their house or apartment was completely devoid of food. Then consider that single occurrence happening 9.2 million times a year mostly in the lives of young children and the elderly,” says Second Harvest Executive Director David Davenport. “This is the worst kind of public policy - it's ideology over common sense, it's poor bashing to satisfy the worst kind of political behavior. Low income Americans don't have much of a political voice, they cannot hire lobbyists and they do not make contributions to political campaigns. The poor just try to survive.”
Summer 2011 has Second Harvest partnering with Brittany Village Apartments in a pilot program to provide supplemental food boxes for 150 low income families. They can expect 25 pounds of dry and canned goods and additional produce to be delivered in June, July and August. According to program director Linda Laderoute, “We hope that this will enable us to support hungry families this summer and expand to meet the greater need next summer.”
Summer is rough on many of our children. Often times, hungry kids can't wait to get back to school so they can have at least two balanced meals a day. They exist on minimal resources during the summer and research indicates that even mild under-nutrition during critical periods of growth impacts the behavior of our kids, their school performance, and their overall cognitive development. For more on Summer Hunger visit the Harvest Blog: http://www.ourcommunityfoodbank.org/blog_site
With the measures taken this month to cut critical nutrition assistance to families with children, summertime for our nation's children will likely continue to be a time of great need in this country. To see how your State Representative voted and voice your concern regarding HB 2112, see the following links: http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/bills/112/hr2112
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll459.xml)
Editor's note -- Congressman Sam Graves voted for this legislation.
To make a donation to Second Harvest follow this link: http://www.ourcommunityfoodbank.org/give_money
Monday, June 20, 2011
Federal Budget Cuts Could Affect Area Poor
The US House approved 13% cuts in nutritional assistance, cuts to meals for low-income seniors, and cuts to food banks around the country. The vote was taken last Thursday. Congressman Sam Graves voted for the cuts. It would also cut the WIC program, which includes pregnant women and children under 5. This was part of the 2012 Ag Appropriations Bill.
Mary Jo Fletchall of Community Services in Worth County said that the extent of the cuts would depend on whether they would involve administrative cuts or actual cuts to the programs themselves. She said that there was a lot of fluff that could be cut. However, she said that the fear was that they would have to limit participation in their programs, which would really create a hardship. A lot would depend on how the various agencies would absorb the 13% cuts. In a news release, Congressional leaders maintained that such cuts could be made without affecting services and that strong programs could still be maintained with less money.
The Republican Congress has maintained that the cuts are necessary in order to achieve deficit reduction. However, the bill now goes to the Senate. The actual cuts may not be as much given that the Democrats control the Senate; this means that there would have to be some sort of compromise on the cuts and where they would be made.
There are risks that Congress is taking should the cuts target the actual programs themselves as opposed to administrative staffing. The risk is that less aid for preventative health services such as WIC, other nutritional assistance programs, cuts to food banks, and aid to low income seniors would result in more long-term health care costs, meaning that the risk is that Congress is sacrificing long-term benefits in return for short-term benefits. House Republicans have maintained that such actions are needed because the US has reached the debt ceiling, meaning that they cannot go into debt like they have in the past. However, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities maintains that the deficits are actually caused by the Bush tax cuts as well as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Mary Jo Fletchall of Community Services in Worth County said that the extent of the cuts would depend on whether they would involve administrative cuts or actual cuts to the programs themselves. She said that there was a lot of fluff that could be cut. However, she said that the fear was that they would have to limit participation in their programs, which would really create a hardship. A lot would depend on how the various agencies would absorb the 13% cuts. In a news release, Congressional leaders maintained that such cuts could be made without affecting services and that strong programs could still be maintained with less money.
The Republican Congress has maintained that the cuts are necessary in order to achieve deficit reduction. However, the bill now goes to the Senate. The actual cuts may not be as much given that the Democrats control the Senate; this means that there would have to be some sort of compromise on the cuts and where they would be made.
There are risks that Congress is taking should the cuts target the actual programs themselves as opposed to administrative staffing. The risk is that less aid for preventative health services such as WIC, other nutritional assistance programs, cuts to food banks, and aid to low income seniors would result in more long-term health care costs, meaning that the risk is that Congress is sacrificing long-term benefits in return for short-term benefits. House Republicans have maintained that such actions are needed because the US has reached the debt ceiling, meaning that they cannot go into debt like they have in the past. However, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities maintains that the deficits are actually caused by the Bush tax cuts as well as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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