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Release No. 0502.05

FARM BILL NUTRITION FORUM SEPTEMBER 29, 2005 ALEXANDER HAMILTON CUSTOM
HOUSE AUDITORIUM ONE BOWLING GREEN NEW YORK, NEW YORK

PRESENT:

ROBERT CANAVAN

ERIC BOST

2 MR. CANAVAN: I\'d like to

3 organize this so we can move quickly

4 through these speakers. I\'m going to

5 call groups four individual speaks in

6 order, ask them to come down to the

7 microphone areas where there are two

8 of my colleagues who will show you to

9 the on-deck seats, and I will call

10 each individual from that point on to

11 come up to speak.

12 My colleague John Magnorelli is

13 timing the presentations and has

14 signals that will alert you to the

15 30-second mark and to the end of your

16 time. John is a senior official in

17 Massachusetts scholastic football

18 circles. He\'s a fair judge and he is

19 used to being listened to.

20 Let me ask \-- by the way, we

21 have a much more robust turnout than

22 we ever could have dreamed of so we

23 really need to move through as quickly

24 as we can. Everybody wants the

25 under-secretary to hear their concerns

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2 and their suggestions. So let me

3 begin right away, with \-- Yvonne

4 Tasker-Rothenberg, Jeff Ambers, Pam

5 Darby and Jodi Harawitz to come down.

6 And let me ask Yvonne Tasker

7 Rothenberg to proceed immediately to

8 the microphone to begin the

9 presentation.

10 Thank you.

11 MS. ROTHENBERG: Good morning.

12 I\'m chairperson of the Sierra Club,

13 Atlantic Chapter, Farm and Food

14 Committee. We have 45,000 active

15 members in New York State. The Sierra

16 Club and coalition of farm and

17 environmental groups in New York State

18 has produced a report which documents

19 environmental degradation and

20 detrimental effects to the public

21 health resulting form confined animal

22 feeding operations in our state. The

23 report is appropriately titled The

24 Wasting of Rural New York State.

25 To a large degree, State and

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2 Federal subsidy payments to pay-fill

3 operators are allowing pay-fill

4 expansion beyond environmental and

5 economic sustainability. In effect,

6 we, the taxpayers, are paying for the

7 destruction of our rural soil, water

8 and communities for the

9 over-production of foods that are not

10 even necessary for human health. We

11 have documented that some of the most

12 irresponsible operators in New York

13 are recipients of large Federal

14 subsidies. For example, the Marks

15 Farm, which had a 3,000,000-gallon

16 manure spill into the Black River

17 recently resulted in a kill of over a

18 quarter-million fish. Willet Gehring,

19 now being sued by local citizens for

20 damage to their health, and recently

21 cited for manures spills and inhumane

22 conditions for their livestock.

23 People in Niagra County cited for

24 fish-killing spills into Twelve-Mile

25 Creek and ultimately into Lake

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2 Ontario. And there are more.

3 We feel that U.S. farm policy

4 must focus on rewarding farmers who

5 practice good environmental

6 stewardship as the basis of an

7 environmentally sustainable farm

8 management plan. The goal of farm

9 policy should be to protect our

10 resources, even better to enhance our

11 soil and water resources, to insure

12 available resources for future

13 generations. We must reward farmers

14 who practice environmental stewardship

15 and we must require environmental

16 accountability from recipients of

17 Federal and State agricultural

18 subsidies. Pay-fill operations are

19 designed to socialize the costs for

20 the operation to the community while

21 they privatize the profits for their

22 corporate owners. We in New York

23 State are suffering from the

24 disastrous environmental and economic

25 results of government farm policy

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2 which for years has financially

3 supported a nonsustainable destructive

4 get big or get out policy. For the

5 2007 Farm Bill we support a more

6 enlightened, more efficient, more

7 environmental sustainable policy with

8 emphasis on crops that are

9 nutritionally sound.

10 On a personal note, I am

11 appalled that taxpayers are supporting

12 the production of products that are

13 destroying the environment and are not

14 necessary to human nutrition. I have

15 consumed no animal products for seven

16 years and at age 63 enjoy excellent

17 health, as well as being able to run a

18 6:40 mile as a nationally ranked

19 masters athlete.

20 I urge this committee to read

21 carefully Dr. T. Colin Candel\'s

22 nutritional study and to end subsidies

23 for livestock production. Our food

24 choices have a most profound effect on

25 our health and on our environment.

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2 Thank you.

3 MR. CANAVAN: Jeff Ambers.

4 Could I ask each presenter to

5 identify themselves by name and by

6 organization for the benefit of our

7 transcriber. Thank you.

8 MR. AMBERS: Good morning. I\'m

9 Jeffrey Ambers, executive director of

10 the Yorkville Common Pantry, New York

11 City\'s largest neighborhood-based

12 emergency food program, located in

13 East Harlem, one of the poorest

14 communities in the United States. The

15 Yorkville Common Pantry\'s five

16 emergency food programs combined

17 distribute over one and a

18 quarter-million meals annually to

19 14,000 low-income New Yorkers. We

20 operate year-around breakfast and

21 dinner programs and food pantries that

22 provide food to 700-plus families each

23 week. In 2003 we started 24/7 YCP,

24 New York State\'s only emergency food

25 program to operate 24 hours a day, 365

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2 days a year.

3 The Yorkville Common Pantries

4 primarily serves residents of East

5 Harlem, many of whom are economically

6 poor and suffer from various health

7 conditions. East Harlem is one of

8 the most obese communities in the

9 United States with 62 percent of its

10 residents either obese or overweight.

11 The death rate from diabetes in East

12 Harlem has grown 230 percent in the

13 past decade, twice the City-wide

14 average. East Harlem\'s unemployment

15 rate is 17 percent and nearly 40

16 percent of its families survive on

17 less than \$15,000 a year. In 2004,

18 only a quarter of its population met

19 basic self-sufficiency standards. And

20 the foot stamp participation rate

21 among eligible East Harlem residents

22 in 2004 was just 63 percent.

23 The USDA could better assist us

24 in providing our clients with more

25 nutritious food in a number of ways.

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2 By encouraging local government to

3 streamline the application process for

4 food stamps and increase food stamp

5 utilization in New York City, by

6 increasing TEFAP food and

7 administrative budgets and by giving

8 the recipients of TEFAP the

9 flexibility to purchase food that is

10 nutritious and culturally relevant,

11 including purchasing food from local

12 farmers. USDA bonus buy should go

13 directly to emergency food providers

14 and the types of products purchased

15 should be based on nutritious need as

16 opposed to market surplus. We depend

17 on and appreciate TEFAP support.

18 That said, would it not be wiser

19 to give programs like ours the choice

20 in the foods we distribute so that we

21 can provide more fresh, vitamin-rich

22 foods rather than more canned goods?

23 Our clients, the residents of East

24 Harlem, have five times that City

25 average of diabetes-related

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2 amputations, and we are hurting rather

3 than helping them by not addressing

4 problems that have clear and simple

5 solutions.

6 Thank you.

7 MR. CANAVAN: Thank you,

8 Mr. Ambers.

9 Pam Darby.

10 MS. DARBY: Good morning. I

11 want to thank USDA and the

12 Under-Secretary Bost for holding this

13 forum to discuss the nutrition title

14 of the 2007 Farm Bill.

15 I am Pamela Darby, a registered

16 dietician, and I am chair of the New

17 York City Nutrition Education Network

18 known as NYCNEN. NYCNEN seeks to

19 improve the food and nutrition

20 environment for a healthy New York

21 City. NYCNEN strongly deems it

22 necessary to provide consumers with

23 access to affordable and nutritious

24 food in addition to insuring sound

25 nutrition education. Additionally, we

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2 feel that the 2007 Farm Bill can serve

3 as a solid foundation to bring Federal

4 agricultural policy closer in line

5 with Federal nutrition policy.

6 USDA should be applauded for its

7 provision of fresh fruits and

8 vegetables through the farmers\' market

9 nutrition programs, both for the WIC

10 and senior programs, Department of

11 Defense sponsored school program,

12 fruit and vegetable snack program and,

13 to some degree, commodities, for the

14 emergency food assistance program and

15 the commodities supplemental food

16 program.

17 NYCNEN would like to see more

18 wholesome fresh foods entering the

19 food systems through the channels.

20 Behavior changes that we are looking

21 for are at the individual level, but

22 we strongly feel that those changes

23 cannot occur without strong

24 institutional change occurring first.

25 Consumers rely on many institutional

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2 food systems, from soup kitchens and

3 food pantries to school cafeterias,

4 hospitals and even grocery stores and

5 bodegas. If the foods available in

6 those settings are not wholesome and

7 healthful options, consumers cannot be

8 expected to eat the recommended foods.

9 The paradox is that the foods put into

10 these institutions are dictated to

11 some degree by Federal agricultural

12 policy, through TEFAP, CSFP and many

13 others. Yet the government also sets

14 forth nutrition policies for all

15 consumers via the food guidance

16 system. Certainly, commodities that

17 the government provides and

18 distributes through its nutrition

19 programs should adhere to nutrition

20 standards set forth by USDA. The 2007

21 Farm Bill represents an opportunity

22 for both agricultural and nutrition

23 policy to emerge.

24 In summary, NYCNEN makes the

25 following recommendations for the 2007

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2 Farm Bill. Nutrition education is

3 needed by all Americans regardless of

4 income and program participation.

5 Therefore, we recommend that the food

6 stamp nutrition education program

7 retains its focus on providing hearty

8 nutritional education rather than

9 determining a lengthy list of who can

10 receive this education.

11 Government commodities

12 distributed to its nutrition program

13 should adhere to nutrition standards

14 set forth by the USDA. Federal laws

15 and regulations should be amended to

16 provide for in-state or local

17 preference particularly regarding DOD

18 farm-to-school purchases. Initiatives

19 focused on improving access to WIC,

20 farmers\' market nutrition program,

21 seniors farmers\' market program, and

22 particularly the cornerstone food

23 stamp programs, should be supported.

24 Continued funding for WIC and senior

25 farmers\' market nutrition program, and

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2 support for electronic bankage

3 transfer at farmers\' markets.

4 In conclusion, NYCNEN firmly

5 believes that farm policy should

6 foster agricultural and food systems

7 based on the coordination of Federal

8 agriculture and nutrition policies.

9 Such policies should promote a

10 healthful and culturally appropriate

11 food supply and provide for nutrition

12 education to all consumers.

13 Thank you.

14 MR. CANAVAN: Thank you,

15 Ms. Darby.

16 Anyone who has written text of

17 their presentation, if you care to

18 share it with the transcriber, to

19 insure absolute accuracy of your

20 presentation, please feel free to do

21 that directly with the transcriber.

22 As I asked Jodi Harawitz to

23 speak to \-- to come to the microphone,

24 let me ask the following people to

25 come down to the waiting area:

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2 Edie Mesick, Matthew D\'Arrigo,

3 Susan Prolman and Bob Hokanson.

4 MS. HARAWITZ: Good morning. I

5 want to thank you USDA Under-Secretary

6 Bost for conducting this forum today

7 to discuss the 2007 Farm Bill.

8 I\'m Jodi Harawitz, director of

9 food access at food change. And I\'m

10 here today representing the New York

11 City food stamp task force, which was

12 founded more than 15 years ago and is

13 a coalition of over 50 organizations

14 and individuals that are dedicated to

15 improving access to the food stamp

16 program for lower-income New Yorkers.

17 The task force members represent

18 a broad array of social service

19 providers, attorneys, advocates and

20 other community members from a variety

21 of organizations. The task force

22 seeks to improve access to the food

23 stamp program. We believe strongly in

24 the importance of the food stamp

25 program as a crucial mechanism for

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2 providing access to essential

3 nutritional support for lower-income

4 New Yorkers. We would like to make

5 the following recommendations

6 regarding the Farm Bill to insure that

7 not only does the food stamp program

8 provide sufficient nutritional

9 support, but it also operates

10 effectively, efficiently and uniformly

11 with other USDA programs.

12 The key recommendations of the

13 task force are to eliminate the time

14 limits for able-bodied adults without

15 dependent children, to eliminate the

16 requirement for face-to-face

17 interviews, to eliminate the five-year

18 waiting period for elderly and

19 survivors of domestic violence who are

20 legal permanent residents, to

21 eliminate the State option for

22 finger-imaging of food stamp

23 applicants, and to eliminate the cap

24 on the excess total deductions for all

25 food-stamp recipients, implement

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2 higher and/or tiered resource limits

3 based on household size and raise

4 benefit levels.

5 Eliminating time limits for

6 able-bodied adults without dependent

7 children who are vulnerable population

8 in desperate need of added food stamps

9 is in the government\'s best interests

10 to support to this population and

11 decrease administrative costs by

12 eliminating the time limit.

13 Eliminating face-to-face

14 interviews would halt or reduce the

15 significant barrier to enrollment for

16 many eligible nonparticipants working

17 and disabled in life, as well as save

18 large monies in administrative costs.

19 Also eliminating the five-year

20 waiting period for elderly and

21 survivors of domestic violence who are

22 legal permanent residents would also

23 alleviate an undue burden for

24 administrators of the food stamp

25 program in all of the training and the

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2 support that goes into the

3 documentation as well as reduce the

4 quality control errors that could

5 arise.

6 In addition, finger-imaging has

7 been shown to be a deterrent to

8 prospective food stamp applications.

9 State surveys and interviews have

10 shown that as many as 15 percent of

11 food stamp applicants express concern

12 about finger-imaging. For certain

13 applicants to the food stamp program

14 the office visit necessary to complete

15 finger-imaging poses an undue

16 hardship. These include disabled and

17 elderly and those who are employed

18 during the hours that food stamp

19 programs operate.

20 Other additional recommendations

21 that could be made if one was to

22 eliminate all of the expenses incurred

23 by the ABOD and the finger-imaging is

24 lifting the shelter tax. The data

25 suggests that the shelter tax does not

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2 adequately reflect the high housing

3 costs of the current high cost of

4 living. Recent data has shown that in

5 many parts of the country shelter

6 costs over the past ten years have

7 risen much higher than the rate on the

8 cost of other expenses. Research by

9 the Food Research and Action Council

10 in 2001 showed that approximately 736

11 households receive lower food stamp

12 benefits because of the shelter

13 reduction cap. Also higher resource

14 limits. By eliminating participants\'

15 allowable resources, regardless of

16 household size, you discourage savings

17 for emergency, college education and

18 for home ownership and retirement.

19 In conclusion, the task force

20 firmly believes that the food stamp

21 program should remain a Federally

22 regulated program with administrative

23 savings being accomplished through

24 eliminating face-to-face interviews,

25 finger-imaging, ABOD requirements and

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2 eliminating the five-year wait for

3 some additional immigrants, enabling

4 the program to increase participation

5 by increasing the resource limits,

6 lifting the shelter cap and raising

7 benefit levels.

8 Thank you.

9 MS. MESICK: Thank you. I\'m

10 Edie Mesick. And my organization is

11 the Nutrition Consortium of New York

12 State. We\'re a state-wide anti-hunger

13 organization. And I\'d like to start

14 by saying how proud I am of USDA and

15 you, Under-Secretary Bost, for your

16 repeated and consistent mantra that

17 all eligible persons should have

18 access to the food stamp program, and

19 we are very grateful to you for your

20 consistent message on the policies

21 that have been adopted that seek to

22 implement that message.

23 I want to start in looking at

24 the question of the food stamp program

25 and emphasize that the food stamp

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2 program works. That it has some very,

3 very important features that must be

4 retained in any look at

5 reauthorization. So my first comment

6 is that we should do no through the

7 reauthorization. We should insure

8 that there continues to be general

9 eligibility for the food stamp program

10 as opposed to targeted to only a

11 certain population, women or children.

12 There should be general eligibility,

13 there should be \-- continue to be a

14 national design to the food stamp

15 program, with national eligibility

16 standards and implementation and there

17 should continue to be an absolute

18 focus in the food stamp program on

19 access to food. In other words, it is

20 a nutrition program and it should

21 remain a nutrition program.

22 I do have four pages of

23 testimony that I\'ll be leaving behind

24 and I\'m just going to briefly comment

25 on some of these items, when we look

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2 at opportunities to improve access,

3 because only 50 percent of people who

4 are eligible for the food stamp

5 program are participating. We would

6 like to see USDA and Congress increase

7 funding for food stamp program

8 administration. It\'s meant to be,

9 it\'s designed now at 50 percent share

10 by the States. In New York State

11 that\'s something like 40 percent.

12 While we have some good intentions at

13 the State level, our administration at

14 the State level has some good policies

15 to improve access to the program,

16 there are many things we simply can\'t

17 implement because there isn\'t enough

18 money to fund improvements for example

19 to our WMS system. So we would like

20 to see an increase in Federal funding

21 of food stamp program administration.

22 My next four comments I\'m going

23 to mention briefly, they deserve more

24 detail and someone, Kathy Roberts will

25 be speaking later about these specific

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2 items. We\'d like to see the work

3 requirements eliminated from this

4 nutrition program. We\'d like to see

5 the asset limit raised to \$10,000 or

6 eliminated entirely because the

7 current asset level makes no sense and

8 is a tremendous barrier to

9 participation by people in need. We\'d

10 like to see a standard medical

11 deduction established to have ease of

12 administration or at least allow all

13 medical expenses to be included for a

14 food stamp budget consideration. And

15 we must see food stamps provided to

16 all otherwise eligible legal

17 immigrants.

18 We at the Nutrition Consortium

19 administer a state-wide food stamp

20 outreach project and we urge that

21 there be continuation of USDA\'s

22 national campaign and USDA funding of

23 food stamp administrative funding for

24 outreach projects. We would like to

25 see recertification services included

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2 in that outreach campaign because

3 we\'re noticing that a lot of

4 households that are participating

5 really need assistance and end up

6 going off of the food stamp program

7 and then need to be assisted all over

8 again, missing a month of benefits.

9 We\'d like to see recertification

10 allowed with outreach projects. Some

11 more improvements we like to

12 recommend. Eliminate the interview

13 requirement for recertifying

14 households. That\'s a cost savings.

15 Extend from two years to four years

16 recertification, the recertification

17 for older adults without earned

18 income. That\'s a big cost saving and

19 a big hassle saving. We think it\'s

20 absolutely essential that the USDA

21 Department of Agriculture expand

22 funding for EBT services at farmer\'s

23 markets. We also want to see the

24 continuation of incentive awards, we

25 have some other specific

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2 recommendations that I\'m not going to

3 be able to go into. And thank you

4 very much for listening today.

5 MR. CANAVAN: As I ask Matthew

6 D\'Arrigo to come to the mike, let me

7 mention also for anybody who would be

8 more comfortable speaking at their

9 seat, my colleague is available in the

10 back with a portable microphone.

11 Mr. D\'Arrigo.

12 MR. D\'ARRIGO: Thank you. And

13 I\'d like to thank you folks for coming

14 up here and listening to us here

15 today. My name is Matthew D\'Arrigo.

16 I am the president of the Hunts Point

17 Terminal produce market. 50 companies

18 there that distribute fresh fruits and

19 vegetables to the metropolitan New

20 York area. I am here in the capacity

21 to represent the United Fresh Fruit

22 and Vegetable Association. The main

23 point of my remarks today are twofold.

24 One is to expand the fresh fruit and

25 vegetable snack program which is

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2 currently involved in 200 schools in

3 eight states, and three Indian

4 reservations, to go to all 50 states

5 and cover all 100,000 schools in this

6 country. The results of the snack

7 program have been remarkably

8 successful. Kids, when they have

9 fruit and vegetables at their \--

10 nearby at school immediately start to

11 use them more and more and use the

12 vending machines for soda and chips

13 much less. The alarming rate of

14 childhood obesity, heart disease and

15 other diseases related to bad diet in

16 America can be helped tremendously by

17 this.

18 The second point I have for you,

19 which is also part of the same

20 problem, is the Department of Defense

21 spending. They have a fresh program

22 for schools that the Department of

23 Defense distributes all around the

24 country. They favor small local

25 produce suppliers and our doubling of

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2 that funding will aid the snack

3 program tremendously.

4 I know I\'m going to save a lot

5 of time for you folks here because

6 that\'s the only two things I have to

7 day.

8 Thank you very much.

9 MR. CANAVAN: I have a question

10 for you.

11 MR. D\'ARRIGO: Yes?

12 MR. CANAVAN: Do you have any

13 idea how much it would cost if you

14 were to add the fresh fruit and

15 vegetable program to 110,000 schools

16 across the country?

17 MR. D\'ARRIGO: I do not, but I

18 know it\'s not going to happen tomorrow

19 and it\'s going to happen

20 incrementally. It\'s very, very

21 successful right now in the 225

22 schools and three Indian reservations,

23 it\'s an absolute win right now.

24 MR. CANAVAN: Yes, we know how

25 successful it is, but do you have any

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2 idea how much it would cost?

3 MR. D\'ARRIGO: I do not.

4 MR. CANAVAN: Okay.

5 MR. D\'ARRIGO: I would also

6 respond to that, that the cost of

7 heart disease and obesity and diabetes

8 in our country would be higher.

9 MR. CANAVAN: Susan Prolman?

10 MS. PROLMAN: I am Susan

11 Prolman, I\'m here today with the Union

12 of Concerned Scientists. Our food and

13 environment program seeks to insure

14 that food is produced in a safe and

15 sustainable manner. The Union of

16 Concerned Scientists strongly supports

17 Title II conservation programs. And

18 we would like to see greater funding

19 for these programs. While we applaud

20 Congress for authorizing appropriate

21 levels of funding for Title II in the

22 2002 Farm Bill, we have been

23 consistently disappointed that the

24 President\'s budget each year calls for

25 funding conservation programs at far

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2 below the authorized levels. The

3 Union of Concerned Scientists strongly

4 supports the conservation security

5 program as it was envisioned by

6 Congress in the 2002 Farm Bill. We

7 would like to see the USDA and

8 Congress work together in the next

9 farm bill to realize this vision. We

10 believe that CSP will be an important

11 program that provides significant

12 geographically diverse conservation

13 benefits when it is administered as a

14 truly nationwide program with

15 continuous open enrollment offering

16 sufficient incentives for agricultural

17 producers to employ ambitious and

18 effective conservation practices. The

19 Union of Concerned Scientists supports

20 farm bill conservation programs only

21 insofar as they are used to produce

22 conservation benefits. We believe

23 that the environmental quality

24 incentives program supports many

25 beneficial projects but under current

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2 rules we are concerned that

3 significant amounts of EQUIP funds can

4 go to pay for projects that are

5 potentially environmentally

6 devastating such as building manure

7 lagoons at large concentrated animal

8 feeding operations. We urge the USDA

9 and Congress to work together towards

10 EQUIP in the 2007 Farm Bill that is a

11 true conservation program. The Union

12 of Concerned Scientists strongly

13 supports grass-fed and grass-finished

14 production system for beef cattle,

15 dairy cows, swine and poultry. We

16 support increased funding for existing

17 programs that support producers of

18 grass-fed and grass-finished animal

19 products, including research programs

20 and value-added programs and extension

21 and outreach programs. We support

22 providing assistance for practices

23 such as rotational grazing through SCP

24 and EQUIP. The Union of Concerned

25 Scientists advocates for a more

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2 responsible approach to antibiotic use

3 in animal agriculture. The GAO has

4 stated that antibiotic use in animals

5 in the United States could become a

6 trade problem in the future with the

7 European Union, Canada and possibly

8 other countries. We would like to see

9 the USDA work together with Congress

10 to provide assistance to those

11 producers employing a more sustainable

12 approach to antibiotic use in animal

13 agriculture and also to the producers

14 seeking to transition towards more

15 sustainable use. It is of great

16 importance to both human and animal

17 health for the USDA to do a better job

18 of collecting data on antibiotic use

19 in animal agriculture and also of

20 monitoring for antimicrobial

21 resistance. Research to aid would

22 reduce antibiotic use in animal

23 agriculture is needed. Finally, the

24 Union of Concerned Scientists

25 recommends that the USDA work together

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2 with Congress to encourage competition

3 and insure fair business practices by

4 taking measures including support in

5 country of origin labeling and

6 prohibiting packer-owned livestock.

7 I thank you very much for this

8 opportunity to present comments and we

9 will be submitting more lengthy

10 written comments in the near future.

11 Thank you.

12 MR. CANAVAN: Thank you,

13 Ms. Prolman.

14 Before I ask Mr. Hokanson to

15 rise to the microphone, could I ask

16 Secretary Yolanda Zias-Santano to come

17 down to the microphone area.

18 Secretary Charles Kuparus. Ruth

19 Moore. Joel Berg.

20 MR. CANAVAN: Mr. Hokanson?

21 MR. HOKANSON: Under-Secretary

22 Bost, other USDA officials, my name is

23 Bob Hokanson. I\'m national affairs

24 coordinator with New York Farm Bureau.

25 And I am providing comments fort this

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2 listening forum represent New York

3 Farm Bureau and our president, Mr.

4 John Lincoln. I want to preface my

5 remarks today, Mr. Bost, by indicating

6 we\'re going to talk about two items.

7 One of them is the specific food

8 program that New York Farm Bureau is

9 very supportive of. But I also wanted

10 to provide the panel a little sense or

11 feel of opportunities that Farm Bureau

12 feels that is necessary for our next

13 generation of farmers.

14 Mr. Bost, you spoke of

15 opportunities with the food stamp

16 program and nutritional values and we

17 feel that opportunities are needed for

18 our next generation of farmers. I

19 want to preface my remarks to that.

20 Thank you for providing the

21 opportunity to hear comments from New

22 York Farm Bureau regarding the

23 upcoming 2007 Farm Bill. New York

24 Farm Bureau will be providing written

25 comments to the USDA series of

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2 questions prior to the December

3 30,2005 deadline. Nevertheless, we

4 would like to take this opportunity to

5 comment on one specific program, the

6 WIC farmers\' market nutrition program,

7 that\'s extremely important to

8 consumers in New York City, consumers

9 throughout the state, as well as to

10 many of our Farm Bureau members. And

11 we would like to take this opportunity

12 to provide a few comments regarding

13 the importance of a viable and dynamic

14 agriculture industry in providing

15 opportunities for the upcoming

16 generation to enter production

17 agriculture and thus insure food

18 security for the American consumer.

19 First, the farmers\' market

20 nutrition program provides

21 opportunities to low-income

22 nutritionally at-risk families

23 enrolled in the special supplemental

24 nutrition program for WIC and senior

25 nutrition programs. The purpose of

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2 the program is to promote improved

3 nutrition through increased

4 consumption of locally grown fresh

5 fruits and vegetables and to expand

6 sales at farmers\' markets. We offer

7 strong support to the WIC farmers\'

8 market nutrition program that has been

9 such a success in New York State. Not

10 only to consumers but to farmers who

11 market their locally grown nutritious

12 and fresh produce through local

13 farmers\' markets. However, to improve

14 the program and to provide a broader

15 array of locally grown farm products

16 that would increase consumer

17 participation in the program, New York

18 Farm Bureau requests that the produce

19 eligible for the program be expanded

20 to include three more products, all

21 produced by our local farmers: Honey,

22 eggs and apple cider. We feel that

23 the addition of these products could

24 increase the nutritional base of

25 consumers who use the FMNP. In

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1 9/29/05

2 addition, the broader selection of

3 products available would obviously

4 increase consumption of such products

5 which in turn would encourage more

6 frequent use of the FMNP and encourage

7 the expanded use of fruits and

8 vegetables throughout the year through

9 a WIC program as well. These

10 additional products are all locally

11 and regionally grown in New York and

12 are nutritious and are in demand by

13 consumers. Incorporation of such

14 products into the program we feel

15 would not only provide benefits as

16 indicated to consumers but would also

17 provide our farmer-producers with a

18 broader range of marketing options for

19 their produce.

20 Another important issue facing

21 agriculture that I\'d like to address

22 is making sure that the next

23 generation of potential farmers have

24 viable opportunities to enter

25 agricultural production. As many of

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1 9/29/05

2 you know, the average age in 2002 of a

3 farmer was 55 years old, and that

4 number continues to increase.

5 Obviously, there needs to be

6 opportunities to encourage young

7 people to enter farming in order to

8 maintain our food-producing

9 capabilities as a nation.

10 We want to make sure that there

11 are financial incentives and tax

12 benefits to encourage the transfer of

13 farms to the next generation and, most

14 importantly, we need to make sure that

15 there are willing potential farmers to

16 offer such opportunities to. I

17 propose that a key component to insure

18 that potential young farmers are

19 willing to enter farming is to make

20 sure that entry into farming is not

21 limited by unwarranted restrictions or

22 limitations on expansion and/or

23 innovative production or marketing

24 opportunities on farms.

25 In order to attract potential

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1 9/29/05

2 young farmers and their transition

3 into active young farmers,

4 opportunities to expand both in size

5 and innovative opportunities in

6 marketing and production need to be

7 present. To constrict such

8 opportunities to potential young

9 farmers by unwarranted regulation

10 regarding expansion of farming

11 operations, whether in size

12 restrictions or in limiting innovative

13 agriculture production techniques

14 would effectively limit entry of

15 progressive potential young farmers as

16 our industry\'s farmers of the next

17 generation.

18 As we begin to debate the

19 opportunities in the direction of the

20 2007 Farm Bill, we must make certain

21 that we do not over-regulate or limit

22 the size and innovative opportunities

23 of agriculture to the extent that

24 entry into farming is not viewed as an

25 exciting opportunity by such potential

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1 9/29/05

2 young farmers.

3 Thank you for the opportunity to

4 present these comments.

5 MR. CANAVAN: Thank you,

6 Mr. Hokanson.

7 Secretary Yolanda Zias-Santano?

8 MS. ZIAS-SANTANO: Good morning.

9 I am Yolanda Zias, secretary of the

10 Department of Interior of the

11 Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. With me

12 is Edwardo Colon, administrator of the

13 administration for the socio-economic

14 development of (inaudible).

15 First I would like to express

16 our deep concern for all the evacuees

17 of the affected states by Hurricanes

18 Katrina and Rita. We in Puerto Rico

19 are more than willing to do everything

20 within our power to help these

21 victims. We have already received

22 around 100 families in Puerto Rico.

23 Mr. Under-Secretary Eric Bost,

24 Mrs. Yvette Jackson, regional

25 administrator mid-Atlantic region,

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1 9/29/05

2 attendees of the forum, nutrition

3 forum, Puerto Rico with 3.9 million

4 residents in 3,500 square miles has a

5 higher average population density than

6 any U.S. state and higher than most

7 countries in the world. More than

8 1,100 persons per square mile. One of

9 the principal reasons for the

10 tremendous population growth has been

11 a decline in the death rate. In the

12 U.S. Census Bureau, there are 585,701

13 inhabitants over 60 years old, which

14 is 13.4 of the Puerto Rican

15 population. Single mothers run 32

16 percent of the households in Puerto

17 Rico while 19 percent of pregnancies

18 are women between the ages of 12 and

19 19 years old. In addition, more than

20 75 percent of families that are headed

21 by females live below the poverty

22 level. According to the Puerto Rico

23 Planning Board in March 2004, the

24 annual income per capita was estimated

25 at \$10,477. This figures compares to

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1 9/29/05

2 nearly one-third of the average per

3 capita income on the U.S. mainland and

4 about half that of Mississippi, the

5 poorest state. The 2000 census

6 revealed that 44.6 percent of Puerto

7 Ricans are below the poverty line

8 compared to 11.3 percent on the

9 mainland. As a comparison, in order

10 to be eligible for NAP benefits in

11 Puerto Rico\'s household with four

12 members will average \$667 as a monthly

13 income, whereas in the U.S.

14 counterpart we have an income of

15 \$2,403. We amended the NAP

16 regulations of the year 2004

17 increasing the benefits of the elderly

18 and disabled participants, a Social

19 Security income of 50 percent is

20 considered now for persons 60 years

21 old or disabled as long as it is their

22 only source of income. As a result of

23 this amendment, the impact of benefits

24 distributed to the participants from

25 December 2003 to May 2005 increased

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1 9/29/05

2 approximately by \$11,000,000. This

3 represents an increase in benefits

4 received by 145,000 elderly or

5 disabled families. Regarding the

6 electronic benefit transfer, we were

7 able to get low income families into

8 the technology financial system. We

9 also voided undetected fraud in the

10 authorized retailers with the creation

11 of an antifraud line to report

12 possible irregularities. We also

13 established FINANCO (phonetic), a

14 Spanish acronym for at-home action and

15 nutrition program, an educational

16 program that creates awareness among

17 NAP participants regarding proper use

18 of their benefits and increase their

19 knowledge in nutrition areas in order

20 to adopt healthier eating habits and

21 active life styles. In terms of the

22 emergency food assistance program, we

23 would like to increase the number of

24 food distributions per year to the

25 families of extreme poverty. The

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1 9/29/05

2 fiscal impact on this increase will be

3 translated to \$1,360,000. In terms of

4 our recommendations, we recommend

5 establishing a floor for NAP grant

6 program. In fiscal year \'82, the

7 first year of the NAP program, the NAP

8 grant authorized by Congress was

9 \$825,000,000 or about eight percent of

10 the 10.3 billion food stamp program

11 nationwide. This was a decline from

12 8.5 percent from the previous year.

13 In fiscal year 2003 the NAP share food

14 stamp expenditure was 6.6 percent,

15 falling in fiscal year 2005 to 5.7

16 percent of the food stamp program.

17 Over the life of the NAP program, its

18 share food stamp funding has fallen by

19 33 percent. This decline share of the

20 foot stamp program has provided budget

21 savings of \$70,000,000,000 to the

22 Federal government, but it has also

23 caused a loss of purchasing power for

24 the poorest families with children,

25 the elderly and the disabled across

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1 9/29/05

2 Puerto Rico to purchase meat, bread,

3 rice and beans. By not keeping pace

4 with the food stamp program, the

5 Commonwealth is forced to have income

6 eligibility requirements in Puerto

7 Rico stricter than they are in the

8 States or even in the Virgin Islands,

9 a few miles offshore from Puerto Rico.

10 Furthermore, when comparing the

11 benefits of a level to similar income

12 groups, the benefits available in

13 Puerto Rico are less than either the

14 States or the Virgin Islands. The

15 Commonwealth is very concerned about

16 this continuing decline of the share

17 of resources. And we believe that it

18 is extremely important to bring this

19 decline to an end and to start the

20 reverse of this trend. The

21 Commonwealth urges that USDA to

22 include to proposal in its drafting of

23 the 2007 Farm Bill. First, to

24 establish a floor so that the NAP

25 program will not be less than 5.7

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1 9/29/05

2 percent of the food stamp program,

3 and, second, to implement and increase

4 the floor over the life of the Farm

5 Bill from .3 to .6 percent until it

6 reaches 8 percent of the benefit

7 expenditure for food stamp. Taking

8 this approach will provide a pathway

9 to restore the purchasing power of

10 families who relied on the NAP to the

11 point where they were in 1982 when the

12 program was established. The

13 Commonwealth looks forward to working

14 with the Department in strengthening

15 the NAP program so that the families

16 with children, senior and the disabled

17 have a stronger sense of food security

18 in Puerto Rico.

19 Thank you so much. We will

20 submit later on a more detailed

21 document.

22 Thank you.

23 MR. CANAVAN: Thank you, Madam

24 Secretary.

25 Secretary Charles Kuperus?

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1 9/29/05

2 Good to see you.

3 MR. KUPERUS: Yeah, it\'s good to

4 be here. And Under-Secretary, you

5 need to know we can add one more truck

6 to those 300 \-- over 300 trucks you

7 sent to the folks affected by

8 Hurricane Katrina. We have volunteers

9 today, farmers willing to give up some

10 of their apples in order to give them

11 to those folks, and volunteers today

12 picking them so tomorrow another

13 truckload is going down there. So you

14 can add that to the over 300.

15 Under-Secretary, we really

16 appreciate you coming out and

17 listening to us in this region of the

18 country. It\'s really important and

19 it\'s good that you chose the New

20 York-New Jersey metro area to come and

21 listen about nutrition. I have some

22 prepared comments and I\'m going to

23 read through them so I make sure I

24 cover everything.

25 But certainly, as New Jersey\'s

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1 9/29/05

2 Secretary of Agriculture, I\'ve urged

3 our staff in the department to be ever

4 mindful of how these nutrition issues

5 play a vital role in the viability of

6 our state\'s agriculture and the

7 success of our young people.

8 Accordingly, this past summer we\'ve

9 adopted regulations that provide for

10 the most comprehensive school

11 nutrition policy in the nation,

12 covering all grade levels, from pre-K

13 through high school. And by September

14 of 2007 New Jersey schools will

15 replace high-sugar, high-fat foods

16 with more nutritious fare, including

17 more fresh fruits and vegetables,

18 whole grains and other nutritious

19 foods. By instilling good nutrition

20 habits in our young people today, and

21 encouraging them to adopt a life style

22 of eating right and moving more, we

23 can insure that good food choices they

24 learn now will help shape the

25 preference of nutritious for a

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2 lifetime.

3 Under-Secretary, we appreciate

4 your support in that regard.

5 However, good nutrition isn\'t

6 just a message for our young people.

7 We also must keep in mind the other

8 end of the spectrum, senior citizens

9 who do not always have good \-- have

10 access to ready good nutritious foods,

11 according to \-- including fresh fruits

12 and vegetables, which can aid in

13 keeping them healthier. I believe

14 this one area where we can and should

15 do more through food nutrition

16 service. In New Jersey we\'ve seen

17 great growth over the past several

18 years in our community farmers\'

19 markets. We now have more than 75, 24

20 new ones in the past three years,

21 which provide a shorter link between

22 our farmers and our residents. Many

23 of these are located in urban areas

24 where there are few grocery stores

25 nearby and opportunities to buy fresh

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2 produce are therefore limited. The

3 inclusion of senior farmer market

4 nutrition programs has helped spur the

5 growth of these markets throughout our

6 state. Concurrently, there\'s been

7 steady growth in the number of senior

8 citizens in our state as well. There

9 are now more than 1.5 million people

10 in New Jersey over the age of 60. And

11 research shows us that approximately

12 eight percent live at or below the

13 poverty level. Concurrently, only

14 35,000 seniors in our state are

15 enrolled in the senior farmers\' market

16 nutrition program and each is allowed

17 only to receive \$20 per year in

18 certificates redeemable at these

19 farmers\' markets. With USDA\'s

20 proposed rule change, increasing that

21 to \$50 a year, that proposed increase

22 bodes well for the program\'s future,

23 but we shouldn\'t stop there. Clearly,

24 more funds are needed for this program

25 nationwide. For fiscal year 2005 a

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2 total of 15,000,000 was allocated to

3 the senior farmers\' market nutrition

4 program. That averages just \$300,000

5 per state. The question is where this

6 additional funds would come from. I

7 would contend that you must look at

8 the prevention issue, just as you

9 would view regular blood screening,

10 blood pressure screenings or cancer

11 testing. The evidence is clear that

12 good nutrition is a key contributor to

13 good health. Inclusion of more fresh

14 fruits and vegetables in a diet will

15 improve the health of our seniors and

16 us all. And the resulting savings in

17 health care can fund the increase of

18 the senior farmers\' market nutrition

19 program. Expanding the fresh fruits

20 and vegetable program nationwide would

21 be another good move. Another area

22 where savings could be achieved across

23 the variety of programs is

24 transportation costs associated with

25 moving commodities into position to

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2 being distributed. The concept of

3 food miles is receiving more and more

4 attention from both government

5 agencies and the media these days. In

6 a nutshell, food miles refers to the

7 distance you move food from its point

8 of origin to the market. With fuel

9 costs rising rapidly, reducing food

10 miles becomes an essential way of

11 reining in the overall cost of

12 bringing food from the farm to the

13 table. Rapole (phonetic) Center for

14 Sustainable Agricultural at Iowa State

15 University recently researched food

16 miles for 16 different fruits and

17 vegetables. They found that 16

18 Iowa-grown crops traveled a total of

19 716 miles to get to market, compared

20 to 25,300 miles for the same product

21 to be brought from a typical

22 out-of-state source. With fuel prices

23 the way they are these days, we can

24 only imagine the additional cost of

25 transportation. Therefore, it would

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2 be wise for the food nutrition service

3 to adopt a policy of local first,

4 regional second, national and

5 international third. Instead of

6 buying commodities on the national

7 scale and paying the high costs for

8 their distribution to various points,

9 local agencies should be empowered to

10 follow a local-regional-national-

11 international approach by which they

12 buy commodities locally first. If a

13 specific item is not available

14 locally, they should move to buying it

15 regionally. Secondly, as a last

16 resort, and only last resort, if the

17 commodity cannot be obtained

18 regionally, move to buying it from an

19 area where it must be transported a

20 longer distance. But keeping the cost

21 of food miles low through a

22 buy-locally-first approach, many food

23 nutrition programs from the emergency

24 food assistance program to the

25 commodities supplemental food program

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1 9/29/05

2 will help reach even more recipients

3 and increase food buys that will help

4 more folks. For example, New Jersey

5 purchases through the Department of

6 Defense contract quantities of certain

7 products for our school nutrition

8 program, including frozen peaches,

9 blueberry cups that come from our

10 local farms. Jersey fresh produce.

11 These local buying \-- this local

12 buying dramatically cuts

13 transportation costs while creating a

14 new market for our farmers.

15 In closing, expanding the number

16 of recipients for these vital feeding

17 programs need not only mean dramatic

18 increase in cost, by concentrating on

19 locally first, reducing food miles,

20 and stressing good nutrition at all

21 ages, to reduce medical cost, we

22 should be able to realize the savings

23 needed to add more recipients to these

24 programs.

25 Clearly, the health of our

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1 9/29/05

2 population is a vital point of

3 discussion in national policy. The

4 Farm Bill, the sound nutrition

5 programs, should be one of those

6 avenues through which we pursue that

7 goal. Good nutrition enhanced by

8 buying these products locally from our

9 farmers should be the cornerstone of

10 our next Farm Bill. With the right

11 approaches we can provide sustenance

12 for our residents while sustaining our

13 region\'s farmers.

14 MR. CANAVAN: Ruth Moore?

15 MS. MOORE: Good morning. My

16 name is Ruth Moore and I\'m the First

17 Deputy Commission at the New York

18 State Department of Agriculture and

19 Markets. I\'m here today representing

20 Commission Nathan Rudgers, who sends

21 his greetings, Under-Secretary Bost,

22 to you and all of your colleagues.

23 Welcome to New York.

24 MR. BOST: Thank you.

25 MS. MOORE: I\'ll be speaking

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2 primarily this morning about the senor

3 farmers\' market nutrition program and

4 the EBT program in our farmers\'

5 market.

6 As you know, the highly

7 cost-effective senior farmers\' market

8 nutrition program provides low-income

9 seniors with checks for purchasing

10 nutritious locally grown fresh fruits

11 and vegetables at farmers\' market.

12 This year approximately 91,000

13 low-income New York seniors are

14 benefitting from this program, along

15 with nearly 900 farmers at 325

16 farmers\' markets in all 62 of the

17 state\'s counties, including 74 markets

18 in New York City here. We\'re pleased

19 that the food and nutrition service is

20 developing regulations for the program

21 that will insure its orderly operation

22 and baseline funding to State agency

23 grantees, while providing the

24 potential for program growth, and both

25 our department and the New York State

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1 9/29/05

2 Office for the Aging have submitted

3 written technical comments on the

4 proposed regulations for

5 consideration.

6 Now, while the program is very

7 popular with farmers and seniors, as

8 you know, it\'s reaching only a limited

9 percentage of eligible participants

10 with the current level of funding. We

11 would welcome the opportunity to be

12 able to provide benefits to unserved

13 low-income seniors if additional funds

14 can be identified.

15 One source of additional funding

16 that you might consider to maintain

17 current caseloads and possibly expand

18 the reach of the program would be the

19 re-allocation of the small percentage

20 of program funds returned annually by

21 states to FNS for use in the

22 subsequent year. We also would ask

23 that in weighing the costs of serving

24 more seniors, that you take into

25 account the very real savings to

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2 society and government programs from

3 improved senior health as well as the

4 economic support that the program

5 provides to our farm families.

6 We also want to thank FNS for

7 supporting the wireless electronic

8 benefits transfer or EBT project in

9 dozens of our farmers\' markets here in

10 New York. We want to thank you in

11 particular, Under-Secretary Bost, for

12 enthusiastically attending the

13 kick-off events in Rochester and in

14 New York City.

15 We\'re pleased to report that

16 this special project has succeeded in

17 demonstrating that wireless EBT

18 technology can support easy, reliable

19 and virtually instantaneous

20 transactions that are on a par with

21 wired terminal transactions from

22 grocery stores. We see the EBT

23 project as an exciting and significant

24 new opportunity for FNS and State

25 agencies to help energize the food

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1 9/29/05

2 stamp program by inaugurating or

3 expanding operation at farmers\'

4 markets where locally grown fresh

5 produce is abundant and where

6 nutrition messages can convey the

7 health benefits of fresh produce as

8 part of the new My Pyramid campaign.

9 Therefore, we\'re recommending

10 consideration of funding for the

11 farmers\' market wireless EBT program

12 within the food stamp program for the

13 benefit of food stamp recipients and

14 for the benefit of thousands of small

15 farmers who will then be able to

16 market their fresh produce directly to

17 the food stamp recipients. To

18 maximize the successful outcomes of

19 the program, we\'re also recommending

20 that any projects funded should

21 incorporate effective promotion as

22 well as nutrition education support

23 through the food stamp nutrition

24 education program.

25 I want to thank USDA for its

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2 work with the Department of Defense

3 with respect to providing fresh

4 produce and vegetables through the DOD

5 fresh program, it\'s been a valuable

6 component of our farm-to-school

7 program and we\'re urging continued and

8 robust funding of the program as

9 currently authorized.

10 Finally, I want to echo

11 Secretary Kuperus\' remarks, that we

12 appreciate you choosing the New

13 York-New Jersey-metro area for this

14 nutrition forum. But also would like

15 to invite you back with Secretary

16 Johans to discuss other very important

17 topics coming up in the 2007 Farm Bill

18 that are important to our,000 farmers

19 and our 19,000,000 consumers.

20 Thank you.

21 MR. CANAVAN: Before I ask Joel

22 Byrd to step to the microphone, could

23 I please ask Seth Diamond, Kathy

24 Youngers, Gus Youngers and Shana

25 McLure-Barry to approach the

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2 microphone area.

3 MR. BYRD: Good morning. First

4 of all, any praise for Under-Secretary

5 Bost doesn\'t come out of the five

6 minutes, correct?

7 Thank you for coming back to New

8 York. Thank you for your leadership.

9 Thank you for your wisdom and some

10 great hiring decisions, proving you\'re

11 nonpartisan in the whole effort.

12 Thank you for your grant to New York

13 City to increase food stamp access.

14 I\'ve submitted not shockingly

15 detailed eight-page testimony with

16 wider details. So I\'m just going to

17 focus on a few big themes today.

18 Now I\'ll put on my timer here.

19 I ask you first of all to

20 consider that we\'re in the Alexander

21 Hamilton Building, named after a man

22 who died in a gang feud. So when the

23 newspaper he founded, the New York

24 Post, lectures low-income people on

25 their supposed personal

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2 irresponsibility for being welfare

3 recipients engaged in fraud simply

4 because they get food stamps to help

5 feed their families when they\'re not

6 paid enough to feed their families, we

7 ought to really thing about what

8 personal responsibility means today.

9 Second of all, I want to point

10 out, as all of you know, we\'re just a

11 few blocks from the Ground Zero of

12 September 11th, and as we\'ve all seen

13 over the last few weeks, there are a

14 lot of Ground Zeros of poverty and

15 hunger and food insecurity throughout

16 this country. Some people act

17 shocked, they just learned of this in

18 the last few weeks, I think all of us

19 in this room know it\'s happened for

20 years and years and years.

21 Here in New York City there was

22 a 100,000-person jump in poverty last

23 year. There are now 1.8 million New

24 Yorkers living under the poverty line.

25 That\'s one in five New Yorkers. If

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2 welfare reform and the economic plans

3 of our Federal, State and local

4 policies are working so goodnessly

5 well, why are more people under the

6 poverty line?

7 Why, according to the Community

8 Service Society, was there a drop in

9 wages for the lowest income third of

10 workers over the last five years at

11 the same time the corporate executive

12 profits skyrocketed here in

13 nationwide, what used to be a rising

14 tide lifted all boats? Now a rising

15 tide lifts the yachts and sinks the

16 rowboats in their wake.

17 Now, what does this have to do

18 with the Farm Bill? A great deal.

19 You\'d think with all these problems we

20 have entitlement programs here in New

21 York City, they would be used to the

22 hilt. You would think with nationwide

23 food stamp participation is nearer to

24 store time, we would be there in New

25 York City. Unfortunately, you\'d be

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2 wrong. Here in New York City there

3 are 268,441 more people receiving food

4 stamps than when Mayor Bloomberg took

5 office in 2002. That is great. But,

6 there are still hundreds of thousands

7 of people fewer receiving food stamps

8 today than just ten years ago, despite

9 the rise in poverty. We are below the

10 national average in WIC participation.

11 We are below the national average in

12 school lunch and school breakfast

13 participation. We are below the

14 national average in most

15 nutrition-assistance programs.

16 Now, people here have become

17 used to me criticizing the City, and

18 it\'s no secret we think the City

19 should do a much better job with

20 increasing access. But it is a

21 vicious cycle of Federal law, State

22 regulations and City policy that heap

23 upon each other. We need to just not

24 make incremental improvements in the

25 Farm Bill. We need to dramatically

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2 change the whole way these programs

3 are structured. Focusing the food

4 stamps program\'s performance almost

5 exclusively on the error rate. It\'s

6 really a focus on whether states and

7 localities fill out paperwork the

8 right way, not whether fewer people

9 are hungry or not. We should scrap

10 error rate, and as you know, we talk

11 about old error rates determines

12 whether people are properly denied or

13 accepted. They do not determine

14 whether someone was turned away from

15 the office impermissibly in the first

16 place. So you can just turn people

17 away right and left and USDA \-- the

18 USDA statistics will never show that.

19 I suggest that happens in New York

20 City.

21 Today in New York City, as you

22 know, Federal law says \-- you know

23 better than anybody,

24 Mr. Under-Secretary, Federal law says

25 you must get food stamps within 30

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2 days. And the law\'s the law, right?

3 The law\'s the law. If I\'m a food

4 stamps recipient and I use my food

5 stamps to get diapers, I\'m off. I

6 miss an interview, I may be sick that

7 day, I didn\'t contact the agency, I

8 miss my interview, I\'m off the

9 program. But I\'m a Federal \-- I am

10 the City agency and time after time,

11 according to their own statistics, on

12 their own web site, one in ten

13 families aren\'t getting food stamps

14 within 30 days, nothing happens to

15 them. We need to restructure the whole

16 program, we need to scrap these

17 conflicting eligibility requirements,

18 create food entitlement accounts that

19 combine the food stamps program, the

20 WIC program, the school meals program,

21 one eligibility requirement at 185

22 percent of poverty, less paperwork,

23 less bureaucracy, more compassion and

24 conservatism, and more help for

25 low-income families, and we could pay

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2 for it by scrapping the corporate

3 welfare throughout the Farm Bill and

4 scrapping tax cuts for the mega rich,

5 so the rising tide really does lift

6 all boats and we don\'t have hunger in

7 New Orleans, New York, Appalachia or

8 anywhere in America.

9 Thank you.

10 MR. CANAVAN: Seth Diamond?

11 MR. DIAMOND: Thank you. Good

12 morning. It\'s always hard to follow

13 Joel, and I\'ve done it more times than

14 I care to \--

15 Good morning again. And it\'s

16 good to see all of you and I\'ve

17 enjoyed working with you all over the

18 past several years. My name is Seth

19 Diamond, Executive Deputy Commissioner

20 of the Human Resources Administration,

21 and I am pleased to be here today to

22 discuss the City\'s food stamp program,

23 strong record of accomplishment over

24 the past four years, and our

25 suggestions for how a new Farm Bill

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2 can allow us to continue that

3 progress.

4 The Human Resources

5 Administration has worked hard to

6 insure that all eligible New Yorkers

7 who want food stamps have access to

8 benefits. We have improved access by

9 simplifying the application process

10 and improving the efficiency of our

11 offices. We have worked with

12 community-based organizations to help

13 reach into the City\'s neighborhoods

14 and screen people for eligibility for

15 food stamps. In partnership with the

16 State, we have used automation to both

17 open food stamp cases for those

18 receiving SSI and living alone and to

19 allow more food stamps to continue

20 when individuals leave public

21 assistance for work.

22 Our efforts have bene targeted

23 to insuring New Yorkers realize that

24 food stamps is not end in itself, but

25 a support to assist individuals and

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2 families in their effort to gain their

3 highest level of self-sufficiency.

4 Unlike the situation ten years

5 ago, today almost twice as many people

6 receive food stamps alone as receive

7 food stamps combined with cash

8 assistance.

9 The fast-growing segment of the

10 food stamp population are those

11 receiving food stamps independent of

12 cash assistance and SSI. This group,

13 many of whom are working, has almost

14 doubled from 220,000 in January 2002

15 to 433,000 today. Many of the 433,000

16 have recently left welfare and are

17 using food stamps to provide

18 additional assistance in their new

19 jobs.

20 In other cases, the additional

21 assistance provided by food stamps may

22 allow families to remain off public

23 assistance. Whatever the specific

24 circumstances of those receiving food

25 stamps, we recognize that for many

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2 families food assistance is critical

3 to their ability to gain

4 self-sufficiency and lead healthy,

5 productive lives.

6 Overall in New York City, more

7 than 1,000,000 New Yorkers receive

8 food stamps. This represents a

9 33-percent increase since January

10 2002. Of this total, over 600,000

11 people receive food stamps alone, an

12 increase of over 70 percent since

13 January 2002.

14 The City has had substantial

15 increases while still maintaining an

16 even increasing the quality of our

17 work. For the last Federal fiscal

18 year, New York City had its lower

19 error rate in the history of the

20 program. We were pleased recently

21 when you, Under-Secretary Bost, came

22 to New York to present the State with

23 a check for 2.8 million dollars for

24 improvements the City and State have

25 made in insuring it is properly

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2 processing food stamps cases.

3 We were also pleased when you

4 returned, Under-Secretary Bost, to New

5 York recently to present the City a

6 check for almost \$1,000,000 for an

7 innovative program we submitted to

8 develop an on-line application system.

9 This grant represents a

10 partnership with Food Change, one of

11 the City\'s not-for-profit

12 organizations, to use technology to

13 bring the food stamp application to

14 the City soup kitchens.

15 Also involved in the grant is

16 the New York City Coalition Against

17 Hunger, headed by Joel Berg, which

18 will work to assist food pantries in

19 this effort.

20 The on-line process when fully

21 developed will both improve access to

22 the system and by having an electronic

23 application and record storage, allow

24 us to, the City to more efficiently

25 process food stamp applications.

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2 We want to continue to make food

3 stamps available to those who are

4 eligible. We also would like to be

5 able to streamline many of the food

6 stamp processes, both as a benefit to

7 those we serve and to insure at a time

8 of limited resources we can

9 efficiently serve our increase in case

10 loads.

11 With that in mind, I would like

12 to turn to some specific suggestions

13 in the Farm Bill.

14 The 2002 Farm Bill food stamp

15 revisions gave states a variety of new

16 options to simplify the program,

17 making it more accessible and better

18 coordinated with child-care and

19 Medicare for eligible families. We\'d

20 like to continue that effort and are

21 against any changes in the program

22 that would add unneeded complexity

23 which would burden those administering

24 the program and those we serve.

25 We support giving states and

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2 localities additional flexibility to

3 simplify and align various program

4 requirements and to implement uniform

5 rules for means-tested benefit

6 programs such as food stamps, TANAF

7 and Medicaid. This would provide a

8 number of benefits such as enabling us

9 to streamline and coordinate data

10 collection requirements, and

11 increasing the food stamp resource

12 limit for the elderly in excess of the

13 \$3,000 to \$5,000 and the minimum

14 benefit amount for elderly from \$10 to

15 \$50.

16 Further simplification options

17 would include extending the

18 transitional benefit option to six

19 months, to allow more families to

20 continue to receive food stamps rather

21 than five months, and excluding from

22 countable income any subsidies that

23 support families as they care for

24 foster children, adopt children or

25 serve as guardians for children.

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2 Given the scope of the program

3 we are trying to administer, HRA also

4 strongly opposed proposed budget cuts

5 to the food stamp programming in this

6 year\'s budget.

7 The City urges amending food

8 stamp program rules to protect

9 localities from complex changes in

10 alien eligibility rules. We would

11 suggest there should be an 18-month

12 hold harmless period for errors

13 relating to implementation of new

14 rules following each change in

15 non-citizenship eligibility criteria.

16 The 50-percent historic State

17 Federal max for administrative costs

18 to the food stamp program was reduced

19 in many states by cost allocation

20 changes in the Agricultural Research

21 Act from 1998. This 50-percent max

22 should be restored and a 75-percent

23 Federal share should be instituted for

24 urgent and beneficial changes at the

25 State level, including automation and

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2 program simplification changes.

3 In addition, there should be a

4 75-percent Federal share for EBT costs

5 which have removed the stigma of

6 participation in the program and made

7 it easier to participate albeit

8 beneath the store and food stamp

9 programs, and made it easier to

10 monitor expenditures.

11 The new Farm Bill should amend

12 the Food Stamp Act of 1977 to include

13 participants in non-TANAF State public

14 assistance programs in the

15 transitional benefit option as set

16 forth in Section 11 of the Food Stamp

17 Act. For states like New York, with

18 general assistance programs, this

19 would provide critical support to

20 those moving from welfare to work.

21 Thank you very much for the

22 opportunity to present testimony.

23 MR. CANAVAN: Kathy Youngers?

24 MS. YOUNGERS: Hi. I\'m Kathy

25 Youngers. I\'m from Farm Wives United,

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2 which is an organization that is

3 across the United States. Not many of

4 you here are dairy farmers, but I am a

5 dairy farmer and we are a

6 third-generation dairy farm.

7 Right now food in America is

8 becoming scarce, that is grown in

9 America, because the farms are going

10 under. And I just wanted to talk to

11 you today. One quote I want to give

12 you is from Liberty And Justice For

13 All. One of the goals of

14 globalization is to render America

15 helpless and dependent on foreign

16 sources of production. And this is

17 very true.

18 The American public today

19 believes that when he or she goes to

20 the grocery store, that all the food

21 products in that store are safe,

22 regulated, USDA inspected, and this is

23 not true. Over 50 percent of the food

24 is imported, or at least that was 50

25 percent in 2003. I don\'t know the

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2 figure today. The problem is not the

3 imported food but that this food does

4 not meet the strict regulations that

5 American farmers need to meet.

6 Foreign producers use pesticides

7 and practices long outlawed in the

8 United States. The USDA reports high

9 incidents of failure to comply to U.S.

10 standards. Yet, these foods are in

11 our grocery stores today.

12 We talked about the food stamp

13 program, we talked about the fresh

14 fruits and vegetables to local people.

15 We need to keep the local farmers

16 going and not just the two-acres

17 farmers, but 300 acres.

18 We have a co-op in Western New

19 York who is unable to get fresh milk

20 product into New York City. Yet fresh

21 milk product and other milk products

22 come from China, from New Zealand, and

23 this is something that I don\'t

24 understand, and I think needs

25 investigation.

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2 There\'s one thing I want to

3 specifically talk about today, and

4 that is people in this country have a

5 right to know what they are eating.

6 One issue that needs immediate

7 attention is MPC, milk protein

8 concentrate. It is a by-product of

9 milk, it is a waste product of milk.

10 It slips through the cracks and comes

11 into our country labeled for animal

12 use only, yet is it in human foods

13 from baby formula to all kinds of

14 sauces that we to process, cheese

15 product, which is MPCs. It fools the

16 consumer into thinking that this is

17 milk because milk is in the title,

18 milk protein concentrate. But it is

19 not milk at all. It is a substitute

20 for milk. It is a waste product.

21 There have never been any

22 studies to see if MPCs have any

23 nutritional value. Yet they are

24 substitutes for nonfat dry milk.

25 There has never been FDA approval for

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2 MPCs. FDA has no definition for MPC.

3 FDA requires all legal ingredients in

4 human food to pass strict safety tests

5 defined as GRAS, generally recognized

6 as safe criteria. The FDA has stated

7 themselves that the government has not

8 conducted any GRAS studies on MPCs.

9 They don\'t even know if they have any

10 nutritional value. Yet they are

11 displacing milk in our country.

12 Mothers think they are buying milk for

13 their children, fresh cheese. But the

14 cheese in those little packages that

15 are wrapped up are basically nothing.

16 They are basically MPCs, which is, I

17 call it plastic food. Food and

18 nutrition. Who\'s regulating it? The

19 school lunch program, WIC programs,

20 and senior citizen programs, how many

21 illegal products are included in the

22 supply to our children, to pregnant

23 women and to senior citizens?

24 I think that something needs to

25 be done with the food stamp, with

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2 these programs that only American

3 produced products should be in these

4 programs to be handed out in the

5 schools, in the WIC program.

6 I just ask everybody in this

7 room to please be involved, to please

8 find out why we are eating imported

9 unsafe food, and I guess on every

10 grocery shelf, and if you wish to get

11 involved, just contact the Farm Wives

12 United.

13 Thank you very much.

14 MR. CANAVAN: Gus Youngers?

15 MR. YOUNGERS: I\'m Gus Youngers.

16 I\'m a dairy farmer from Western New

17 York. And I think that it is time the

18 USDA helps us level the playing field.

19 There\'s very few things in this

20 country that are matched with what can

21 come in from other countries. They

22 use chemicals, pesticides. For

23 instance, in New Zealand they have

24 major pasture system, which is fine.

25 They bring their cows, they take a

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2 milking power to the pasture, pump the

3 milk into a tank, take it back to the

4 farm. Yet, it hasn\'t been cooled yet.

5 They wait for the milk to cool down,

6 to the truck, and I was talking to a

7 person that had been in New Zealand

8 and saw that a year a half ago. So

9 they\'re still doing it. We have to

10 have our milk refrigerated under 45

11 degrees in less than an hour \-- less

12 than two hours after it\'s done

13 milking, and we can\'t \-- with our meat

14 standards that are not met by

15 countries other than the U.S., and

16 nobody \-- I don\'t care whether you go

17 to apple growers, you go to the grain

18 crop farmers, any kind of farming you

19 want to go to, the food in the other

20 countries that is made from there and

21 shipped out, do not have to \-- they\'re

22 using chemicals and pesticides that we

23 have been outlawed more than 20-some

24 years ago. And I think it\'s time \--

25 there\'s an old adage that my

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2 grandfather said years ago: Feed \'em,

3 fool \'em and forget \'em. And don\'t

4 feed \'em if you can get out of it.

5 This country, they\'re feeding

6 them now, they\'re fooling with letting

7 them put in imported ingredients that

8 are dumbing down what the natural

9 products are, there\'s disease in some

10 of these products, there\'s unsanitary

11 \-- for instance, MCPs are being made

12 in India from what \-- water buffalo

13 now. Everyone knows what a water

14 buffalo is and where they like to

15 wallow. Think about it. And they\'re

16 making milk now.

17 And the onion scare, I don\'t

18 know how many of you heard about that

19 in Pittsburgh, there was six people

20 died in Pittsburgh from raw onions

21 that \-- I believe it was one of the

22 fast-food stores or places, these

23 onions came in from Mexico. And when

24 they got traced right down to it, they

25 found out by following it, there was

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2 raw sewage in the fields that they

3 were fertilized with, yet this blew

4 over and nobody \-- next to nobody

5 heard about this.

6 So I ask you people, the USDA,

7 to support American farmers and make a

8 living wage for the American farmers.

9 And why is this country letting

10 corporate America walk all our jobs

11 out of this country, for corporate

12 good, not for the good of the American

13 people? If the people \-- the jobs

14 stay here, the people would be working

15 and they would be earning jobs \--

16 earning money and wages and they

17 wouldn\'t need the food stamps program

18 as much or any of this other stuff, if

19 they were using that.

20 Thank you very much.

21 MR. CANAVAN: Before I call

22 Shana McLure-Barry, we will take a

23 five-minute break after Ms. Barry\'s

24 presentation, a five-minute break, at

25 which time could I ask, please, for

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2 Warren Shonbach to be ready to

3 present, Deborah Jones, Tim Harner and

4 Jennifer Wilkins.

5 Your presentation, ma\'am, a

6 five-minute break, and then those four

7 next speakers.

8 Thank you.

9 Ma\'am?

10 MS. BARRY: Thank you very much.

11 Good afternoon \-- or good

12 morning to everyone. My name is Shana

13 McLure-Barry, and I\'m a crop farmer

14 from Cayuga County, which is in the

15 Finger Lakes area of New York State.

16 My husband\'s family has been farming

17 our farm for over a hundred years. We

18 were here before Cornell University,

19 we\'re 15 minutes from Cornell

20 University. Our farm never took a

21 grant or subsidy until 1996 or \'7 and

22 yet the most we\'ve ever taken is close

23 to 3- or \$5,000 a year. We put a half

24 a million dollars of money into our

25 local area. We have brought hay down

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2 to restaurants here, we\'ve raised

3 natural beef, we grown kidney beans,

4 for years we grew for the vegetable

5 industry which is now defunct in our

6 area, which was in Geneva, New York.

7 So we\'re very concerned about food.

8 And we\'re also very concerned, the

9 fact that it\'s getting more difficult

10 for us to take care of our older

11 generation, the generation that made

12 this country. Our World War II

13 veterans. And even our immigrants who

14 have come here afterwards, who have

15 come for a better place. At some

16 point in time we were all immigrants.

17 And the fact that we\'re not being able

18 to allow our children to have a way to

19 make the American life if we don\'t

20 give them good nutrition and if we\'re

21 not enabling them to have good jobs.

22 I would like to specifically

23 speak about the situation of the mass

24 loss of farms, which I feel directly

25 affects our food stamp program and our

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2 nutrition programs. In the State of

3 New York right now there\'s less than

4 7,000 dairies that put milk into any

5 system. Supposedly the dairies are 90

6 percent of our farms that we have in

7 all of New York State. I can\'t even

8 imagine the few amount of crop farmers

9 who are left. 95 percent of our wheat

10 that is processed in Buffalo, New York

11 comes out of Canada. Am I glad the

12 Canadian farmer has a market for their

13 grain? Yes. Would I like a market

14 for my grain? Yes.

15 We do not have an

16 over-production of food in this

17 country. So what I\'m asking you all

18 to do is to go back to the USDA and

19 ask them to question what the banking

20 policies are that we have. The reason

21 that we don\'t have young people going

22 into farming, because they\'re looking

23 at us, who are in our 50s and 60s, and

24 saying why should we do this when we

25 are being cut off at the knees for any

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2 kind of businesses that produces the

3 food? We have no access to lending

4 capital as of the last ten years. We

5 are asking for a GAO investigation of

6 the farms through this agency which is

7 part of one of the major agencies

8 along with firm credit, which is a

9 quasi-government agency that is

10 supposedly loaning monies to the

11 farmers. If all the grants and

12 subsidies were put into a pot and the

13 farmer was able to borrow it at a

14 decent amount of interest, three and a

15 half to four percent, as opposed to a

16 select few megafarms getting a very,

17 very good \-- and I\'m a large farm, by

18 the way, so it\'s no small versus large

19 \-- being able to get access to lending

20 capital, we would insure that there is

21 food for the next generations to come.

22 Right now if you look at any of

23 the USDA memos, some of our line grant

24 universities are not even offering any

25 kind of lending type of education

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2 because there are no banks that do

3 lending. So there again, in the

4 Lancaster Farmer our secretary of

5 agriculture said that he was the

6 investment banker as the government

7 for the United States farmer. So to

8 insure that decent food programs are

9 available through the USA, there again

10 as farmers we ask for a GAO

11 investigation of how the monies is

12 being lent to farmers.

13 Thank you very much.

14 MR. CANAVAN: Thank you, ma\'am.

15 We\'ll take a five-minute break,

16 and in five minutes, at 10:32, we\'ll

17 begin with Mr. Warren Shonbach.

18 (Short break.)

19 MR. CANAVAN: Thank you. Thank

20 you all.

21 As we resume the forum, let me

22 make a quick observation. As I

23 mentioned before, we have more

24 speakers than we ever could have

25 anticipated, which is wonderful.

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2 Everybody deserves the ear of the

3 Under-Secretary. If we could just ask

4 people to synthesize, crystallize,

5 concentrate their comments, provide as

6 expansive written comments as you

7 would like, that will give everybody a

8 fair opportunity. The

9 Under-Secretary\'s schedule is

10 inflexible, unfortunately, at the end

11 of the forum. So if we could just

12 begin with Mr. Shonbach, please.

13 MR. SHONBACH: Thank you.

14 Good morning, Mr.

15 Under-Secretary. My name is Warren

16 Shonbach and I am the vice president

17 of Friendship Dairies, Incorporated,

18 one of the few remaining family-owned

19 and operated dairy companies in New

20 York State. Our brand is the leading

21 cottage cheese and sour cream in the

22 New York metropolitan area and many

23 other East Coast markets. We directly

24 employ in excess of 250 people in our

25 manufacturing plant in rural western

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2 New York, and an additional 50 people

3 combined in our Long Island

4 headquarters and various other sales

5 offices located up and down the

6 eastern seaboard.

7 In addition we purchase raw milk

8 under contract from approximately 100

9 independent dairy farmers in New York

10 and Pennsylvania and maintain an

11 additional supply agreement to

12 purchase the milk from another 100 or

13 so farms through the northeast

14 preeminent dairy farmer cooperative,

15 dairy marketing services.

16 Since our business is strictly

17 domestic, I\'m going to limit my

18 comments to the improvements we would

19 like to see addressed in domestic

20 dairy regulations and dairy programs

21 as a result of the 2007 Farm Bill.

22 Although the changes in the

23 international dairy marketplace

24 indirectly impact us, I\'m going to

25 stay close to home in my comments for

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2 expediency.

3 Plainly stated, we need to

4 simplify federal regulations

5 pertaining to milk and dairy and

6 change the remaining regulations to

7 make them more market-oriented. Dairy

8 is one of, if not the most highly

9 regulated agricultural businesses in

10 America. Worse yet, federal dairy

11 regulations are so complicated,

12 contradictory and outdated that they

13 actually impede the industry\'s

14 ability to grow and innovate.

15 For instance, it take nearly two

16 years to make even minor changes to

17 federal milk marketing rules to

18 respond to market conditions that may

19 change literally overnight.

20 A streamlined amendment process

21 should be adopted for federal milk

22 order similar to what is currently

23 used in many of the fruit and

24 vegetable market orders, so that they

25 can adapt to rapid changes in the

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2 marketplace, both structural and

3 environmental.

4 Two federal programs intended to

5 provide price safety nets to dairy

6 farmers who work in opposition to each

7 other rather than performing their

8 stated function. Alone, the dairy

9 price support program which was

10 supposed to sunset several years ago

11 served a valuable purpose. When

12 combined with the milk income loss

13 contract program, milk, said to expire

14 tomorrow, they both become

15 dysfunctional.

16 The support price program

17 establishes a pricing floor by

18 agreeing to purchase commodity

19 products at a minimum price when the

20 commercial marketplace would otherwise

21 have no interest in buying them.

22 When the price reaches that

23 so-called safety net level, the milk

24 program kicks in to pay dairy farmers

25 a bonus which allows them to continue

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2 to produced milk with little regard

3 for the price they would otherwise

4 receive for it in the commercial

5 marketplace. The net effect is that

6 taxpayers are paying to keep dairy

7 farmers in business producing product

8 that is not needed and then paying a

9 second time to remove the same product

10 from the marketplace.

11 One of these programs has got to

12 go. I believe it should be the dairy

13 price support program because the milk

14 program is more effective dollar for

15 dollar in supporting dairy farmers and

16 will allow the marketplace to clear

17 itself of excess production while

18 being more suitable for the current

19 international trading climate.

20 In this era of graphic and

21 cost-effective transportation, we must

22 recognize that milk markets are for

23 the most part national in scope. The

24 2007 Farm Bill should dictate that

25 areas of the country operating

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2 state-wide pools or compacts that do

3 not adhere to the principles of

4 federal policy goals should be

5 excluded from receiving money from

6 federal programs. We should not be

7 pitting one part of the nation\'s dairy

8 farmers against another.

9 We need to honestly evaluate

10 whether the intent of our dairy

11 programs are social or economic. If

12 the intent is to save the family farm

13 in certain regions of the country,

14 then pricing programs that equally

15 benefit the typically larger corporate

16 farm should not be utilized. However,

17 I firmly believe the intent of federal

18 farm policy should be to provide an

19 economic safety net for all milk

20 producers and apply evenhandedly

21 regardless of the size, location or

22 ownership structure of the farm. It

23 is wrong to assume that family farmers

24 are not as efficient as large

25 corporate operations or that all

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2 family farms are small. If we can

3 remove artificial price enhancements

4 the most effective operations are

5 going to be the ones that survive and

6 prosper.

7 Existing federal farm policies

8 for milk have combined to increase

9 price volatility while prolonging

10 periods of excessively low prices

11 creating unnecessary economic hardship

12 for producers and taxpayers alike.

13 The brief experiment with forward

14 pricing contracts that was by all

15 measures a success should be

16 resuscitated. Grain, wheat and

17 soybean farmers can all forward

18 contract with their customers to

19 guarantee a fair price for a set

20 period of time and dairy farmers

21 should have the same options available

22 to them, should they wish to take

23 advantage of it.

24 Furthermore, the program should

25 be open to all industry participants,

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2 regardless of whether the milk is to

3 be used for food consumption or

4 manufacturing.

5 MR. CANAVAN: You\'ve run out of

6 time.

7 MR. SHONBACH: Can I just read

8 one last sentence here?

9 MR. CANAVAN: Go for it.

10 MR. SHONBACH: Thank you.

11 Lastly, the 2007 Farm Bill is an

12 opportune time to address the pricing

13 mechanism used for milk under the

14 federal market order system. The use

15 of the mass survey for cheddar cheese,

16 butter, nonfat dry milk and whey is

17 flawed in that it is too narrow a

18 group of products upon which to base

19 price of milk. Furthermore, the

20 survey is subject to misreporting and

21 indirectly but fatally linked to the

22 thin trading at the CME.

23 Additional shortcomings to the

24 current pricing is that it avoids

25 manufacturing allowances and formulas

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2 that change over time. A more

3 appropriate pricing mechanism would be

4 the use of the existing trading

5 futures \--

6 MR. CANAVAN: Your time \-- you\'re

7 going to have to sit down. You\'re

8 cutting into other people\'s time.

9 MR. SHONBACH: Okay. Thank you.

10 MR. CANAVAN: Ms. Deborah Jones,

11 please.

12 MS. JONES: Good morning again,

13 Under-Secretary Bost, and thank you,

14 and I thank you, Mr. Jackson, for

15 giving this opportunity to New Jersey

16 to comment on the seniors farmers\'

17 market nutrition program.

18 My name is Deborah Jones. I\'m

19 the director of New Jersey WIC

20 services and \-- including the WIC

21 farmers\' market nutrition program, and

22 I also have the responsibility for the

23 administration of the senior farmers\'

24 market program, in partnership with

25 our sister agency, the New Jersey

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2 Department of Agriculture, County

3 Office on Aging, New Jersey farmers

4 and youth farm stands.

5 New Jersey\'s history with this

6 SNP program began in 1997. As we saw

7 a vehicle to address health

8 disparities of older Americans by

9 providing locally grown produce to 500

10 low-income seniors in urban and rural

11 communities within our state.

12 In 2001 funding became available

13 from the Commodity Credit Corporation

14 of the United States Department of

15 Agriculture to develop or expand the

16 seniors farmers\' market nutrition

17 program. Since 2001 federal funds

18 have supported an average of 35,000

19 seniors. This represents less than one

20 percent of the estimated 500,000 that

21 are eligible to receive program

22 benefits. And that the check

23 redemption rates in New Jersey average

24 from 85 to 91 percent per year. This

25 program has been very successful in

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2 meeting the needs of older Americans

3 because of the collaboration and

4 commitment of our partners in

5 providing services to seniors,

6 authorizing farmers and other

7 administrators functions with our

8 financial support.

9 I applaud USDA in its efforts to

10 provide administrative funds to

11 support the cost of doing business as

12 outlined in the seniors farmers\'

13 market nutrition program proposed

14 rule. New Jersey WIC services is in

15 agreement with the proposed rule

16 regarding a farmers\' market agreement.

17 The proposed rule states that agencies

18 that operate both the seniors and the

19 WIC farmers\' market nutrition program

20 may execute a single agreement for

21 both programs, thus are reducing the

22 burdensome task of a lot of arduous

23 paperwork included. And we applaud

24 you for that.

25 New Jersey recommends that the

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2 State plan, however, submission of

3 both programs be consistent with the

4 current WIC farmers\' market nutrition

5 program State plan, which is submitted

6 every three years.

7 New Jersey WIC services further

8 agrees with the proposal of providing

9 categorical eligibility for disabled

10 individuals. The rule states that the

11 State agencies may at their discretion

12 also deem disabled individuals less

13 than 60 years of age who are residing

14 in housing facilities occupied by

15 older individuals and also where

16 congregate nutrition services are

17 provided, are categorically eligible

18 to receive program benefits.

19 The New Jersey WIC services

20 offer the following recommendations to

21 you, Under-Secretary, as you move

22 forward with the policy decisions for

23 2007. We recommend that the

24 administrative cost to operate the

25 program be a separate allocation of

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2 funds. Full funds must remain at or

3 above the current funding level.

4 Recommend that the administrative cost

5 in the 8 percent to be increased to 20

6 percent to provide benefits and

7 services to recipients and for the

8 general administration operation of

9 the program as cited in the rule. The

10 use of technology is the most

11 efficient and effective manner to

12 improve customer service and

13 accountability. However, technology

14 as you know, Under-Secretary, can be

15 expensive as stand-alone systems. The

16 use of card technology for multiple

17 programs, the cost allocation plans,

18 can reduce cost and also improve

19 program efficiency simultaneously. We

20 recommend that USDA conduct regional

21 strategic planning sessions with

22 States and perform the cost analysis

23 to be incurred by State agencies as a

24 result of the implementation of the

25 rule. And the last recommendation but

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2 definitely not least, the increased

3 role of faith in the community

4 organizations in outreach and

5 coordination of services that they are

6 the pulse on the community that can

7 provide and bring these services into

8 urban and rural communities.

9 Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for

10 the opportunity to share our

11 recommendations with you this morning.

12 It is our hope that the

13 recommendations will assist you as you

14 begin the planning and policy process

15 that will allow State agencies the

16 flexibility to serve its seniors.

17 As I close, I would like to

18 share with you an excerpt of a quote

19 from a sponsor of the seniors farmers\'

20 market nutrition program.

21 \"For many of our seniors this is

22 the only opportunity they have to

23 purchase fresh produce. They enjoy

24 the bus trips that they make to the

25 farmers\' markets and consider it an

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2 enjoyable outing as well as an

3 enhancement to their diets. I have

4 worked with the seniors for more than

5 25 years. This is one of the best

6 programs that the State of New Jersey

7 has offered them.\"

8 Thank you.

9 MR. CANAVAN: Thank you, Ms.

10 Jones.

11 Timothy Harner, please.

12 MR. HARNER: Good morning. My

13 name is Tim Harner. I am general

14 counsel of upstate farms cooperative.

15 We market about a billion pounds of

16 milk a year from our 300 dairy farm

17 families in western New York. Most of

18 it through plants that our cooperative

19 owns and operates. We supply a number

20 of schools with milk. Good nutrition

21 for children and teenagers starts with

22 good eating habits and the

23 overwhelming majority of food

24 nutrition professionals agree that

25 milk and other dairy products play an

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2 important role in providing good

3 nutrition to people of all ages. So

4 encouraging children and teenagers to

5 drink milk at school is not only good

6 because it helps them eat well that

7 day, it is also good because it helps

8 children and teenagers learn good

9 eating habits that will help them eat

10 well for the rest of their lives.

11 And, of course, it is essential

12 that when children and teenagers go

13 home, they find plenty of milk and

14 other nutritious dairy products such

15 as cottage cheese and yogurt.

16 Therefore, upstate farms supports

17 ample funding for programs such as

18 food stamps so that Americans of all

19 ages can benefit nutritionally from

20 the many delicious dairy products that

21 come from the milk and the dairy farm

22 families of upstate farms have been

23 producing for generations.

24 MR. CANAVAN: Thank you,

25 Mr. Harner.

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2 Before I call Ms. Jennifer

3 Wilkins, let me call Rebecca Wittam,

4 Kelsey Stack, Kathy Roberts and Lee

5 Davenport.

6 Ms. Wilkins?

7 MS. WILKINS: Good morning.

8 Thank you, Under-Secretary Bost, for

9 this opportunity to provide input on

10 programs that will be authorized in

11 the 2007 Farm Bill. My name is

12 Jennifer Wilkins. I\'m a senior

13 extension associate in the Division of

14 Nutritional Sciences at Cornell

15 University, and I\'m also the director

16 of the Cornell farm to school program.

17 This program works in tight

18 partnership with other State agencies

19 to promote good nutrition in our

20 schools by accessing fresh local

21 fruits and vegetables from New York

22 farmers and other foods from New York

23 farms as well as simultaneously

24 strengthening opportunity to value

25 added industries that our farmers can

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2 be involved with.

3 My comments will be addressing

4 the food stamp nutrition, the food

5 stamp program first. The first

6 recommendation is to apply the good

7 standards set by the USDA and DHS as

8 dietary guidelines and the USDA\'s my

9 pyramid to the criteria establishing

10 allowable food stamp program

11 purchases. Most retail food stores

12 offer an abundance of food choices to

13 American consumers who endeavor to

14 feed their families in healthful ways.

15 Despite the availability of healthful

16 choices in today\'s supermarkets, a

17 disproportionate amount of food items

18 can be categorized as nutrient-poor

19 choices with added fats, sugars and

20 salt. Indeed, just four items, four

21 food product categories alone: Bakery

22 foods, beverages, candies, gums and

23 snacks and condiments, account for

24 over 60 percent of the new food

25 product introductions to the

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2 marketplace every year. Applying

3 nutrition standards set forth in the

4 2005 dietary guidance system would

5 help assure sound choices on the part

6 of food stamp recipients.

7 Secondly, we recommend providing

8 incentives for increasing fruit and

9 vegetable intake among food stamp

10 program recipients. Food stamp

11 program recipients are more likely

12 than higher income groups to

13 under-consume fruits and vegetables

14 and have higher rates of chronic

15 diseases that are negatively

16 associated with diets that are high in

17 fruits and vegetables. Since fruits

18 and vegetables are often more

19 expensive than other food options and

20 provide few total calories per dollars

21 spent, the economic incentive built

22 into the food stamp program would make

23 such purchases more attractive to

24 recipients and would work

25 synergistically with the food stamp

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2 nutrition education program.

3 Finally, with regard to the food

4 stamp program we recommend enabling

5 states to equip all farmers markets

6 with EBT technology to assure access

7 of this source of locally grown fresh

8 fruits and vegetables and plants by

9 food stamp program recipients.

10 First I would like to thank the

11 USDA and food nutrition service for

12 funds used over the past five years to

13 purchase EBT terminals for farmers\'

14 markets in New York City and in

15 upstate farmers\' markets since 2003.

16 The equipment was purchased through a

17 USDA Federal State market improvement

18 program grant to the New York State

19 Department of Ag & Markets and this is

20 much appreciated.

21 The number of farmers\' markets

22 is increasing across the country with

23 now over 37,000 farmers\' markets in

24 the United States and these are not

25 only an excellent source of fresh

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2 fruits and vegetables and plants for

3 home gardens, but these markets are

4 also sources of food and nutrition

5 education from farmers and through the

6 farmers\' market nutrition program on

7 the selection, storage and preparation

8 of fruits and vegetables.

9 The actions of farmer\'s markets

10 is a source of healthful foods that

11 food stamp recipients are more likely

12 to under-consume has become

13 constrained with the implementation of

14 the electronic benefits transfer

15 system. To improve the good health

16 benefits of the food stamp program,

17 state farmers\' markets programs and by

18 installing EBT equipment.

19 I have many more comments and

20 they will be in my written transcript.

21 Thank you for this opportunity.

22 A VOICE: Hold on. I have a

23 comment I want to make. I want to say

24 something to you and I want you to

25 think about and give me your thoughts

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2 on this issue.

3 One of the things that came up

4 during the reauthorization of food

5 stamps in 2002 was the question of

6 limiting the types of foods that could

7 be purchased with food stamps, that is

8 healthy foods, and I think you make

9 reference to that in your comments.

10 And I\'m kind of surprised that you\'re

11 the first person who has specifically

12 said that.

13 The problem that Congress faces

14 when we talked about this was, what

15 are you going to limit? And I\'ll just

16 give you some examples. I\'m not

17 necessarily looking for you to respond

18 but to think about.

19 Well, maybe you shouldn\'t buy

20 candy with food stamps. Well, the

21 folks in Georgia had problems with

22 that because a lot of candy has

23 peanuts in it. Well, don\'t buy candy.

24 Well, the folks in Pennsylvania said,

25 Well, chocolate. Well, you can\'t buy

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2 candy \-- you can\'t buy cookies, well,

3 but what about those folks that make

4 Twix bars? So, a question of being

5 able to limit it, you open up a whole

6 range of questions about how you would

7 actually go about doing that and

8 identifying it and then being able to

9 have those stores manage itself.

10 What are your thoughts?

11 MS. WILKINS: I\'m well aware of

12 the ethical debates that have gone on

13 around this type of issue. I\'m just

14 recognizing that in the food

15 environment in which this audience as

16 well as all income levels are facing,

17 it is increasingly difficult to make

18 sound choices and by tailoring or

19 providing incentives in addition to

20 what is already supplied in the food

21 stamp program for purchase of fruits

22 and vegetables \--

23 A VOICE: Hold on. Let me

24 interrupt. Okay?

25 MS. WILKINS: \-- thank you.

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2 MR. CANAVAN: Rebecca Widdam?

3 MS. WIDDAM: I am Rebecca

4 Widdam, director of research for the

5 homelessness outreach and prevention

6 project, and I want to thank you all

7 for being here today and I also want

8 to thank everyone who spoke and

9 everyone who will speak and in

10 particular I want to appreciate and

11 echo the comments of Edie Mesick and

12 Jodi Harawitz and Joel Berg and I\'m

13 going to save everyone\'s time by not

14 repeating what they said.

15 I\'m going to focus, however, on

16 participation in food stamps because

17 that\'s what I know most about, and the

18 goal of getting money to buy food to

19 people who don\'t have money to buy

20 food is as \-- is up there, the number

21 one accomplishment of the food stamp

22 program and so the question is: How

23 do we build on that?

24 Outreach is crucial and has \--

25 and I greatly appreciate the USDA\'s

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2 work in this area in the last few

3 years and our work in New York City

4 and \-- but it\'s not enough.

5 We\'ve completed a study of

6 clients helped in outreach program in

7 New York City and we found that only

8 42 percent enrolled, although they

9 knew that they were eligible for food

10 stamps, knew how much they could

11 receive, which on average was a 20

12 percent raise in household income, and

13 knew how to apply. Most didn\'t

14 enroll. And many clients who either

15 didn\'t enroll or who started to apply

16 and didn\'t make it through the process

17 described administrative hurdles as

18 the key barrier. And for example, we

19 know that hassles in the application

20 process disproportionately affect what

21 the people \-- our study found out,

22 USDA studies have found out. One

23 client in our study said it\'s not that

24 I decided not to apply, it\'s that I

25 didn\'t have the time. My work didn\'t

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2 allow it. Another said the reason I

3 haven\'t done it, gone to apply, is

4 that it\'s really hard to take a day

5 off from work to go there because I

6 lose a day of pay.

7 You probably have these, this is

8 not rocket science.

9 Another client was getting \--

10 was receiving WIC and \-- but she was

11 still skipping meals and, because

12 although her husband was working, she

13 was having a high-risk pregnancy and

14 so she was basically was bedridden.

15 But because she was bedridden, and

16 wasn\'t officially labeled as disabled

17 by any government program, she

18 couldn\'t apply for food stamps and,

19 you know, we don\'t want pregnant women

20 skipping meals, and I don\'t \-- I\'m

21 sure no one here does.

22 So that\'s the bads news. The

23 good news is, even the application

24 process works. The program that we\'re

25 a part of had scheduled application

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2 appointments for some clients and 58

3 percent of the clients with scheduled

4 application appointments involved

5 compared with 49 percent of those who

6 had other enhanced services and only

7 34 percent of the rest.

8 Not easy to implement, but it

9 helped.

10 HRA waives \-- office waives

11 required offices visits for some

12 elderly or disabled clients and those

13 we spoke with who found out about

14 those services found them very helpful

15 and enrolled.

16 The New York State nutrition

17 improvement project, which Scott

18 earlier made reference to,

19 automatically enrolled SSI recipients

20 who live alone without required

21 interviews and that has helped over

22 50,000 in New York City.

23 So building on these innovations

24 is logical \-- and \-- so waiving

25 required office visits and improving

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2 linkages with Social Security,

3 Medicaid \-- yeah \-- make it easier for

4 people.

5 MR. CANAVAN: Thank you.

6 Kelsey Stack?

7 MS. STACK: Good morning. My

8 name is Kelsey Stack and I\'ve been

9 assigned to come here to represent the

10 Staten Island Interfaith Coalition of

11 Feeding Ministries, which includes

12 nearly three dozen registered food

13 programs on Staten Island, from

14 full-service island-wide programs that

15 provide emergency food daily and offer

16 extensive support services to

17 neighborhoods, to church group causes

18 that (inaudible) is needed.

19 In the short time that I am

20 given, I hope that I can accurately

21 explain the hunger needs of Staten

22 Island.

23 The need for emergency food

24 resources on Staten Island has

25 dramatically increased over the last

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2 three or four years. In some cases

3 the number of people coming to local

4 soup kitchens and food pantries have

5 more than doubled. Typically this is

6 related to poor economic conditions

7 compounded by ever-rising housing

8 costs. Many new participants never

9 thought they would need emergency food

10 assistance. And yet there are many

11 Staten Islanders not yet accessing

12 emergency food resources.

13 According to the food bank for

14 New York City, surveys on Staten

15 Island indicate that over half of

16 those at risk for hunger on Staten

17 Island are not receiving any emergency

18 food assistance. They are not

19 benefitting from food stamps or WIC

20 and they are not using pantries or

21 soup kitchens.

22 In 2003 four percent of Staten

23 Islanders said that there was at least

24 one day of the year in which they did

25 not have enough food. In 2004 this

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2 number jumped to astounding 13

3 percent.

4 One of the issues that I have

5 been asked to address today is that of

6 the food stamp program.

7 In recent months there have been

8 several excellent developments in this

9 program. In an August 2005 press

10 release, released by the New York City

11 coalition against hunger in food

12 change, the announcement was made that

13 new technology is being developed so

14 that faith and community based food

15 pantries and soup kitchens will be

16 able to help clients apply for food

17 stamps on line, making the process

18 more convenient and reducing the high

19 demand for the business of City

20 offices. This is an absolutely

21 essential step forward on Stand Island

22 which is geographically the largest

23 borough of the City and difficult for

24 many people to find easy

25 transportation.

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2 There\'s only one place on Staten

3 Island for people to apply for food

4 stamps, the HRA Model Job Center in

5 St. George, which is remote from many

6 areas of Staten Island. Being able to

7 apply for food stamps in one\'s own

8 neighborhood with help insure that

9 more of those households eligible for

10 food stamps will actually be able to

11 apply.

12 Increased food stamp

13 participation will also help with

14 local neighborhood economy. With

15 emergency food needs increasing, not

16 decreasing, on Staten Island, the

17 funding for food stamps seems to be

18 increased and not decreased. Just

19 maintaining funding at the current

20 level is not sufficient given the

21 circumstances we face today.

22 Another program that I will

23 address today is the emergency food

24 assistance program, or TEFAP.

25 TEFAP, a program of the USDA

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2 FNS, is helpful in many ways.

3 However, it often does not save

4 emergency food providers very much

5 money. This is because it does not

6 provide very much in the way of food

7 to EFPs. Some issues that arise in

8 TEFAP are that it does not provide

9 very money fresh proteins, fresh

10 produce is often bad by the time it

11 arrives, and the service itself is

12 somewhat unreliable. There are many

13 times that emergency food providers

14 will be expecting something specific

15 but it does not always show up when

16 the time comes.

17 Although the members of the

18 Staten Island Interfaith Coalition of

19 Feeding Ministries is appreciative of

20 the service that TEFAP provides, the

21 service would be more helpful if

22 emergency food providers were able to

23 have more of a say over what foods

24 they are provided with.

25 It would also be helpful if the

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2 food that is promised arrives and

3 arrives fresh.

4 Members of the Staten Island

5 Interfaith Coalition of Feeding

6 Ministries are grateful for the

7 services that the USDA provides and

8 with some small improvements these

9 projects could be even more useful.

10 MR. CANAVAN: Thank you.

11 Kathy Roberts?

12 MS. ROBERTS: Good morning. My

13 name is Kathy Roberts. I\'m a food

14 stamp specialist with the nutrition

15 consortium of New York State and I\'m

16 going to supplement the policy

17 recommendations that Edie Mesick

18 already made. I have written comments

19 I\'m going to submit and I\'ll summarize

20 them quickly.

21 I\'m going to focus on a few

22 specific areas in the food stamp

23 program. First, work requirements.

24 We should eliminate all work

25 requirements in the food stamp

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2 program, it\'s the only Federal

3 nutrition assistance program which

4 attaches a work requirement to

5 maintaining eligibility. If we can\'t

6 eliminate all work requirements, we

7 must abolish the time limit rules for

8 able-bodied adults without dependents.

9 We already have a food stamp

10 employment training program which

11 requires employable adults to take

12 part in work activities and be denied

13 food stamps or sanctioned if they fail

14 to comply. There\'s simply no need to

15 impose additional work requirements on

16 adults who can\'t find a job.

17 Why is ABOD such a problem?

18 Well, we found four particular

19 problems in New York State.

20 First, ABOD waivers are being

21 rejected because of the misperception

22 that that waiver would excuse Apods

23 from having to participate in work

24 activities altogether. That\'s simply

25 not true. ABODs are erroneously being

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2 told that they can\'t get food stamps

3 unless they\'re receiving welfare or

4 already working.

5 The tracking requirements are

6 very burdensome on local districts and

7 divert resources away from

8 interviewing households and processing

9 benefits. And the reporting

10 obligations are burdensome and

11 confusing to both recipients and local

12 district staff. Especially in light

13 of the fact that most ABODs are

14 simplified reporters.

15 If we\'re serious about

16 simplifying program administration and

17 reducing unnecessary barriers,

18 eliminating the ABOD rule is a perfect

19 start.

20 Second is asset rules. The

21 current asset limits are so low that

22 the force households to impoverish

23 themselves before they can apply for

24 food stamps and leaves them with no

25 cushion in the event of an emergency

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2 or sudden loss of income.

3 How low are the asset limits?

4 Well, they\'re so low that the monthly

5 gross income limit for many households

6 is higher than the asset limit.

7 In areas with high housing

8 costs, such as New York City, one

9 month of shelter and utilities alone

10 can exceed the asset limit.

11 Also, the current asset rules

12 force low-income households with IRAs,

13 burial accounts over \$1,500 and

14 college savings plans to deplete these

15 accounts before they can qualify for

16 food stamps.

17 Ideally we should eliminate all

18 asset requirements for the food stamp

19 program just like other Federal

20 nutrition assistance programs. If we

21 can\'t do that, we must increase the

22 asset limit to \$10,000, exclude all

23 retirement accounts, burial funds and

24 college savings plans.

25 The third area, medical expense

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2 deduction. This is tremendously

3 beneficial to elderly and disabled

4 households, but the bare-faced

5 verification requirement is burdensome

6 and time-consuming for both households

7 and workers. We found that the

8 elderly and disabled often are not

9 being credited with the proper medical

10 deduction, without substantial time

11 and effort on the part of outreach

12 workers and eligibility staff.

13 Sorting through a household\'s medical

14 bill, figure out what\'s covered by

15 insurance and what isn\'t, and

16 estimating what expenses are going to

17 continue over the course of the

18 certification period is challenging at

19 best. And when changes occur to

20 health insurance programs, trying to

21 estimate a household\'s future

22 out-of-pocket medical expenses becomes

23 a Hurculean task.

24 We would recommend that a

25 standard medical deduction be adopted

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2 with the option of allowing households

3 to use their actual verified medical

4 expenses in excess of the standard.

5 Fourth area, immigrant

6 restoration. We recommend, okay, that

7 we remove the five-year bar,

8 especially for domestic violence

9 victims and elderly. And in my

10 written comments I have some

11 suggestions for increasing

12 participation by military families and

13 farmers.

14 Thank you.

15 MR. CANAVAN: Thank you.

16 As Lee Davenport approaches the

17 microphone, could I ask Abigail

18 Weinberg, John Krokowsky, Fern Estro

19 and Bill Ayers to approach the

20 microphone area to be ready to present

21 your comments.

22 Thank you.

23 Mr. Davenport?

24 MR. DAVENPORT: Lee Davenport.

25 Assistant director.

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2 Secretary Bost, I would like to

3 welcome you back to the Big Apple.

4 Today I\'ll focus my testimony on two

5 apples. I bought this apple outside

6 at the farmers\' market, it\'s

7 nutritious, it\'s locally sourced. It

8 is \-- it will support a regional food

9 system. But this apple is not enough.

10 To get this nutritious apple to more

11 hungry New Yorkers we\'ll have to use

12 technology imbedded in things like

13 this apple.

14 The technology behind this IPOD

15 can teach us to cut 16-page

16 applications, to cut eight-hour

17 waiting room times and 30-day

18 processing. To get people food when

19 they need it, we need equal

20 opportunity technology. Let me repeat

21 that, Mr. Secretary. Hungry people

22 need equal opportunity technology.

23 Let\'s jump-start food stamp

24 technology. You gave New York City a

25 \$1,000,000 three-year grant to improve

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2 participation with technology. We

3 know that\'s not enough. We know it\'s

4 too little money.

5 Food change has as challenge for

6 you. If you can put up \$10,000,000,

7 we\'ll take the private sector money

8 and foundation money, match that

9 \$10,000,000 and bring people food in

10 real time. Not in ten years, not in

11 three years. But September 29, 2006.

12 Take the rest of my time to

13 imagine a system that will use this

14 technology to get this apple to the

15 stomachs of hungry Americans.

16 MR. CANAVAN: Thank you,

17 Mr. Davenport.

18 Abigail Weinberg?

19 John Krokowsky?

20 MR. KROKOWSKY: Well, I always

21 thought it was going to be a fear to

22 follow Joel Berg, but not Lee

23 Davenport is a challenge at hand.

24 My name is John Krokowsky and

25 I\'m the director of policy and public

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2 information at City Harvest. On

3 behalf of Sally Hernandez-Pineto, our

4 executive director, I thank you for

5 coming here, Mr. Under-Secretary, and

6 colleagues. And in the interest of

7 time I\'m going to keep my comments

8 very short.

9 I do want you \-- everybody knows

10 what City Harvest is, I hope. We are a

11 food rescue program and part of

12 Americas second harvest network.

13 We help feed more than 260,000

14 each week. And along with our

15 colleagues from local and national

16 hunger response organizations and the

17 agricultural field, we\'re asking USDA

18 to view the Farm Bill 2007 as an

19 opportunity to maximize the impact and

20 expand the food stamp program for

21 low-income and food-insecure

22 Americans, and its many strengths to

23 provide people with the ability to

24 make autonomous food decisions, it

25 allows them the dignity of utilizing

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2 existing retail food markets and food

3 and farmers\' markets, and it provides

4 critical benefits to the food system.

5 In New York City, a major recent

6 accomplishment has been the increasing

7 number of people who are enrolled in

8 the program, and, Mr. Under-Secretary,

9 I think it has in fact been part of

10 your watchful eye in addition to the

11 agencies both public and private in

12 New York City that have done that.

13 What we really need to do is, we need

14 to create a paragon shift in the way

15 food stamps are perceived. That they

16 are, in fact, a public health program.

17 And that high usage by eligible

18 households is a positive, and, in

19 contract, low usage by eligible

20 households is viewed as a negative.

21 The food stamp program has other

22 strengths, certainly the work with

23 disaster food stamps in Louisiana,

24 Mississippi and Alabama were perfect.

25 You need to be aware of the fact that

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2 the commodity foods that you released

3 through your rapid food response

4 system was certainly well appreciated

5 and worked very efficiently, and

6 that\'s an important part of the food

7 programs.

8 Based on the American Second

9 Harvest study of 2001, based on the

10 United States household and food

11 security in the United States 2003

12 report, we respectfully request that

13 we identify food stamp cuts as

14 unconscionable.

15 Although the 2003 report stated

16 that there was only \-- there was not a

17 statistically different level of food

18 insecurity from 2002, the question at

19 hand is, how many people who were

20 food-insecure would ever be acceptable

21 in the United States?

22 As we move forward we certainly

23 need to increase out outreach and I\'d

24 like you to know that, give

25 consideration of moving away from the

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2 thrifty food plan to the moderate cost

3 food program based on food prices and

4 also the pluralistic society that we

5 currently have in this country.

6 And in closing I want to thank

7 you very much again, because we know

8 that food stamps do, in fact, make

9 American stronger.

10 Thank you.

11 MR. CANAVAN: Thank you, Mr.

12 Krokowsky.

13 Fern Estro?

14 MS. ESTRO: Thank you. Back to

15 New York City. I am Fern Gail Estro.

16 I am a registered dietician and

17 nutrition educator out of New York

18 City, and I\'m speaking on behalf of

19 the Society for Nutrition Education.

20 We are also know as SNE.

21 I want to thank you,

22 Under-Secretary Bost, and USDA\'s food

23 and nutrition service for allowing SNE

24 and all the rest of us the opportunity

25 to participate in this important

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2 session and to offer comments on the

3 Farm Bill, nutrition title and

4 preparation for reauthorization.

5 SNE represents unique

6 professional interests of nutrition

7 educators in the United States and

8 world-wide. SNE is dedicated to

9 promoting healthy sustainable food

10 choices and has addition on health

11 people in healthy communities.

12 We encourages changes in the

13 2007 Farm Bill that will support these

14 goals of health and sustainability.

15 SNE, our testimony addresses he

16 need to improve the food stamp

17 program. There is a need to improve

18 access by allowing community-based

19 application process. It needs to be

20 reflective of the 2005 dietary

21 guidelines. And we recommend a fruit

22 and vegetable incentive as part of the

23 program. We do not support inclusion

24 of vitamins and supplements. In

25 addition, we feel very \-- have very

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2 strong support for the senior farmers\'

3 market nutrition program. We want to

4 see increasing access to fruit and

5 vegetables. The funding is needed to

6 accommodate every state, all United

7 States territories, and thoroughly

8 recognizing Indian tribal governments.

9 And I will comment that at \$60 a

10 child, I think that\'s a reasonable

11 request.

12 Flexibility in program design

13 based on community need is critical.

14 But funding should not be at a State

15 discretion for purposes outside of

16 older adults\' access to food from

17 local farmers. There is a need to

18 support nutrition education that

19 encourages recipients to build

20 healthful eating patterns and to take

21 action for good health. Appropriate

22 methods for conveying key messages are

23 also important. For example,

24 (inaudible), size, culturally

25 appropriate. Communication about the

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2 program\'s existence with older

3 populations is also a consideration

4 and needs to be across programs, use

5 community and be consistent. We need

6 to establish consistent nutrition and

7 health standards across programs.

8 Again, using the 2005 dietary

9 guidelines.

10 These nutrition title programs

11 include the emergency food assistance

12 program, food distribution in Indian

13 reservations program, community \--

14 commodity supplemental food program,

15 and the nutrition assistance program

16 in Puerto Rico.

17 Farm bill programs are a social

18 marketing opportunity for American

19 health. The food stamp nutrition

20 education program is an important

21 component of changing health behavior

22 and is important to provide viable

23 funding. SNE has provided extensive

24 comments in this in the past and will

25 continue to do \-- to be of assistance

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2 to you in the future in this area.

3 We support expansion of food and

4 vegetable snack program and to

5 accommodate every state, all United

6 States territories and Federally

7 recognized Indian tribal governments.

8 We encourage further financial support

9 for wireless technology at farmers\'

10 markets to increase access too local

11 food for food stamp recipients.

12 By the way, my comment before

13 about \$60 per children was in

14 reference to the food and vegetable

15 snack program.

16 We want to see expansion of the

17 DOD fresh program. We also encourage

18 providing language that supports

19 purchasing locally within every state

20 again and in United States territories

21 and Federal recognized Indian tribal

22 governments.

23 A domestic market to us is

24 programs where Federal foods are

25 unmatched State levels to promote

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2 fruit and vegetable promotion efforts

3 is also important.

4 A New York City case study, and

5 I realize we have come to the end, so

6 therefore what I am going to highlight

7 here is that we are very supportive of

8 the expansion of the EBT program and

9 recertification for seniors that will

10 also address the need to reach people

11 rapidly.

12 I will be submitting written

13 testimony as well.

14 And thank you for your time.

15 MR. CANAVAN: Thank you.

16 As we call Billy Ayers to the

17 microphone, would Mark Waldman, Carlos

18 Rodriguez, Casandra Dagle and Anna

19 Lupay approach the microphone, to the

20 waiting area.

21 Mr. Ayers?

22 MR. AYERS: Good morning. My

23 name is Bill Ayers. I\'m the

24 co-founder and executive director of

25 World Hunger Unit. For 30 years we\'ve

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2 been identifying and supporting

3 innovative solutions to hunger and

4 poverty and I\'d like to talk about

5 four today.

6 But first I\'d like to commend

7 Secretary Bost because \-- and I think

8 most people in this room are aware of

9 it, in an age of increasing poverty

10 and also increasing budget cuts on

11 other programs, that hasn\'t happened

12 with the nutrition programs and we

13 know that you are a big part of the

14 reason for that, maintaining and also

15 growing those programs.

16 Now, that shouldn\'t count for my

17 time either, just like Joel Berg said.

18 The first thing I wanted to talk

19 about was something that\'s actually

20 come about from a committee that you

21 established at FNS, and that\'s the

22 National Food Stamp Outreach

23 Committee.

24 And there are two, I think,

25 breakthroughs there. The first one

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2 is, we\'ve been working for over a year

3 and the first thing I wanted to

4 mention is a database of innovative

5 solutions, innovative programs for

6 outreach and the simplification of

7 food stamps. We\'ve looked a dozens

8 and dozens of programs, many of which

9 have been funded by USDA, and the key

10 thing now would be to put them up and

11 hopefully \-- I\'m told by your

12 colleagues this will happen in the

13 next month, this will be a national

14 database that will have links to

15 national organizations, to state-wide

16 organizations, to grass roots

17 organizations, so that everyone around

18 the country can see the best programs

19 that are providing food stamps for

20 outreach and simplification.

21 My suggestions are that somebody

22 remain in charge of that so \-- to keep

23 it fresh, and that the second thing is

24 that we have regional workshops at

25 different times on some of the best of

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2 these innovative programs to make them

3 spread around the country.

4 The second thing is a program

5 that we started called Hunger

6 Champions, it started out as Hunger

7 Heros, now it\'s Hunger Champions. And

8 next week we will be giving out those

9 awards at the food stamp conference.

10 The idea here is to try to award

11 the folks who are really on the front

12 line of making America stronger, and

13 that is the folks who work in your

14 offices across the country, who are

15 doing the best job of providing food

16 stamps to people in a timely manner,

17 in a courteous manner. You\'ve heard

18 over and over again, the difficulties

19 people have in actually going through

20 the process, and we think that this

21 program will encourage workers, food

22 stamp workers all over the country to

23 enhance that process.

24 We would hope that the awards

25 will spread to the other nutrition

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2 programs that you run so that they are

3 Hunger Champions on all of those

4 programs. Because, in fact, they are

5 the champions, the Hunger Champions of

6 America.

7 The third innovative program I\'d

8 like to talk about is something that

9 you heard a lot about today, and that

10 is improving the food quality and

11 helping small farmers, and as you

12 know, there are movements afoot all

13 over the country, and World Hunger is

14 involved in them, Second Harvest

15 certainly is, we\'d like to be working

16 with you much more closely to be able

17 to provide funding for the purchase of

18 fresh fruits and vegetables locally

19 from small and medium-sized farm, so

20 they can go into the emergency food

21 system.

22 And the last thing has to do

23 with something that I know is close to

24 your heart, and that\'s hunger during

25 the summer amongst children. You have

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2 been a champion of the summer feeding

3 program and yet with all of the work

4 that\'s been done over all of the

5 years, it still only reaches about

6 20-some-odd percent of the kids. And

7 what we are suggesting is that a

8 special card be set up as part of the

9 food stamp program that would be a

10 summer supplemental of approximately

11 \$100 for each child, be given to their

12 families, to make up for the school

13 meals that they won\'t have, in places

14 where the food \-- the summer feeding

15 program is not possible, especially to

16 pilot this in some rural areas of the

17 country and other places to see if it

18 works, to see if it can eliminate

19 hunger in the worst time, during the

20 summer, to the most vulnerable people.

21 Thank you.

22 MR. CANAVAN: Mark Waldman?

23 MR. WALDMAN: Hello. My name is

24 Mark Waldman. I\'m here today

25 representing Betsy Gottbaum, the

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2 public advocate for the City of New

3 York.

4 First I would like to thank the

5 USDA and Secretary Bost for coming

6 here to listen and for bringing

7 together the best and brightest minds

8 in the anti-hunger community to

9 discuss ways to improve federal

10 nutrition through the up coming

11 reauthorization of the Farm Bill.

12 It is through this kind of open

13 process that we can improve the food

14 stamp program and make it a more

15 effective tool in the fight against

16 hunger in New York City and throughout

17 the nation.

18 I would also like to recognize

19 the tireless and often thankless work

20 of the New York City anti-hunger

21 advocates as well as those who provide

22 services to individuals and families

23 in need.

24 One of the many duties of the

25 public advocate is to serve as an

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2 ombudsman to help solve people\'s

3 problems with government. Our office

4 employs a team of New York City

5 government experts who help

6 constituents navigate complex

7 bureaucracies and assist when problems

8 arise.

9 Over the last four years our

10 ombudsman unit has received hundreds

11 of calls from New Yorkers frustrated

12 with the food stamp program. While

13 each call is different in specifics,

14 may contain similar themes. The

15 majority of our calls come from

16 constituents who are having problems

17 with the slow, inefficient way that

18 food stamps are administered here. We

19 have received calls about lengthy

20 application processing times, loss of

21 recertification paperwork and changes

22 in benefit levels without

23 notification.

24 New York City\'s problems with

25 the administration of the food stamp

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2 program by the Human Resources

3 Administration are not due to

4 inadequacies of their staff. But

5 instead with the amount of

6 responsibility the staff is burdened

7 with. Simplifying the application

8 process, waiving finger-imaging

9 requirements and updating equipment

10 and technology would enable HRA to

11 process all food stamp related

12 paperwork more quickly and

13 efficiently.

14 It is our recommendation that

15 the USDA simplify the process of

16 applying for Federally funded food

17 benefit programs, food stamp eligible

18 requirements should be increased to

19 fall in line with programs such as WIC

20 and the school reduced-price lunch

21 program. This would allow for one

22 simple standardized application form

23 for all programs, saving time and

24 resources for applicants and the

25 government alike.

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2 Another major obstacle to HRA

3 being able to process food stamp

4 applications in a timely fashion is

5 the number of unnecessary face-to-face

6 interviews they perform. Interviews

7 with food stamp applicants cost money,

8 take up staff time and discourage

9 people from applying.

10 It is our recommendation that

11 the Federal and State governments do

12 more to encourage local Social Service

13 agencies to eliminate face-to-face

14 interviews for a variety of people who

15 have difficulty reaching an office,

16 such as the elderly, the disabled and

17 those that work, as well as those that

18 are recertifying.

19 New York City should go one

20 step further and take advantage of the

21 ways to insure better access for

22 working families, the elderly and the

23 disabled, by processing applications

24 by mail, fax or through a

25 representative.

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2 It is also our recommendation

3 that the Federal government take

4 further steps to insure that States

5 and Counties process all food stamp

6 applications within 30 days, as

7 required by law. This could be done

8 through an incentive programs that

9 rewards States or Counties for timely

10 processing of applications.

11 It is also our recommendation

12 that you waive the \-- or do whatever

13 you can to get rid of the

14 finger-imaging requirement and invest

15 more money in updating technology.

16 In conclusion, the Farm Bill

17 reauthorization of 2007 should

18 incorporate significant updates to the

19 way applications are processed with a

20 goal of getting food stamps into the

21 hands of those that need them as

22 quickly as possible.

23 Thank you.

24 MR. CANAVAN: Thank you.

25 MR. BOST: If we could we ask

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2 the remaining presenters, if you

3 could, if you have written testimony,

4 if you could summarize that and submit

5 the written testimony. We are down to

6 about 30 minutes and we still have

7 several speakers, and we\'d like to get

8 everybody in but we are going to have

9 to bring the forum to an end at noon.

10 So, if you could please summarize your

11 written notes.

12 MR. CANAVAN: Carlos Rodriguez.

13 MR. RODRIGUEZ: Good morning.

14 I would like to thank Food

15 Nutrition Services and Under-Secretary

16 Bost for hosting this important

17 hearing today, and for affording the

18 Children\'s Defense Fund the

19 opportunity to submit testimony.

20 For more than 30 years the

21 Children\'s Defense Fund has provided a

22 strong, effective voice for children

23 in America who cannot vote, lobby or

24 speak for themselves. CDF educates

25 the nation concerning the needs of

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2 children and encourages preventative

3 investment before they get sick, into

4 trouble or suffer family breakdown.

5 During the past several years

6 there has been a shrinking of

7 political support for programs and

8 services that assist low-income

9 families. Concurrently, tax cuts have

10 been enacted that have

11 disproportionately benefited the very

12 wealthy. Yet today in New York more

13 than 900,000 live in poverty and

14 thousands of more families struggle

15 with incomes just above the poverty

16 level.

17 As a result of their limited

18 financial abilities, these families

19 struggle to make ends meet. The food

20 stamp program responds to the economic

21 needs, hunger and nutritional needs of

22 many of these families by granting

23 benefits to them.

24 Receiving food stamp benefits

25 means families in New York don\'t have

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2 to make as many difficult choices

3 between providing enough food, paying

4 for heating fuel, housing, child care,

5 transportation costs or dealing with

6 economic crises. For the working poor,

7 the benefit makes work pay by

8 increasing families\' purchasing power

9 and we see the results here in New

10 York with the more than 1.2 million

11 people, 623,000 of whom are children,

12 receiving food stamps.

13 Unfortunately, however, 1.3

14 million other New Yorkers, many of

15 whom work, may also be eligible for

16 food stamps but are not participating.

17 The socio-economic benefits of

18 the program are well documented, they

19 deter hunger, they create a healthy

20 work force, they help children grown

21 and learn, the provide nutritious

22 meals to the elderly and disabled, and

23 they prevent hunger among the poor.

24 The program should be protected

25 from changes that will further

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2 endanger poor children and families.

3 And especially in light of tax cuts

4 that have resulted in over \$100,000

5 each year for each millionaire across

6 the country.

7 2002 reauthorization made some

8 progress toward meeting the needs of

9 families, and we\'re going through the

10 vetos, we know how successful the

11 authorization has been and we know

12 that New York responded to these new

13 Federal opportunities to simplify the

14 administration of the food stamp

15 program. We were the first to

16 implement traditional benefit

17 alternatives, we adopted less onerous

18 reporting requirements, we \-- and we

19 took full avail, of course, of the

20 restoration of eligibility to some

21 immigrants.

22 As a result, we have seen

23 participation go up and we\'d like to

24 applaud Under-Secretary Bost, the

25 regional northeast administration

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2 team, for the leadership and guidance

3 during the implementation of these

4 changes, as well as in numerous visits

5 to New York.

6 However, despite the

7 improvements made during the 2002

8 reauthorization, many hungry and

9 nutritionally needy children and

10 families continue to be left behind.

11 Significant improvements are still

12 needed.

13 I\'d just like to focus on a few

14 key points. We need to remove

15 arbitrary limits on immigrant

16 eligibility and restore immigrant \--

17 to all immigrants. Raising the acid

18 test and tier it to reflect household

19 size. Exempting all forms of

20 retirement accounts, educational

21 savings accounts so as to encourage

22 families to save and not penalize the

23 for having savings. And we need to

24 continue to simplify and remove

25 onerous application requirements. The

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2 requirement of personal interview

3 during recertifications is one such

4 obstacle. To comply with this

5 requirement, working families as we

6 heard earlier are often forced to

7 decide between unpaid work time and

8 applying for needed food stamps.

9 Recently New York State

10 completed the implementation of the

11 New York State nutrition improvement

12 project. A program that automatically

13 enrolls SSI recipients into food

14 stamps \--

15 MR. CANAVAN: We really need

16 to \--

17 MR. RODRIGUEZ: Just look for

18 simplification across programs. I

19 think that\'s where the key successes

20 do lie.

21 Thank you.

22 MR. CANAVAN: Casandra Dagle?

23 MS. DAGLE: Good morning,

24 Under-Secretary Bost and committee

25 members. Thank you very much for the

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2 opportunity to speak today.

3 I\'m Casandra Dagle, I\'m the

4 coordinator of the feed the solution

5 campaign, which is a new anti-hunger

6 initiative that evolved out of the

7 Episcopal Diocese of New York. And we

8 represent the 60-plus emergency

9 feeding programs within the diocese

10 who collectively over the last few

11 years has served over 800,000 meals

12 annually.

13 I do have written testimony that

14 I\'ve submitted, and I would like to

15 take this opportunity to say that feed

16 the solution strongly supports the

17 testimony of the New York City

18 Coalition against hunger and also food

19 change.

20 But because of time, I\'d just

21 like to focus on one aspect, that is I

22 guess similar in many areas to other

23 feeding programs, but specific to our

24 campaign, in that we are a faith-based

25 organization and it is these

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2 faith-based organizations who really

3 are on the front lines of the fight

4 against hunger. They\'re very small,

5 they\'re volunteer run, they have very

6 low budgets, many of them pay for food

7 out of their pockets. And a lot of

8 them depend solely on government

9 funding. These are the people who are

10 referred to in our political climate

11 as the armies of compassion and also

12 when we\'re referring to feeding

13 initiatives, but I have to say no army

14 can fight without weapons. And the

15 weapons that these programs have and

16 that they depend on to serve hungry

17 people in New York and across the

18 country is funding, and TEFAP

19 programs, ESSP as well as on state and

20 local levels, and also through food

21 stamps for their guests.

22 Guests receiving food stamps not

23 only helps those individuals meet the

24 needs of their families, but it also

25 eases the burden on these emergency

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2 food programs who are already

3 stretched beyond their limits.

4 So if we are expected to

5 continue in this fight against hunger,

6 and to continue serving and doing our

7 moral obligation, in helping hungry

8 people, then we need the support of

9 the government, the government has the

10 resources to end hunger. We need them

11 to increase our funding, we need them

12 to unequivocally stay away from any

13 cuts to the food stamp program, and

14 like I said, we support the testimony

15 of other programs here who have

16 offered very specific key points on

17 how to improve the food stamp program.

18 Thank you very much for your

19 time.

20 MR. CANAVAN: Anna Lupay?

21 Could I ask Christine Gerstel,

22 Ms. Halfon, Heidi Sigfried and

23 Florence Reed to approach the

24 microphones?

25 Thank you.

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2 MS. LUPAY: My name is Anna

3 Lupay and I\'m an author and I\'m also a

4 food and society policy fellow with

5 the Tolek Foundation, and I just

6 wanted to begin by thanking the USDA

7 for recognizing the importance of

8 hearing directly from people across

9 the country about how the 2007 Farm

10 Bill can best support the health and

11 welfare of all Americans. So thank

12 you very much for organizing the

13 entire listening tour that you have.

14 I think that we in the U.S.

15 often pride ourselves in being a

16 country that is a leader and an

17 innovator and on the cutting edge of

18 science and technology.

19 Unfortunately, when it comes to food,

20 farming and our health, we\'re woefully

21 behind. Though we\'re one of the

22 richest nations in the world, as all

23 of you know, the number of people in

24 the U.S. who are food-insecure is more

25 than 35,000,000, which is equal to the

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2 entire population of Canada. And

3 knowing we pride ourselves in our

4 scientific acumen, we\'ve created this

5 food system that is grossly wasteful,

6 stripped us of food security by the

7 destruction of our diversity and by

8 its over-reliance on water, oil,

9 petroleum-based pesticides and that

10 has helped to spur an unprecedented

11 epidemic of obesity.

12 We can do better, and changing

13 priorities within the Farm Bill is one

14 of the most powerful ways to position

15 ourselves as the global leader that we

16 should be.

17 I would like to just make three

18 specific points for which I believe

19 there is broad bipartisan support in

20 this country.

21 First, eliminate

22 disproportionate subsidies. Through

23 my work I get to travel around this

24 country, talking to Americans from

25 many, may different backgrounds, and

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2 most Americans I talk to are shocked

3 when they learn that our taxpayer

4 dollars for farm subsidies go

5 disproportionately to the country\'s

6 biggest farms.

7 We can reform commodity policy,

8 introduce effect payment limitations

9 on the commodity program, by

10 eliminating subsidies to mega farms

11 that are among, as many people have

12 said today, the nation\'s worst

13 polluters and so destructive to the

14 fabric of rural communities, reforms

15 that would also promote fairness in

16 the market, and assist smaller family

17 farms to becoming self-sustaining.

18 Two, the second point I\'d like

19 to make to support sustainable farming

20 and reduce costly environmental

21 destruction. The recent double

22 catastrophe of Hurricanes Katrina and

23 Rita have woken up many Americans to

24 the very real threat of global warming

25 or, as I think it should be more

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2 accurately called, climate chaos. And

3 there is now growing and broad

4 bipartisan support for policies that

5 would address this crisis.

6 U.S. industrial factory farms

7 are one of the nation\'s leading

8 emitters of greenhouse gasses. We

9 know we don\'t need these industrial

10 farms in order to have abundant food

11 and in fact we now know the extent to

12 which they can actually decrease our

13 food abundance. So we can support

14 farming on policies that encourage

15 more sustainable practices,

16 conservation, rural development, by

17 looking at things like the beginning

18 farmer and rancher development

19 program, and by funding the

20 conservation security program and

21 making sure it\'s implemented in a way

22 that truly supports sustainable and

23 conservation based systems.

24 The third point I\'d like to

25 make, as its come up today, also

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2 through a number of speakers, is to

3 promote healthy nutrition. Again,

4 there\'s broad consensus among

5 Americans of all political persuasions

6 that healthy food should be accessible

7 to everyone, not just those rich

8 enough to afford it.

9 The Farm Bill can expand its

10 programs to increase access to healthy

11 food for all Americans, particularly

12 low-income families, children, and the

13 elderly.

14 These recommendations are not

15 just good ideas, they make real

16 economic sense, are cost-effective and

17 develop healthier communities that

18 will be more food-secure in the

19 long-term.

20 Thank you.

21 MR. CANAVAN: Christine

22 Gerstel?

23 MS. GERSTEL: Good morning. My

24 name is Christine Gerstel. I\'m a

25 registered dietician, current

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2 president of the Greater New York

3 Dietetic Association, and I\'m here

4 today on behalf of the American

5 Dietetic Association.

6 The public needs an

7 uncompromising commitment from their

8 government to advance nutrition

9 knowledge and to help people apply

10 that knowledge to maintain and improve

11 their health. Millions of Americans

12 benefit from the USDA food assistance

13 program. But we still see hunger in

14 the United States.

15 Co-existing with hunger is a

16 national epidemic of overweight and

17 obesity. And, in fact, overweight and

18 obesity is the largest manifestation

19 of malnutrition in the United States

20 today.

21 The next Farm Bill needs to

22 address four key areas:

23 First, USDA\'s food assistance

24 programs must be available to those in

25 need and be adequately funded.

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2 Second, improving the

3 nutritional status of Americans needs

4 to rise in priority in food assistance

5 programs, other food programs and

6 really for all Americans.

7 Third, increased investment in

8 nutrition education and nutrition

9 research is necessary and must be

10 sustained.

11 And finally, having up-to-date

12 knowledge of the nutrition composition

13 of the food supply is absolutely

14 essential in order for all of our work

15 in food, nutrition and health to bear

16 fruit.

17 If we expect consumers to take

18 personal responsibility for making

19 health choices, then we have a

20 responsibility to make sure they\'re

21 adequately prepared to do so.

22 The government must invest in

23 the nutrition research and nutrition

24 education necessary to give Americans

25 the knowledge and ability to make

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2 their own nutrition decisions. These

3 nutrition recommendations and programs

4 for the public must be based on sound

5 science and only the Federal

6 government has the public mandate and

7 resources to carry out research on

8 human nutrition needs and to develop

9 dietary guidance that forms the basis

10 for all Federal nutrition programs.

11 We believe that Federal

12 research, exploring the relationships

13 between diet, especially dietary

14 patterns and health is particularly

15 important and should be included in

16 the Farm Bill proposal.

17 Thank you.

18 MR. CANAVAN: Ms. Halfon?

19 MS. HALFON: Hi. I\'m with the

20 Hunger Network of New York State.

21 Some of our recommendations for the

22 upcoming Farm Bill include the

23 elimination of prohibiting of

24 finger-imaging for food stamp

25 applications. This is something that

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2 we know through our surveys and

3 outreach has been a very intimidating

4 and stigmatizing issue for applicants.

5 In the private sector I was having a

6 conversation with someone working for

7 a major blue-chip company who was

8 doing rebates on a product, you know,

9 you buy the product and you go home

10 and you do the coupon. Well, the

11 strategy of the corporation is to say

12 well, we want you to buy the product

13 but we really don\'t want you to redeem

14 the \$5 coupon, so what we\'re going to

15 do is require you to put your Social

16 Security number on these rebates and,

17 as a result, in this one campaign in

18 the south they had extremely low

19 rebates and that just tells you that

20 that\'s a common response of everyday

21 persons to say, well, you want my

22 fingerprints, you know, to get food,

23 you want my Social Security \-- I\'d

24 rather not do that. So it\'s a huge

25 barrier.

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2 The second thing, recommendation

3 is to restore food stamps for eligible

4 working non-citizens. Many of us have

5 heard about the Social Security crisis

6 or issue and when you go and you look

7 at where, what\'s going to save Social

8 Security, one of the main issues or

9 factors is if we can maintain the

10 level of immigration into our country.

11 So in a way the immigrants that come

12 here are going to help us save Social

13 Security.

14 So while they\'re here, working

15 and doing many low-income

16 under-minimum-wage jobs, they should

17 really \-- they and their children

18 should really have access to the food

19 program.

20 Third is to please request the

21 USDA to finalize the renaming of the

22 food card program \-- the food stamp

23 program. This is \-- we were all very

24 excited about this, we all feel that

25 this is something that would greatly

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2 benefit the outreach efforts in

3 getting to those in need.

4 The \-- increasing the minimum

5 benefits level from \$10 to \$50 would

6 be significant in helping us reach new

7 folks, including the seniors, as well

8 as just increasing the food stamp

9 benefits level, even in the USDA

10 research it shows that nearly half the

11 food stamp households have answered

12 that they are food-insecure. The food

13 stamp allotment, though a wonderful

14 program, is just not enough to keep

15 the food on the tables of the families

16 and working families.

17 And in terms of the TEFAP

18 program, in our surveys we found that

19 there\'s a huge demand in emergency

20 food and we really encourage the USDA

21 to continue funding and supporting

22 that program.

23 Thank you.

24 MR. CANAVAN: Thank you.

25 Heidi Sigfried?

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2 MS. SIGFRIED: Hi. I\'m Heidi

3 Sigfried. I\'m the supervising

4 attorney at the Partnership for the

5 Homeless here in New York City.

6 We\'ve provided a broad range of

7 services to homeless New Yorkers for

8 the past 20 years. We\'ve run a family

9 resource center to help people who are

10 transitioning out of the shelter

11 system to permanent housing in East

12 New York and, of course, those

13 families use food stamps quite a bit.

14 We also run a 24-hour drop-in center

15 for elderly homeless people and they

16 benefit from food stamps as well.

17 Historically, the food stamp

18 program has been the widest Federal

19 safety net for those in need of income

20 support. The rules regarding access

21 to the program by people experiencing

22 homelessness are an important feature

23 of the law that insure that people

24 with the least access to other sources

25 of income have the means to secure

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2 food necessary for their survival.

3 These include the homeless shelter

4 deduction, they include that you don\'t

5 need a fixed address to get food

6 stamps, they include the expedited

7 food service rules.

8 We have a number of

9 recommendations that we want to make.

10 One, of course, is that the

11 thrifty food plan basically does not

12 accurately reflect the needs of people

13 applying for food stamps at this time,

14 especially for homeless people who may

15 not have access to an expensive

16 supermarket.

17 So we would recommend that we

18 look at using the moderate food plan

19 for calculating benefits.

20 Then a second recommendation is

21 to allow the purchase of hot prepared

22 foods. The thrifty food plan menus

23 include many foods that must be

24 prepared from scratch, and require

25 hours of cooking time which is

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2 unrealistic for working poor families

3 today.

4 It\'s also not the way most

5 Americans are eating. It\'s

6 particularly unrealistic for people

7 experiencing homelessness who do not

8 always have a way to heat, chill or

9 prepare food items that are allowable

10 with their food stamp allotment.

11 USDA has used its authority to

12 establish temporary emergency

13 standards of eligibility to allow

14 retail stores license to accept food

15 stamps in four states and six counties

16 affected by the hurricanes, to accept

17 food stamp benefits in exchange for

18 hot foods.

19 The food stamp program should

20 allow the purchase of hot prepared

21 foods as an acceptable use of food

22 stamps to make the program more

23 helpful for everyone or, at a minimum,

24 for all people without access to a

25 kitchen.

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2 A third recommendation would be

3 to eliminate work requirements. Once

4 again, we want to emphasize that the

5 food stamp program is a nutrition

6 assistance program, it should not have

7 work requirements associated with

8 eligibility.

9 In New York we\'ve experienced a

10 jobless recovery and especially for

11 ABODs, if they are not able to find

12 enough hours of work, it has

13 particularly onerous effects.

14 Certainly the temporary

15 exemptions from work rules and ABOD

16 requirements that have been used for

17 the disaster food stamp program are

18 important and should at least be

19 extended to all homeless families.

20 Finally, I just want to mention

21 in removing the excess shelter

22 deduction cap, homelessness in New

23 York City is driven by an

24 out-of-control real estate market.

25 One out of four households pay more

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2 than 50% of their income in rent and

3 that\'s not the adjusted income that we

4 get in the food stamps. And also they

5 have fair market rent for a

6 two-bedroom apartment is \$1,075. So

7 we really think that the excess

8 shelter deduction cap should be remove

9 to help \-- to target benefits

10 especially to people so that they

11 don\'t become homeless.

12 MR. CANAVAN: Thank you.

13 As Florence Reed approaches,

14 could for Alice Slater, Chris Cooper,

15 Ian Durgin and Chris Hunt to be ready

16 to speak.

17 We\'re getting very close to the

18 end. If we can just get to the

19 synopsis. Thank you.

20 MS. REED: Good morning. I\'m

21 Florence Reed. I\'m director of the

22 nutrition program, state-wide

23 nutrition program, with the New York

24 State Office for the Aging.

25 Welcome to New York. We\'re very

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2 pleased to have you be here and have

3 this opportunity today. Our program

4 served 24,000,000 meals last year in

5 both the congregate and home-delivered

6 meals programs. It\'s one of the

7 largest nutrition feeding programs in

8 the nation. And you are being hosted

9 here in New York City by the single

10 largest area agency on aging in the

11 country. It represents 40 percent of

12 older adults in New York State.

13 NATLO\'s hierarchy of needs tells

14 us that there are some basic things

15 that we all need before we can become

16 all that we are capable of being.

17 Food, clothing and shelter. And we\'re

18 here talking about food this morning.

19 New York State Office for the

20 Aging is one of the several partners

21 in New York State that runs the senior

22 farmers\' market program. We have

23 provided written comment for the

24 record.

25 I want to focus my remarks on

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2 what I consider a theme. And it

3 applies to the senior farmers\' market

4 program, it applies to all of our food

5 programs. We firmly believe, based on

6 our experience with seniors, and we

7 have very poignant and mind-etching

8 images from the two hurricanes that

9 very clearly depict the vulnerable

10 nature of older adults, how difficult

11 it is for them to do things.

12 Therefore, we believe that our

13 program operation, whether it\'s the

14 senior farmers\' market program,

15 whether it\'s the food stamp program,

16 whether it\'s nutrition education, must

17 first and foremost be client-focused,

18 it must be streamlined, it must be

19 limited in nature, and the least

20 intrusive possible.

21 In other words, you should not

22 have program operation and

23 administration that is out of

24 proportion to the benefit that the

25 person receives. And that\'s clearly

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2 true with the senior farmers\' market

3 program. I believe that its current

4 style of operation is one of the

5 reasons why it is so successful.

6 Lastly, in terms of food stamps,

7 I want to urge you to pay attention to

8 all of the USDA generated evidence and

9 evidence from other places. The

10 number one barrier to seniors for

11 applying for food stamps is the

12 application and the process and what

13 we put people through. I would call

14 your specific attention to the use of

15 technology and an example that was

16 developed by the New York City office

17 for aging, because what it does, which

18 all of the rest of the programs you

19 have heard about do not do, is that it

20 simultaneously tests, predicts

21 eligibility and produces facsimile

22 applications for 18 public and private

23 benefit programs through one intake

24 interview, and it was developed by

25 public-private funding, it is in

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2 operation, and I\'m sure that the

3 commissioner of the Department for the

4 Aging in New York City, Commissioner

5 Mendez, would be more than delighted

6 to provide you with an opportunity to

7 see it.

8 Thank you very much for this

9 opportunity to be here.

10 MR. CANAVAN: Thank you.

11 Alice Slater?

12 MR. BOST: Before you start, in

13 terms of the \-- to let you know where

14 we are, it\'s five past 12. I\'m going

15 to make a couple of closing remarks,

16 and at ten past 12 I\'m going to leave.

17 I have other commitments this

18 afternoon that I cannot get out of and

19 so of you, I just want to let you know

20 I\'m not being rude but I think, you

21 know, sometimes those schedules, they

22 are what they are.

23 So, I\'ll be sensitive to those

24 that are talking so that at five past

25 12, that\'s the schedule for the rest

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2 of the day.

3 Yes?

4 MS. SLATER: Thank you. I\'m

5 delighted to have you here in our

6 city, and it\'s wonderful that the USDA

7 is coming to New York City to hear our

8 \-- what we\'re thinking about our Farm

9 Bill, and I\'m the president of GRACE,

10 the Global Resource Action Center of

11 the Environment.

12 We have our great factory farms

13 project, but we have eight farms in

14 the commonness working across the

15 country to help rural communities keep

16 these large industrial farms out of

17 their communities, they have been

18 devastating the environment, putting

19 small farmers out of business, having

20 incredibly bad health effects, and we

21 also with people that produce the

22 matrix of the \-- the name of it \--

23 it\'s been kind of intimate phenomenon

24 and I guess it\'s disturbing that our

25 government is actually supporting

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2 this, I mean the subsidies that are

3 going to these large farms. More than

4 twice as many taxpayer dollars went to

5 large farms rather than to small

6 family farms. And we have since 1996

7 the number of small family farms has

8 declined in the hog industry by 72

9 percent. We lost over 247,000 farms.

10 And this does go to nutrition because

11 the quality of the food that we\'re

12 getting from those farms is not the

13 same in terms of the sustainable local

14 regionally produced food we want to

15 see today.

16 I\'m particularly concerned that

17 some of these subsidies now are going

18 to methane digestors. In other words

19 they\'re creating these tons of wastes,

20 they\'ve \-- you, yourself estimate that

21 in the U.S. that the meat industry

22 produce 1.4 billions tons of waste,

23 this was in 1997, 130 times human

24 waste, and more than five tons of

25 animal waste for every U.S. citizen.

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2 And they\'re being concentrated and

3 they\'re being in the rivers and the

4 streams and now there was just a news

5 story yesterday or the day before that

6 in Nebraska a hog farm that raises

7 8,000 hogs is getting \$500,000 from

8 the USDA to create a methane digester

9 so they can turn this waste into

10 energy. So what we\'re doing by

11 subsidizing ways for these farmers to

12 have big corporations to clean up

13 their waste, we are paying the money

14 so we can perpetuate the system.

15 So we urge you to look at this

16 and please stop subsidizing factory

17 farms.

18 Thank you.

19 MR. CANAVAN: Thank you, Ms.

20 Slater.

21 Mr. Cooper?

22 MR. COOPER: Good morning. My

23 name is Chris Cooper. I\'m a New York

24 City taxpayer. Thanks for coming and

25 listening to us this morning.

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2 In your opening comments,

3 Secretary Bost, you characterized food

4 stamps not as a welfare program but a

5 nutrition program. And you also

6 indicated that over half the

7 participants are children. And the

8 literature provided here today tells

9 us all that we know to be true, that

10 the food stamp program is

11 overwhelmingly directed towards

12 America\'s most vulnerable communities,

13 children, the elderly, pregnant

14 mothers and socio-economically

15 challenged families, which usually

16 means low-income, rural and minority

17 Americans.

18 There are a lot of statistics in

19 this material that talk about food

20 insecurity and vulnerable communities

21 in terms of what they need to get.

22 Things like the total amount of food

23 and sufficient levels of vitamins and

24 minerals. What it doesn\'t talk about

25 is what they don\'t ask for, don\'t need

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2 but are getting anyway from taxpayer

3 funded programs under the Farm Bill.

4 Why, for example, did a vast majority

5 of subsidies under the Farm Bill get a

6 large industrialized factory farms

7 that concentrate wastes from tens of

8 thousands of animals in ways that foul

9 the air and water consumed by the same

10 vulnerable communities that are

11 supposed to be served by USDA

12 nutrition programs?

13 Why is it that these most

14 vulnerable communities, children, the

15 elderly, minority communities are

16 subject to the largest involuntary

17 experiment to test the safety of

18 genetically modified crops and

19 organisms?

20 Ironically, it is these same

21 crops overwhelmingly used by large

22 industrial farms that receive the

23 disproportionate amount of taxpayer

24 subsidy under the Farm Bill.

25 Finally, why is it that USDA

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2 puts at risk these same vulnerable

3 communities, children, the elderly,

4 minority families, by directing Farm

5 Bill subsidies towards large

6 industrial factory farms that use

7 nontherapeutic antibiotics to fatten

8 pigs and chickens and cows but in the

9 meantime render these antibiotics

10 useless to the very vulnerable

11 populations that rely on them to save

12 their lives?

13 Doesn\'t it seem practically

14 obscene to characterize some of the

15 programs under the Farm Bill as

16 nutrition programs for vulnerable

17 communities while adopting policies

18 under other parts of the farm bill

19 that risk the health and safety of

20 these same communities?

21 Secretary Bost, I know you\'re

22 going to say you\'re not responsible

23 for these other programs, but I

24 implore you, use whatever influence

25 that you have not to let the upper \--

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2 the people who are above you fence you

3 into just these programs.

4 In order to bring true security

5 to these same vulnerable communities

6 that you\'re trying to reach through

7 the nutrition programs like food

8 stamps, we need to insure their health

9 and safety by considering all aspects

10 of the Farm Bill and not just those

11 programs deemed nutrition.

12 Thank you.

13 MR. CANAVAN: Mr. Durgin.

14 MR. DURGIN: Good morning. How

15 are you?

16 MR. CANAVAN: Good morning.

17 MR. DURGIN: I\'m just going to

18 highlight and submit written

19 testimony.

20 But I just want to say firstly

21 that I want to thank USDA for

22 convening this forum and that the food

23 bank for New York City, the

24 organization I represent, echos much

25 of what is being said about food

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2 stamps this morning, particularly

3 about restoring eligibility guidelines

4 for immigrants.

5 The other issue that I want to

6 quickly bring to your attention is

7 funding for the TEFAP program, the

8 emergency food assistance program.

9 Here in New York City our research

10 shows that the food bank is providing

11 food and support services to over

12 1,200 emergency food programs who in

13 turn supply food to approximately half

14 of the two million New Yorkers at risk

15 of hunger.

16 Now, last year we provided

17 67,000,000 pounds of food in order to

18 meet this need, which is roughly about

19 \-- an increase of almost half in the

20 past five years.

21 Regrettably, government funding

22 for the emergency food programs of the

23 city are at the three levels of the

24 City, State and Federal Funding

25 levels, have not sort of kept in step

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2 with the need. And so therefore we

3 want to ask you to do all that you can

4 to bring about an increase in the

5 TEFAP program. Just afford a modest

6 suggestion of 200,000,000 for the

7 mandatory funding level and bring the

8 admin funding up to 100,000,000. This

9 as you know is not a major increase

10 but it would certainly help us to make

11 sure that New Yorkers who are at risk

12 of hunger are getting the services

13 that they need.

14 Additionally, I think one of the

15 other issues that USDA can take care

16 of is program coordination. We know

17 certainly from the testimony provided

18 this morning by other groups that

19 there is difficulty for many New

20 Yorkers who are at risk of hunger

21 getting the help they need. This is

22 particularly true of the working poor

23 and the elderly. You know, completing

24 numerous application for different

25 programs makes it very difficult for

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2 people to get assistance. And so we

3 recommend that there be one

4 application form for all of the

5 nutrition programs funded by USDA.

6 And if somebody is eligible for any

7 number of programs, that one

8 application form should connect them

9 to all of those programs. This would

10 make it very easy for example for a

11 70-year-old woman who lives on her own

12 in New York City to get the food and

13 assistance that she needs.

14 And with that I thank you for

15 taking the time this morning and I

16 will submit all of our other

17 recommendations in written testimony.

18 MR. CANAVAN: Thank you.

19 Chris Hunt?

20 MR. HUNT: I\'ll keep my comments

21 very brief.

22 My name is Chris Hunt. And I\'m

23 here today as a concerned citizen.

24 I\'m concerned about the

25 production of meat and dairy products

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2 in the U.S. I\'m concerned that the

3 Farm Bill continues to support

4 industrial livestock production by

5 subsidizing the nation\'s largest

6 concentrated animal feeding

7 operations. These facilities

8 perpetually generate tremendous

9 quantities of surplus animal waste

10 which pollutes our waterways, our soil

11 and our air. Damaging human health,

12 degrading our natural environment, and

13 costing taxpayers billions of dollars

14 every year.

15 Viable alternatives to

16 industrial animal production exist.

17 In order to protect human health, the

18 environment and our nation\'s rural

19 communities, the Farm Bill should

20 promote these sustainable alternatives

21 rather than subsidizing the hazardous

22 confined animal feeding operations.

23 Thank you very much for your

24 time.

25 MR. CANAVAN: Thank you.

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2 Adele Latoret.

3 MS. LATORET: My name is Adele

4 Latoret. I\'m the director of the

5 state-wide emergency food and

6 anti-hunger network in New Jersey.

7 I said that in one breath.

8 And the New Jersey anti-hunger

9 coalition. Great to have you here.

10 Quickly, I know one of the

11 things I really wanted to get in

12 quickly is, you talked before about

13 limiting people\'s choices. Can I say

14 that instead of limiting people\'s

15 choices who already have limited

16 choices \'cause of their limited

17 income, let\'s focus more on providing

18 an adequate benefit in the food stamp

19 program instead of what they can and

20 cannot buy.

21 Keep the entitlement structure

22 for the program intact. No cuts to

23 the food stamp program. Raise income

24 eligibility to 185 percent of poverty.

25 Make all households receiving SSI

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2 categorically eligible for food

3 stamps. Allow children under the age

4 of 22 who have children and are living

5 with their parents to apply as

6 separate households. Raise the

7 minimum benefit from \$10 to at least

8 35, increase all allotments across the

9 board, reduce the complexity and

10 stigma, include customer service

11 training in front-line staff, and

12 insure that all State offices and

13 local offices have extended hours for

14 working families, who is more of who

15 you serve.

16 Thank you.

17 MR. CANAVAN: (Inaudible.)

18 (Recommendations being made -

19 speak too far from microphone -

20 inaudible for the most part.)

21 The last thing that I would say

22 is this: The issues (inaudible) for

23 eligible persons, increasing the

24 number of children that are eligible

25 for our program (inaudible) making it

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2 easier for people to (inaudible)

3 things that are very important to me

4 personally and we will continue to

5 work (inaudible) regardless of what

6 happens (inaudible). We will be

7 (inaudible).

8 I really appreciate you being

9 here, we appreciate your (inaudible)

10 across the country as we go through

11 this process. Again, it\'s always a

12 pleasure (inaudible). Thank you.