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56–021 2010

H.R. 2297, WHITE HOUSE CONFERENCE ON FOOD 

AND NUTRITION 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RULES AND 

ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON RULES 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MONDAY, MAY 18, 2009 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Rules 


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COMMITTEE ON RULES 

LOUISE MCINTOSH SLAUGHTER, New York, Chair 

JAMES P. MCGOVERN, Massachusetts, Vice 

Chair 

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

DENNIS A. CARDOZA, California 

MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine 

JARED POLIS, Colorado 

DAVID DREIER, California, Ranking Member 

LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

PETE SESSIONS, Texas 

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina 

MUFTIAH MCCARTIN, Staff Director 

HUGH NATHANIAL HALPERN, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON LEGISLATIVE AND BUDGET PROCESS

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida, Chairman 

DENNIS A. CARDOZA, California 

CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine 

JARED POLIS, Colorado 

LOUISE MCINTOSH SLAUGHTER, New 

York 

LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART, Florida, Ranking 

Member 

DAVID DREIER, California 

LALE MAMAUX, Staff Director 

CESAR GONZALEZ, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RULES AND ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSE

JAMES P. MCGOVERN, Massachusetts, Chairman 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

LOUISE MCINTOSH SLAUGHTER, New 

York 

PETE SESSIONS, Texas, Ranking Member 

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina 

KEITH L. STERN, Staff Director 

KEAGAN LENIHAN, Minority Staff Director 


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C O N T E N T S 

May 18, 2009 

Page 

Opening Statements: 

Hon. James P. McGovern, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Massachusetts and Chair of the Subcommittee on Rules and Organization ............................................................................................................. 1 

Hon. Pete Sessions, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Texas and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Rules and Organization ............................................................................................................. 3 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 5 

Hon. Michael Arcuri, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

New York ....................................................................................................... 6 

Hon. Virginia Foxx, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

North Carolina .............................................................................................. 6 

Witness Testimony: 

Hon. Jo Ann Emerson, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Missouri ..................................................................................................... 7 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 9 

Reverend David Beckmann, President, Bread for the World ....................... 18 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 19 

Mr. Robert Egger, President, D.C. Central Kitchen ...................................... 25 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 28 

Ms. Nicole R. Robinson, Director of Corporate Community Involvement, 

Kraft Foods .................................................................................................... 30 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 31 

Additional Materials Submitted for the Record: 

Curriculum Vitae and Truth in Testimony Forms for Witnesses Testifying 

Before the Committee (where applicable) ................................................... 36 

Letter from Ms. Vicki Escarra, President and CEO of Feeding America, 

to Representatives James McGovern and Jo Ann Emerson, dated May 

9, 2009 ............................................................................................................ 44 

Letter from Ms. Christine A. Poward, Executive Director of the Association of Nutrition Services Agencies, to Representative James McGovern, dated May 12, 2009 ............................................................................... 47 

Letter from the Reverend Larry Snyder, President of the Catholic Charities USA, to Representative James McGovern, dated May 12, 2009 ...... 49 

Letter from Ms. Margaret Saunders, President, and the Reverend Douglas A. Greenaway, Executive Director of the National WIC Association, 

to Representative James McGovern, dated May 12, 2009 ......................... 51 

Letter from Mr. Max Finberg, Director of the Alliance to End Hunger, 

to Representative James McGovern, dated May 13, 2009 ......................... 53 

Letter from Mr. Gary A. Davis, CEO of East Side Entrees, to Representative James McGovern, dated May 13, 2009 ................................................ 56 

Letter from Ms. Karen Pearl, President and CEO of God’s Love We 

Deliver, to Representative James McGovern, dated May 13, 2009 .......... 58 


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IV 

Additional Materials Submitted for the Record—Continued 

Letter from Mr. Hadar Susskind, Vice President and Washington Director for the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, to Representative James 

McGovern, dated May 13, 2009 ................................................................... 60 

Letter from Mr. David Richart, Executive Director of Lifelong AIDS Alliance, to Representative James McGovern, dated May 13, 2009 ............... 63 

Letter from Mr. Joel Berg, Executive Director of the New York City 

Coalition against Hunger, to Representative James McGovern, dated 

May 13, 2009 ................................................................................................. 65 

Letter from Mr. Kevin Winge, Executive Director for Open Arms of Minnesota, to Representative James McGovern, dated May 13, 2009 ............ 67 

Letter from Ms. Deborah R. Hinde, President and CEO to Vital Bridges, 

to Representative James McGovern, dated May 13, 2009 ......................... 69 

Letter from Mr. Greg Lukeman, Executive Director of Food Outreach 

Inc., to Representative James McGovern, dated May 14, 2009 ................ 71 

Letter from Mr. James D. Weill, President of Food Research and Action 

Center, to Representative James McGovern, dated May 14, 2009 ........... 73 

Letter from Ms. Erin Pulling, Executive Director of Project Angel Heart, 

to Representative James McGovern, dated May 14, 2009 ......................... 75 

Letter from Ms. Ellen Parker, Executive Director of Project Bread— 

the Walk for Hunger, to Representative James McGovern, dated May 

14, 2009 .......................................................................................................... 77 

Letter from Ms. Pat Nicklin, Managing Director of Share Our Strength, 

to Representative James McGovern, dated May 14, 2009 ......................... 79 

Letter from Mr. Robert Greenstein, Executive Director of the Center 

on Budget and Policy Priorities, to Representative James McGovern, 

dated May 15, 2009 ....................................................................................... 81 

Letter from Mr. John T. Evers, Executive Director of the Food Bank 

Association of New York State, to Representative James McGovern, 

dated May 15, 2009 ....................................................................................... 83 

Letter from Mr. Clyde W. Fitzgerald, Jr., Executive Director of Second 

Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina, to Representative 

James McGovern, dated May 15, 2009 ....................................................... 85 

Letter from Dr. Keith Schildt, President, and Mr. Bob Blancato, Executive Director, of the National Association of Nutrition and Aging Services Programs (NANASP), to the Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee on Rules and Organization of the House, dated May 15, 

2009 ................................................................................................................ 87 

Letter from Mr. Bill Ayres, Co-Founder and Executive Director of World 

Hunger Year, Inc., to Mr. Keith L. Stern, Subcommittee Staff Director, 

dated May 15, 2009 ....................................................................................... 90 

Letter from Ms. Deborah Weinstein, Executive Director of the Coalition 

on Human Needs, to Representative James McGovern, dated May 18, 

2009 ................................................................................................................ 92 

Letter from Ms. Pamela Baily, President and CEO of Grocery Manufacturers Association, to Representative James McGovern, dated May 18, 

2009 ................................................................................................................ 94 

Letter from Dr. H. Eric Schokman, President of Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger, dated May 18, 2009 ....................................................... 96 

Letter from Mr. Roger Johnson, President of the National Farmers 

Union, to Representatives James McGovern and Jo Ann Emerson, 

dated May 18, 2009 ....................................................................................... 98 

Letter from Ms. Kelly D. Johnson, Vice President Government Affairs 

of Campbell Soup Company, to Representative James McGovern, dated 

May 21, 2009 ................................................................................................. 100 


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Additional Materials Submitted for the Record—Continued 

Letter from Mr. Paul Downey, President of the California Nutrition Coalition, to the Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee on Rules 

and Organization of the House .................................................................... 103 

Letter from Mr. Edward M. Cooney, Executive Director of the Congressional Hunger Center ................................................................................... 106 

Letter from the Honorable Dan Glickman, Former Secretary of Agriculture and Former Member of Congress from Kansas, to Representative James McGovern ................................................................................... 108 

The Washington Times Op-Ed by George McGovern and Bob Dole, entitled ‘‘Obesity Conference Call,’’ March 27, 2009 ........................................ 110 


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ORIGINAL JURISDICTION HEARING ON H.R. 

2297, WHITE HOUSE CONFERENCE ON FOOD 

AND NUTRITION 

MONDAY, MAY 18, 2009 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RULES AND

ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSE, 

COMMITTEE ON RULES, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3 p.m., in Room H– 

313, The Capitol, Hon. James P. McGovern [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives McGovern, Arcuri, Sessions and Foxx. 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Mr. MCGOVERN. The Subcommittee on Rules and Organization of 

the House will come to order. 

Let me begin by welcoming everyone to this original jurisdiction 

hearing on H.R. 2297, calling for a White House Conference on 

Food and Nutrition. 

I want to thank all of the witnesses for taking the time out of 

their busy schedule to take part in this hearing. I also want to 

thank members of this subcommittee, and specifically the Ranking 

Member Mr. Sessions, for working on and participating in this 

hearing. 

To my colleagues of the subcommittee, please feel free to make 

some brief opening statements, if you like. Following any opening 

statements, we will hear from our first witness, the Honorable Jo 

Ann Emerson from Missouri. After her statement, we will proceed 

to questions and then go to the second panel. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES P. MCGOVERN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF 

MASSACHUSETS AND CHAIR OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

RULES AND ORGANIZATION 

Many of you know that ending hunger is one of my passions. I 

have spoken about it numerous times in this committee and on the 

House floor, and I firmly believe that we have the food and the 

means to end hunger in America, but we haven’t found the political 

will to do so. 

While I believe that hunger is a political condition, it is not a 

partisan one. A hungry child does not think about Republican or 

Democratic politics, only about where their next meal will come 


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from. That is why, along with my friend and colleague Jo Ann 

Emerson, I introduced legislation calling for a White House Conference on Food and Nutrition. 

The last, in fact the only time, a White House Conference on 

Hunger was held was in 1969 when President Richard Nixon convened a similar conference to address these issues. The result was 

a dramatic improvement in the Federal safety net program, food 

stamps, WIC and school meals. 

No longer do we have the sunken eyes and swollen bellies that 

are still common in famine-plagued areas around the globe. Yet the 

fact is that hunger still exists in the United States. The face of 

hunger changed after that conference, yet 40 years later, according 

to the latest USDA data, more than 36 million people living in this 

country, the United States of America, still went hungry in 2007. 

The rate of very low food security among children and seniors, 

USDA’s way of saying the hungriest in this country, rose 60 percent and 26 percent respectively over the previous year. This 

means there were over 690,000 very hungry kids in America in 

2007 and over 780,000 very hungry seniors. That simply is unconscionable in 2009. 

The Federal anti-hunger safety net is good, but is an imperfect 

system. Food stamps, now called SNAP, helps families put food on 

the table. The improvements included in the farm bill and recovery 

package greatly improved the purchasing power of food stamps, yet 

that benefit is still inadequate for a variety of reasons. School 

meals are provided, yet not every child who needs a meal gets one, 

nor are these meals as nutritious as they should be. And while 

hunger doesn’t take a summer break, there are millions of kids 

who receive a free meal during the school year, but don’t have access to a meal during the summer. 

The Federal safety net is just that, a safety net. The Federal programs are critical, but for too long we have relied too heavily on 

food banks and food pantries. The problems facing these organizations are twofold: an increasingly hungrier population, more middle-income families are relying on help from these groups than in 

recent years, and fewer monetary and food donations are coming 

in. This is attributable to a faltering economy and the resulting increase in demand. 

There is clearly a connection between hunger, the availability of 

good, nutritious food and the livelihoods of the American people. 

The school lunch program began as a way to properly feed our Nation’s children so they would be ready to fight in World War II. We 

created the WIC program in order to help low-income pregnant 

mothers and infants receive proper nutrition in order to physically 

and mentally develop and grow. 

We know that hunger has direct impacts on the education and 

health of our children. The same is true with our seniors. It is critical that senior citizens, many who live on fixed income, receive 

proper nutrition. Without good, healthy food, seniors will face a 

myriad of health problems that are easily preventable. A lack of 

nutritious food will also exacerbate existing medical conditions. 

That brings us back to the need for Presidential leadership. For 

too long we have relied on an incomplete Federal and private response to the issue of hunger in this country. What we need is a 


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new approach to the problem, someone who will not only highlight 

to the country that there are still hungry people in America, but 

someone who will ask the right questions: Who are the hungry; 

who is at risk of hunger in the near future; is there a safety net 

doing the job; where are the gaps in the safety net; how nutritious 

is the available food; who is falling through the cracks; and simply, 

how do we end hunger in America? How is the obesity crisis connected to food security? How do we increase people’s purchasing 

power so they can afford to buy nutritious food? How do we get beyond simply giving people food? How do we make food banks and 

food pantries, some of these safety net programs, obsolete? 

As I said at the beginning of this year, hunger is a political, not 

a partisan, connection. I believe that President Bush should have 

convened this conference when he was in office, and now I believe 

that President Obama should do it. 

Now I will recognize our subcommittee Ranking Member Mr. 

Sessions, if he has any opening remarks, and anybody else on the 

committee. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. Mr. Sessions. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PETE SESSIONS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS 

AND RANKING MEMBER OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON RULES 

AND ORGANIZATION 

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Chairman, thank you so very much. 

Mr. Chairman, just yesterday at church I was reminded that my 

church, at the time of Katrina, provided 1 million pounds of food, 

1 million man hours and $1 million to help out Katrina victims 

when they came to Dallas, Texas. We did the things we felt like 

needed to be done because the need existed there. 

My church also, on a regular basis, participates with an organization called Habitat for Humanity, and while this has very little 

to do with food, it has a lot to do with housing. I think they go together. My church has a program called Carpenters for Christ, and 

we are number three in the world as an organization in providing 

homes in Dallas, Texas. 

So I believe that charity does begin at home. I believe the story 

we need to tell is a story that can be told all across this country 

and individual communities, with the thought and the hope that 

individual communities step up and do what they should do. 

Mr. Chairman, I will ask unanimous consent for a statement of 

mine to be placed in the record. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. Without objection. 

Mr. SESSIONS. With that said, I will consume just a few minutes 

to give you my brief thoughts. 

I would like to thank Chairman McGovern for holding this hearing today. I would also like to thank Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson, a dear friend of mine, for being on this first panel. 

Thanks as well to Robert Egger, president of the D.C. Central 

Kitchen; David Beckmann from Bread for the World; Nicole Robinson with Kraft Foods Global, for testifying on this important issue 

of food and nutrition. 

In 2007, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that 36.2 

million people in the United States were living in households conVerDate Mar 15 2010 03:09 May 21, 2010 Jkt 056021 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A021.XXX A021

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sidered to be food insecure. Texas, my home State, is one of the 

highest food-insecure States in the Nation, and without the appropriate nutrients, there could be harmful effects to learning, development, productivity, physical and psychological health, and family 

life. 

Generally, Americans suffer from a less severe form of malnutrition than those around the globe. This is due to the generosity of 

the American public. American companies provide a proactive role 

in fighting hunger through charitable donations, contributions, 

trade policies and government safety net programs. 

One example is the Communities Foundation of Texas, a Dallasbased organization, and they have been a partner with donors for 

raising the quality of life in my community for over 50 years. Since 

1953, more than $1 billion in grants have been made by the Dallasbased foundation. Cumulative for the fiscal year 2007 and fiscal 

year 2008 year, they have awarded $245,155 in grants directly to 

food banks and $284,964 in grants to support other hunger-relief 

programs. 

On a national level, Americans and our Nation’s companies are 

assisting to end hunger and malnutrition by joining organizations 

like Feeding America. Today we have the pleasure of hearing from 

the Nicole Robinson from Kraft Foods Global, one of the manufacturing partners for this organization. 

Feeding America, the Nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief 

charity, assists through a nationwide network of member food 

banks fighting to end hunger. They provide food assistance to more 

than 25 million low-income people in the United States, supplying 

more than 200 food banks throughout the 50 States, the District 

of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Over 2 billion pounds of food and grocery products are donated annually. I think that is a pretty good 

way to help out. 

ConAgra Foods, which has contributed to Feeding America for 

over 15 years, also has a foundation that is leading the charge to 

raise awareness of the 12 million children that go hungry, and pursue sustained solutions to end child hunger. The foundation is committed to building a community of people who are passionate about 

ensuring access to the food and facts that they need to eat nutritiously, live balanced lifestyles, and excel in school and life. 

Providing fair trade policies not only assists with the food and 

hunger issues plaguing America today, but also reaches those outside the United States that suffer from malnutrition and starvation. I appreciate the president of Bread for the World, David Beckmann, for testifying in front of us today, and I hope he discusses 

some of the trade and subsidy policies that assist in the goal of 

ending global hunger and any policies that inhibit that goal. 

With charitable donations from American businesses and individuals, fair trade opportunities, education and awareness and government safety nets, I am certain that we can ensure that every American has the appropriate nutrients for a healthy life. 

I do want to thank you again, Mr. Chairman, not only for holding 

this important hearing, but I look forward to working with you and 

my other colleagues who are here today at this very important 

hearing. I want to thank each of those that are here today with the 

thought that we can do better. 


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[The prepared statement of Mr. Sessions follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. PETE SESSIONS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS

FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

Good afternoon. I would like to thank Chairman McGovern for holding this hearing. I would also like to thank Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson and our second 

panel of expert witnesses for testifying here today on the extremely important issue 

of food and nutrition. 

In 2007, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that 36.2 million people in 

the United States were living in households considered to be food insecure. Of these 

36.2 million about 12 million were children. Texas is one of the highest food insecurity states in America. Malnutrition has devastating effects for both the mental and 

physical capacity of children who receive inadequate nutrition. Without the appropriate nutrients, there could be harmful effects to learning, development, productivity, physical and psychological health and family life. 

Generally, Americans suffer from a less severe form of malnutrition than those 

around the globe. This is due to the generosity of the American public, American 

companies that provide a proactive role in fighting hunger, trade policies and government safety net programs. A good example in my district is Dean Foods, a Dallas 

based company, which in 2006 provided a $1.25 million gift to Children’s Hospital 

in Dallas to create the Dean Foods L.E.A.N Families Program. This is a 12-week 

program administered through the hospital’s nutrition department that provides patients and their families intense weight-management therapy while encouraging 

healthy habits throughout life. 

Our nation’s grocery manufacturers are assisting to ensure their customers live 

healthier lives by providing tools to help make better food choices and offering a variety of affordable, nutritious products. Safeway has created FoodFlex, a free online 

nutritional tool that allows Safeway shoppers to receive a nutritional snapshot of 

their grocery purchases, benchmark their nutritional performance against USDA 

guidelines, identify food alternatives and create a personalized shopping list to 

achieve their nutritional goals. 

The Communities Foundation of Texas (CFT), another Dallas based organization, 

has been a partner with donors for raising the quality of life in my community for 

over 50 years. Since 1953, more than $1 billion in grants have been made by the 

Dallas-based foundation. It has grown along with North Texas to become one of the 

largest community foundations in the nation. Cumulatively, for the FY07 and FY08, 

CFT awarded $245,155 in grants directly to food banks and $284,964 in grants to 

support other hunger relief programs. 

On a national level Americans and our nation’s companies are assisting to end 

hunger and malnutrition by joining organizations like Feeding America. Today, we 

have the pleasure of hearing from Nicole Robinson from Kraft Foods Global, one of 

the manufacturing partners for this organization. Feeding America, the nation’s 

leading domestic hunger-relief charity, assists through a nationwide network of 

member food banks fighting to end hunger. They provide food assistance to more 

than 25 million low-income people in the U.S., supplying more than 200 food banks 

throughout the 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Over 2 billion 

pounds of food and grocery products are donated annually. 

General Mills is another private company that has directed product donations to 

Feeding America for over 30 years. General Mills is consistently ranked among the 

top ten contributors of food in the United States. During fiscal 2008, General Mills 

donated over $18 million in products to Feeding America. Organizations like this 

would not exist without the generous donations and contributions from private business. 

ConAgra Foods, which has contributed to Feeding America for over 15 years, also 

has a Foundation that is leading the charge to raise awareness of these 12 million 

children in food insecure households and pursue sustainable solutions to end child 

hunger. The ConAgra Foods Foundation is committed to building a community of 

people who are passionate about ensuring that America’s children have access to the 

food and facts they need to eat nutritiously, live balanced lifestyles, and excel in 

school and life. While one in every eight children in America doesn’t know where 

their next meal will come from, we also have to recognize that one in every five children are obese. We need to ensure that not only do our children have food, but they 

get the appropriate nutrients to live long and healthy lives. 

Providing fair trade policies not only assists with the food and hunger issues 

plaguing Americans today, but also reaches those outside the U.S. who suffer from 

malnutrition and starvation. I appreciate the President of Bread for the World, 

David Beckmann, for testifying in front of us today, and I hope he discusses some 


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of the current trade and subsidy policies that assist in the goal of ending hunger 

and any policies that inhibit that goal. 

I recognize the importance of providing quality nutrients to all Americans, whether they are children, adults or seniors. America has the necessary resources to ensure that no one goes hungry. Through charitable giving, the Giving USA Foundation estimated in 2008 that $29.64 billion was donated for ‘‘human services.’’ While 

this does not only represent food and nutrition, it is a strong testament that this 

is a generous nation that wants to ensure a successful future for all Americans. It 

is extremely important that Congress does everything in its power to protect and 

encourage charitable giving from individuals and companies. 

With charitable donations from American businesses and individuals, fair trade 

opportunities and government safety nets, I am certain that we can ensure that 

every American has the appropriate nutrients for a healthy life. 

I want to thank Chairman McGovern again for holding this important hearing 

and I look forward to working with him and all my colleagues on the Rules Committee to ensure that no American goes hungry. Thank you. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. I thank the gentleman for his comments. 

We are joined by Mr. Arcuri and Dr. Foxx. 

Mr. Arcuri. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL ARCURI, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

Mr. ARCURI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for your 

work on hunger issues. I commend you for your tireless work on 

this critically important issue. 

Skyrocketing health care and food costs combined with rising unemployment cause many Americans to go without food. That is an 

absolutely unacceptable situation in the most prosperous country in 

the world. In my district in upstate New York, unemployment 

numbers are alarming. There are two counties where they actually 

exceed 10 percent and more, and more families are struggling to 

make ends meet. 

I commend you, Chairman McGovern, for your working to address hunger issues through H.R. 2297. A White House Conference 

on Food and Nutrition would be an invaluable tool in the fight 

against hunger in this country. I think the last one was held about 

40 years ago—— 

Mr. MCGOVERN. 1969. 

Mr. ARCURI [continuing]. When President Nixon was in the 

White House. I think that is far too long. I think it is high time 

that we do it again. Certainly we can learn from some of the things 

that we did right and certainly some of the things we did wrong, 

but I think it is high time we do that. 

I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today who have 

been on the front line of hunger issues. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. VIRGINIA FOXX, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF VIRGINIA 

Mr. MCGOVERN. Dr. Foxx. 

Dr. FOXX. I will make my comments very brief, but I, too, would 

commend you and Congresswoman Emerson for your passion for 

this and commitment to this issue, and would tell you that my 

church, my community, all communities in my district, also work 

on food drives and help the food pantries in our area and have done 

a lot when crisis times have come in our area. I look forward to 

the hearing, and I want to thank all of the folks here today. 


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Mr. MCGOVERN. Thank you very much. 

I am very proud to introduce our first witness, the Honorable Jo 

Ann Emerson of Missouri, who has been a powerful advocate for 

all initiatives to end hunger. 

As I said at the beginning, this is not a partisan issue. Hunger 

knows no politics. But Congresswoman Emerson has been out there 

on the front line fighting to raise awareness and to get things done, 

and she has been pretty successful over the years. 

I am happy she is here, and I am honored she is a cosponsor on 

this bill. I now yield to the Honorable Congresswoman Jo Ann 

Emerson. 

WITNESS TESTIMONY 

STATEMENT OF HON. JO ANN EMERSON, A REPRESENTATIVE 

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MISSOURI 

Mrs. EMERSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and distinguished 

members of the committee. I really appreciate the opportunity to 

appear before you today and discuss the proposed White House 

Food and Nutrition Conference and H.R. 2297. Let me also thank 

the Chairman for the tremendous leadership he has shown on this 

issue for so many years. I feel certain that one of these days soon 

we will solve this crisis. 

I was very pleased to hear Mr. Sessions talk about the incredible 

generosity of companies like Kraft Foods and the private sector, 

whether it is Wal-Mart or a lot of different food service organizations, who give a lot of donations for our food banks and the like, 

and, working together with the faith-based organizations like 

Bread for the World and Feeding America and others, have made 

an enormous difference, as have our safety nets provided by the 

government through SNAP, through the Commodity Supplemental 

Food Program and the like. 

But it is still a cold, hard fact that in spite of all of that, in spite 

of the generosity, that hunger still exists in America to the numbers that both you, Chairman McGovern, and Mr. Sessions indicated: 36.2 million Americans live in food-insecure households— 

this is back in 2007, which are probably the most recent numbers— 

23.8 million of whom were adults and 12.4 million who were children. And the percent of households who experience hunger and 

the number who are forced to make really, really difficult choices 

between necessities to avoid hunger had all increased over the past 

decade, even before unemployment brought about the current economic crisis. 

I will tell you that in my home district of 28 counties, the 20th 

poorest congressional district in America, we have more food banks 

with little or no food to give out because of this added stress with 

the newly unemployed looking for every opportunity to be able to 

feed their children. We have in Missouri just incredible social workers who have been very active, and we have one of the highest food 

stamp participation rates in the country. But yet at the same time, 

we continue to rank near the bottom in terms of food security and 

hungry individuals. 

So, clearly, in spite of all of this, we are not getting the job done, 

and that is why it is so critically important to figure it out, and 


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that is why it is so important to have this White House Food and 

Nutrition Conference that we are requesting in H.R. 2297. The Obama administration has also requested $5 million for 

Hunger-Free Community grants in the fiscal year 2010 Department of Agriculture budget. These grants will be used to support 

the development and implementation of local strategies to fight 

hunger. I also think this request recognizes the need for increased 

organization and a fuller strategy at the local level to make sure 

we are using all the tools available to fight hunger, and we are also 

using them efficiently, because we have so many people, we have 

a certain amount of resources, and it is obviously incumbent upon 

us to find efficiencies so we can feed more people. 

Last week we had Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack in our 

Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, and I asked him whether there was a comprehensive, government-wide strategy to combat 

hunger. His answer actually led me to believe that there was not 

one. 

But just like the Hunger-Free Community grants can help develop local strategies, I just feel very strongly that this White 

House Food and Nutrition Conference that we call for in H.R. 2297 

can help us provide a strategy, a roadmap, if you will, to help us 

reduce hunger rates in the United States. 

Considering that we are the richest country in the world, it is a 

public embarrassment that we would not be able to feed every single person or find a means by which every single person in this 

country would be fed three decent meals a day. 

So, in essence, what our bill does is to require the President of 

the United States to call a conference on food and nutrition, and 

I think that such a conference holds great potential, and it would 

serve several purposes, each of which will fill an important need. 

I think that it will help us identify viable solutions to end hunger; 

it will allow us to review current programs and activities, identify 

what has worked and what hasn’t, and there are a lot; and importantly, it would also, I think, increase the coordination between 

government agencies and entities. We all know sometimes that the 

right hand doesn’t always talk to the left hand within the government. 

You know, interestingly, too, Mr. Chairman, last week while we 

were doing some research, my staff was doing some research, on 

domestic child hunger, Justin did a little Google search, and one 

of the first articles to appear was from the Tehran Times in Iran. 

I am personally less concerned that the Iranian spin machine is 

highlighting hunger in the U.S., but I will tell you the fact that 

that was one of the first hits we made, the fact that more newspapers and media outlets in this country are not focusing on hunger, is a shame. If they are looking for news stories, this is one that 

is absolutely critical. 

So, I am hopeful that this conference will actually move hunger 

closer to the forefront of the national agenda and hopefully produce 

positive results so that we perhaps don’t have the need for these 

types of news stories. 

Ultimately, however, the most important message that should be 

taken from H.R. 2297 is its first finding, as you said, Chairman 

McGovern: Hunger and undernutrition are political conditions that 


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can be solved. Hunger knows no partisanship. The quicker that 

Congress and the administration fully accept this statement and 

the responsibility that accompanies it, the quicker we can have an 

America where no child suffers from hunger, where no student 

must suppress hunger pains to study, where no adult must sacrifice for their child, and no senior must choose between food and 

medicine. 

So, thank you all for your time. I urge your support for H.R. 

2297. I am happy to answer any questions you might have. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. Thank you very much for being here. 

[The prepared statement of Mrs. Emerson follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. JO ANN EMERSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS

FROM THE STATE OF MISSOURI

Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the Committee, thank you for the 

opportunity to appear before you today and discuss the proposed White House Food 

and Nutrition Conference in H.R. 2297. I appreciate the leadership being shown by 

the Chairman and this committee on an issue that is near and dear to my heart— 

hunger. 

It is a cold fact of life in America that hunger exists. In 2007, 36.2 million Americans lived in food insecure households, 23.8 million adults and 12.4 million children. 

The percent of households who experience hunger and the number who are forced 

to make difficult choices between necessities to avoid hunger had all increased over 

the past decade even before the rise in unemployment brought about by the current 

economic crisis. In Missouri, while we have very able and active social workers and 

one of the highest participation rates among food stamp eligible individuals, we continue to rank near the bottom in terms of food security and hungry individuals. 

Clearly, what we are doing is not solving the problem. 

The Obama Administration has requested $5 million for Hunger-Free Community 

Grants in the FY2010 Department of Agriculture budget. These grants can be used 

to support the development and implementation of local strategies to fight hunger. 

This request, I believe, recognizes the need for increased organization and a fuller 

strategy on the local level to ensure that all the tools available to fight hunger are 

being used, and used efficiently. Last week I had the opportunity to ask the Secretary of Agriculture during an Agriculture Appropriations hearing if there was a 

comprehensive government-wide strategy to combat hunger. His answer led me to 

strongly believe one does not exist. Just like the Hunger-Free Communities Grants 

can help develop local strategies, the White House Food and Nutrition Conference 

called for in H.R. 2297 can help provide a strategy to begin reducing hunger rates 

in the United States. 

H.R. 2297 would require the President of the United States to call a conference 

on food and nutrition. Such a conference holds great potential and would serve several purposes, each of which filling an important need. It has the potential to spur 

the identification of viable solutions to end hunger; to review current programs and 

activities, identifying what has worked and what hasn’t; and, importantly, the conference should increase coordination between government entities. 

Mr. Chairman, last week while researching domestic child hunger, my staff started with a simple search of Google News, and one of the first articles to appear was 

from the Tehran Times in Iran. Personally, I am less concerned that the Iranian 

spin machine is highlighting hunger in the U.S. and more concerned that fewer 

American papers have focused on it. This conference will move hunger closer to the 

forefront of the national agenda and, hopefully, produce positive results so we do 

not have news stories like these at all. 

Ultimately, however, the most important message that should be taken from H.R. 

2297 is its first finding: hunger and undernutrition are political conditions that can 

be solved. The quicker Congress and the Administration fully accept this statement, 

and the responsibility that accompanies it, the quicker we can have an America 

where no child suffers from hunger, where no student must suppress hunger pains 

to study, where no adult must sacrifice for their child and no senior must choose 

between food and medicine. 

Thank you for your time today, and I urge your support for H.R. 2297. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. I feel like when I am questioning you, I am kind 

of questioning myself. 


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Mrs. EMERSON. Then I guess you don’t need to ask me any questions. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. I want to make clear here that people sometimes will say, oh, another conference, another summit. Why do we 

have so many summits and conferences? Does it really change anything? Well, some don’t, and some do. There is no argument that 

the conference that was held in 1969 on this issue raised awareness and resulted in action. So that is an example of something 

that was achieved from a conference at the White House. 

Our point, I think, of wanting this to happen is not just to have 

another reason to get together and talk about this issue, but it is 

to get everybody who is working on this issue in the same room 

and help coordinate one comprehensive plan so we all know what 

we are doing, we all take our assignments and can implement 

them. 

As you pointed out in your statement, the issue of hunger is addressed by multiple agencies, as it is by multiple committees. Food 

stamps, or SNAP, is the Agriculture Committee and USDA. School 

lunches, that is Education and Labor and USDA, but also impact 

the Department of Education. There are programs at DOD. There 

are numerous various health departments and agencies that have 

had their fingers in the hunger issue in some way or somehow, but 

they don’t get together on a weekly basis and talk. So you have duplication or triplication or quadruplication, if that is a word, and 

in some cases you have all areas of the population that fall through 

the cracks because it is not coordinated properly. 

So I think having the opportunity to get everybody in government who is working on this in the room, and then people in the 

nonprofit sector and in the private sector who are working on this 

in a room, and let us figure out how we can pool our resources 

more effectively and more efficiently and end hunger, because I 

think one of the first issues is making sure that everybody has 

enough to eat, and that the food they eat is actually nutritious, because that results in other problems. But the second part of the 

conversation needs to be how do we move beyond that so populations are not relying on the good will of churches or food banks 

or even government programs? How do we increase people’s purchasing power so they can become more independent and not have 

to rely on charity or on the safety net? 

I think that is the issue that I want to be clear on, that this is 

not just about a conference to talk about things, it is not just a conference to figure out how to provide and strengthen the safety net, 

it would even go beyond that. And I think that you agree with me. 

Mrs. EMERSON. I do agree with you. One of the things that is 

very frustrating—well, here is a perfect example. At the Centers 

for Disease Control, not that they specifically have anything to do 

with hunger, I am just going to use it as an example, there are certain diseases, certain different—whether it is breast cancer or 

whether it is cerebral palsy—actually they don’t do this for CP, it 

is something they should. They actually do the surveillance so, you 

know, every single program in every single city, every single doctor 

who has expertise in this particular disease and all of the latest research, all you do is click and find it. We do not have that information. 


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So in the State of Missouri, for example, we have Bread for the 

World, we have all of these organizations, and we have a SNAP 

program, and we have CFSP. We have lots of things. We have a 

Boot Heel food bank. We have a St. Louis food bank. They sort of 

work together peripherally, but not really. So a lot of product might 

be going one place, and, as you say, nothing is going somewhere 

else, and it is very disorganized. 

So if this could be one time that we actually get it all out there, 

organize it, I do think it would be much more efficient, and it may 

end up at the end of the day costing the taxpayers less money if 

we can simply be efficient. But when the right hand and left hand 

don’t know what they are doing, and somebody in the Ag Department is working on the issue, or somebody at the Department of 

Education or Labor is working on the issue, I can assure you, they 

are not talking or coordinating their efforts. That, to me, is just a 

waste. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. That is why I think we need to suggest to Secretary Vilsack that it is important that there be this kind of coordinated strategy, because it won’t be solved just in the Department 

of Agriculture. 

President Obama made a pledge he wants to end childhood hunger by 2015. That is a big task. 

Mrs. EMERSON. It is a big task, but I think it is definitely doable 

if we are organized about it. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. But it is not going to just happen at the Department of Agriculture; It is going to need more than just the Department of Agriculture. 

Just one final thing, and that is I think people also need to appreciate the link between hunger and bad health. We are talking 

about taking on health care reform, and the big issue is how do you 

control health care costs? One of the best ways to control health 

care costs is not get sick and not have people end up with chronic 

diseases that will plague them for the rest of their lives. 

I toured the Boston Medical Center not too long ago. They serve 

an underserved community, a very low-income community. And the 

chief pediatrician there told me when kids come into the emergency 

room with strep throat or the croup or with something, that normally you would just give them medicine and tell them to go home. 

Kids who are hungry, kids who are food insecure end up staying 

in the hospital for a day or two or more. The costs—forget the 

moral implication of wanting to feed people—the costs associated 

with that are phenomenal. Even the tie-in between food insecurity 

and obesity, families that can’t afford nutritious food want to try 

to keep their kids just healthy, if not quiet during the week, you 

end up buying stuff that is not good for you. So we see this linkage, 

you know, which a lot of people have a tough time connecting the 

dots here, but between food insecurity, bad nutrition and obesity. 

How many young kids who are obese will end up with diabetes 

or will end up with high blood pressure or ultimately heart disease, 

chronic conditions that will plague them for the rest of their lives? 

Again, if you want to talk about controlling health care costs, we 

can control those costs much more effectively if we just make sure 

that these kids have good, nutritious food. And for all the discussion going on in the health care debate right now, a lot more needs 


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to be dedicated to what we are talking about here, food nutrition 

as well as exercise. 

It is incredibly important to make sure that people can afford nutritious food; and even in school lunches that we are giving kids, 

that we are giving nutritious foods. I have been to school lunch programs that are phenomenal, where kids are given choices, where 

there are salads, and there are healthy options. And kids normally 

would like to take those options. I have been to school feeding programs that are awful, where the choices are all bad. I am going to 

tell you, you know, we need to kind of get back to basics here and 

focus on some of these issues. 

Mrs. EMERSON. I agree. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. Mr. Sessions. 

Mr. SESSIONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Jo Ann, I will admit I have not sat in on one of your agriculture 

meetings in a long, long time, but I do know that there is a discussion on a regular basis about exactly what we are talking about, 

and I hope—without asking any questions, I hope what will happen 

in this conference, too, is we really look at the rules and regulations related to subsidies and the other things we do to encourage 

or discourage food from being grown. 

Mrs. EMERSON. Okay. I understand what you are saying. 

Mr. SESSIONS. That is a whole other topic. That is not what I am 

trying to say. You know more about the correlation and relationships than we do, and I think you would argue with me if we want 

to argue, and I am not trying to do that. There is enough food; it 

is just where it goes, and I don’t know the facts of that. 

Mrs. EMERSON. Well, technically there should be enough food. 

But keep in mind that there always needs to be a level playing 

field when you are competing in trade matters, as you well know, 

if you want to discuss the subsidy issue, which I know you don’t. 

However, there is enough food. There is enough food on the one 

hand, but on the other hand, we have programs like the SNAP program or the food stamp program. But keep in mind the majority 

of recipients of food stamps are working Americans. They are not 

nonworking Americans. 

And then you have the TANF program, and that is for the assistance to needy families. I am pleased they are finally changing the 

menu on that, because, as Jim was saying, the choices were all 

very high carbs, in my opinion very unhealthy in many instances, 

but an absolutely critical program. 

I hope we are able to get this coordination, and we will be able 

to pass this bill out of the House simply because I think at the end 

of the day, we will be able to solve the problem of hunger in this 

country. 

I did a mission trip down to Nicaragua, to rural Nicaragua, a 

couple of years ago, and the worst of the poverty in my district was 

nothing compared to what I saw there, where people really literally 

had nothing and lived in a house that was made out of black garbage bags. But, nonetheless, it still troubles me that we would have 

12 million-plus children in this country who have no food, who go 

hungry, or who are hungry every day, and so many millions of 

adults. 


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The churches have done so much, and the private companies 

have done so much, but we are still not reaching everybody. Hopefully we can figure out who those people are that we are not reaching through a conference like this. 

Mr. SESSIONS. That would be the second point that I really want 

to debate, other than say with you I support this bill and hope this 

happens, but that we look at what really works and try to fill in 

the gaps where it is not working as opposed to where it does work, 

so don’t overlay certain areas. You would be the first one to say to 

me, Pete, thanks a lot. But even with the 1 million pounds or $1 

million or 1 million volunteer hours, even in that area there are 

still some gaps. Yet that we recognize. I am talking about where 

there is success, I hope you will let the success continue. 

Mrs. EMERSON. Oh, no. Listen, we have a lot of success. There 

are a lot of issues in rural, because access is just difficult in rural 

America, and you don’t have the ability to get to a grocery store 

where you can get really good choices. Sometimes you have got like 

a little 7/Eleven or Quick Shop place where it costs a dollar, or it 

was 99 cents at Quick Shop for one banana at my Quick Shop I 

was at the other day. So that is too expensive. 

Anyway, hopefully we will come up with some good strategies 

that help to solve this problem. 

Mr. SESSIONS. Then the last point I would like to make, I hope 

that there is some bit of work that a dietician would do; in other 

words, when you come in with a food stamp purchase, that you 

would understand that banana, even at $1, is more worth it than 

maybe something else for a dollar. I am not trying to engage in any 

argument. 

Mrs. EMERSON. No, I appreciate your support of this bill. Keep in mind that the average food stamp recipient gets $3 a day. I did 

a food stamp challenge for a week. I was out to prove that you 

could eat nutritiously. But because it was my husband and me, I 

actually had a tiny bit more money to spend than just on myself. 

And I would say we ate 50 percent nutritious. I could buy one big 

iceberg lettuce that I chopped up and tried to expand as much as 

I could. And I bought one tomato, and I bought a cucumber, and 

I bought a small onion, and I bought a pack of chicken that was 

on sale. 

Jim and I did this up at Safeway with coupons. It took me 2 

hours. I had $33 to spend for 1 week. My husband was only doing 

it for 4 days, and I was doing it for a week. I had $33 to spend, 

and it took us 2 hours to shop because I kept having to put things 

back. 

Keep in mind, most people don’t have—if you are working in a 

factory, you don’t necessarily have that kind of time. At least I had 

the Safeway to go to. Out in some of my areas, we don’t have grocery stores like that. So one banana for $1, that is one of my meals 

for the whole day. 

But I think we have an opportunity here to really do good things 

so that perhaps we will be less reliant on the need for food stamps 

to supplement our other food budget that we have personally. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. I lived on that food stamp budget along with 

her. I relied mostly on lentils. I used to like them. I don’t like them 

anymore. 


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Mr. SESSIONS. That is a Doc Hastings-made product. 

Mrs. EMERSON. I love lentils, so I gave Jim some of my chicken 

salad I made and took some of his lentils. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. Also one other point. Some people said food 

stamps is a supplement, and it is supposed to be. But in this economy, again, with fuel prices what they were and are, and what the 

cost of living is in general, food stamp budgets turn out not to be 

kind of a supplement to their income, it becomes basically it. 

The other thing I have noticed is when you go to grocery stores, 

the lousier the food is, the cheaper it is. The better and more nutritious the food is, the more expensive it is. 

As Jo Ann mentioned, in some of these rural areas, we have 

those little Quick Marts. Some people can’t get to a bigger supermarket. The same thing in the urban areas, too. We have a lot of 

people who don’t have transportation, a lot of elderly people who 

have to rely on those little corner stores where everything is inflated because they are small. I am glad the stores exist, but the 

reality is that if you are on a fixed income, and you don’t have 

much money, and you are relying on this food stamp benefit to basically get you through, you have some really lousy choices. 

But hopefully if we could all get in a room together, and I invite 

the grocers in, too, how do we work together to get this thing 

solved, because we all can put something into this, and then maybe 

we might get this done. The frustration has been for me is there 

is no plan. 

If you ask anybody in government what is the plan to end hunger in America, there is not one. We are going to increase food 

stamps. Fine. That is not a plan to end hunger. Or we are going 

to look at the nutrition of a school lunch program. We need to do 

that. That doesn’t end hunger. We are going to expand charitable 

giving. That is great. It doesn’t end the problem. I think connecting 

this all together and saying, okay, how do we pool our resources 

to do it? 

Mr. Arcuri. 

Mr. ARCURI. Thank you so much, Mrs. Emerson. 

Just an observation that I had. I live in a city, a small city, and 

there is a neighboring city that is very large, but we are all in the 

same region, and there are a lot of very, very small communities. 

What I have seen is as the community food banks strive to get 

more food, the big cities tend to reach out into the entire areas and 

take food from stores that normally will give it, and then it leaves 

the smaller communities more hard pressed to get the donations 

for the food banks. So in my smaller cities, they are constantly 

complaining because the nearby city that is much larger has a bigger staff and is better able to get the food. We see the smaller the 

community, the harder it is for the food banks to get their food. 

Have you noticed that? 

Mrs. EMERSON. Exactly. Exactly. The way the infrastructure of 

our system works, I guess is a better way of putting it, let us say 

the biggest donation of food would go to St. Louis, and then it 

spreads out, because there is so much demand there. It depends on 

whether you are getting the donations from some of the stores or 

not. We are fortunate to have many Wal-Marts. So even though the 

types of foods are perhaps changing a little bit from what they used 


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to be, we are having fewer items down my way, which is in southeast and south central Missouri, so then you have to pull from 

other directions. 

The Boot Heel food bank, which is a central repository for several 

of my counties, we have had some real challenges just being able 

to get enough donations to make an adequate food basket. You try 

to balance it out. Where we have had a lot of trouble is with meats 

particularly. Sometimes you can get the mac and cheese, but mac 

and cheese isn’t good for you anyway. It is going to help somebody 

stay full. 

I don’t know, but I think by having a discussion at a national 

level, we can get this stuff figured out. But it is tough. 

Mr. ARCURI. I couldn’t believe how many complaints I was getting from my unit there, saying all of the stores that normally give 

were saying that Syracuse already came in and the bigger city, and 

we gave to them, so we don’t have anything left for the smaller 

communities. It sort of trickles down. So I think the smaller community, the harder it is. 

Mrs. EMERSON. And even if you have the ability to spend money 

at a store, sometimes it is even harder to get it in the smaller communities. We don’t have any kind of public transportation system 

where I live. I don’t know if you all do up there. It is a challenge. 

But I appreciate what you are saying. 

Mr. ARCURI. Thank you very much. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. Dr. Foxx. 

Dr. FOXX. Well, I have been sitting here debating whether I 

should say anything at all today or not. There are probably few 

people in Congress who grew up as poor as I did, so I understand 

maybe better than all of you who are working at this vicariously, 

the issue of having to provide food for yourself. I think because my 

husband and I both come from that background and have succeeded in a time when really the people in our area mostly were 

extraordinarily poor, we have a somewhat different idea about how 

people can be helped or should be helped. 

Seriously, where I grew up, I grew up in the poorest county in 

North Carolina at the time I was growing up, and basically my 

husband has been providing for himself since he was 10 years old 

because his father died, and his mother was totally illiterate. Yet 

they managed. 

There were no food stamp programs in those days, there were no 

public help programs, yet the people in that area may not have had 

the best nutrition, but they survived. Most of the people that we 

know have succeeded pretty well, and the area has changed a lot, 

but I think it is partly what has made both of us very conservative 

and partly why we come at it from such a different point of view. 

I believe there is a need to help people who are extremely poor 

and have no access to food, but I think that many times government programs designed to help people have not done the things 

that they ought to do, and that many times our government itself 

through its policies have made things more difficult for people. I 

think that we have in many cases forced both parents to work because of high taxes. I think in many cases, because of increased 

rules and regulations, we have driven jobs overseas. 


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So I come at it from a point of view of allowing people to do more 

for themselves so that they have the dignity of being able to do 

those things. 

My daughter grew up working. She worked as a cashier in a grocery store. If she were here, she would tell you that made a conservative out of her because she saw the tremendous abuse of food 

stamps by people from working in a grocery store and had a really 

big impact on her. 

So, again, I support our need to do the kind of things that we 

should do as a government and as a culture. I differ a little bit with 

Mr. McGovern that I do think the role of the churches is to help 

people in our communities who can’t help themselves. One of the 

reasons I support food banks a great deal is because I see a great 

deal of community support for them. So while I think there may 

be a good reason to have a heightened focus on the issue, I would 

like to see more done in the private sector rather than from the 

governmental sector. 

Again, I have lived it. My husband has lived it. I have lived on less than $1 a day, Jo Ann, not just to experiment, but because I 

had to. People can do it and survive and even thrive. And you know 

what? I am still very frugal as a result of having lived that way. 

Mrs. EMERSON. That is certainly something that I can’t say that 

I have experienced before, but I do think that the point is clear 

that we have a lot of different means with which to try to attack 

this problem, and obviously the more that we can do from the private sector, from the faith-based community—because all of the 

churches in my hometown of Cape Girardeau, for example, are involved in food bank-type efforts. Our Ministerial Council in Cape 

Girardeau is quite good because my minister happens to be the 

head of it, and for the Presbyterian Church this is an important 

issue and one we are trying to work on nationally. 

However, I daresay there are other leaders in our communities 

who ought to know exactly what is going on in the community with 

regard to this just from the private sector perspective, and there 

is not that coordination beyond just what our ministerial alliance 

does. 

So I think by having a conference like we want to have, it at 

least allows us to focus. And as Jim said earlier, if successful, it 

may well turn out that we can continue to diminish or we can 

begin to diminish the governmental piece and rely more on the private sector and the faith-based community. 

I will say one thing, and this is interesting, and I think I might 

have mentioned it to Jim once. Our public health department in 

Wayne County, Missouri, which is one of my poorer counties, actually works with their TANF recipients. They actually challenged all 

of them to grow their own fruits and vegetable garden. Now, fruits 

are a little tough to do. You can do strawberries or blueberries, but 

other fruits are too complicated, and we don’t have that environment like you have in Florida, for example, or Texas, where you 

can grow citrus. 

But anyhow, it has been very, very important, and our University of Missouri Extension Service actually worked hand in hand 

with them as well. And so all of a sudden we have, number one, 

all of these gardeners, and the Extension Service gave them the 


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seeds, everything, taught them how to take care of the soil and to 

properly water and stuff. But they actually taught them how to 

can, how to freeze, how to do all of this. 

So it has been a great supplemental that didn’t cost anybody 

anything, other than the professionals within those organizations, 

to even challenge TANF recipients. So we have more fruit and vegetable gardens in Wayne County. 

But other than me, there is nobody that talks about this in my 

district, because I seem to be the only person other than the TANF 

recipients who know about it, and they don’t want to tell anybody 

they are getting TANF because they are proud. It is a last resort 

for them. And most of them are all single mothers, I might add. 

Anyway, but I do appreciate this, and you are a good resource, 

Virginia, I think, when it comes to this issue. But certainly it 

would be our hope that by being able to get organized and coordinated and really know what is out there should be one means by 

which—I mean, we should know this before we then add just yet 

another Federal program or whatever. So that is why I think this 

is absolutely critical. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. Let me just say before you can go, I want to be 

clear, too, that what I am suggesting and I think what you are suggesting by this conference is not simply ways how government can 

do better, it is how we can work together with the private sector 

and the nonprofit sector, the churches, the synagogues, the 

mosques that do so much, to provide food and figure out ways to 

get people beyond relying on a safety net in order to feed their families. 

I will say one other thing. One of the things about being in Congress is you get to meet a lot of different people, and you get to 

see a lot of different things that probably you might not necessarily 

see. I have been to a lot of emergency rooms in hospitals in Massachusetts where I have seen kids in emergency rooms being treated, 

and they are hungry. That just shouldn’t be. Those kids need more 

than $1 a day to get by, and if their parents aren’t being able to 

provide for them, we need to get it to them, because if not, you are 

going to end up with a situation, as we have been ending up with 

in so many cases, where that young kid is going to be developmentally challenged, is going to have a whole bunch of health problems, and we are going to have to work with that kid until he is 

an old man or an old woman. 

Part of what we are trying to do here is figure out how we can 

all do better. Maybe government needs to do less in some areas. 

Maybe government needs to do more in some areas. We need to do 

what works. 

Mrs. EMERSON. We need to know what resources are out there 

that we just simply have no idea about. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. I appreciate very much your coming, and thanks 

for your leadership. 

Now I would like to welcome the Reverend David Beckmann 

from Bread for the World, followed by Robert Egger from the D.C. 

Central Kitchen, and Nicole Robinson from Kraft Foods. All three 

of you can get up there together. 

Reverend Beckmann, we will begin with you. 


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STATEMENT OF REVEREND DAVID BECKMANN, PRESIDENT, 

BREAD FOR THE WORLD 

Rev. BECKMANN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you know, I am 

deeply grateful for your leadership and your commitment; and, 

members of the committee, I really appreciate especially your opening statements. I found them really heartening. The whole conversation is really good. 

I am David Beckmann. Bread for the World is a collective Christian voice urging our Nation’s decision makers to end hunger in 

this country and around the world. I think this White House conference would help to launch an intensified nationwide effort to reduce hunger. The need is clear. That has already been talked 

about. 

I want to talk about the opportunity, and from the perspective 

of an organization that works on hunger in our country and around 

the world, because one thing that has really struck us is that the 

world has made dramatic progress against hunger and poverty over 

the last several decades. 

The last couple years have been terrible for hungry and poor people around the world. Even now, the proportion of the world’s population that is hungry, undernourished, is much lower than it was 

three decades ago. Trade has been part of that. But it is just obvious to us that if Brazil and Bangladesh can dramatically reduce 

hunger and poverty, so can the United States. 

In our own country, in fact, there have been times when we 

made real progress against hunger and poverty. One of the best 

times actually for progress was in the 1960s and early 1970s, and 

the White House conference in 1969 was part of that. What we had 

then, and, in fact, in almost every place where there is progress 

against hunger, is a combination of economic growth and focused 

efforts. In the 1960s we had economic growth, and both the Johnson and the Nixon administrations really focused additional effort 

on nutrition programs, antipoverty programs, and we cut the poverty rate in half. We dramatically reduced hunger during that 

time. 

So progress is possible also in our own country. I think the U.K.’s 

recent experience is also relevant. When the Labor Party came to 

power in 1997, they committed their nation to ending child poverty. 

That is a commitment that all three parties in the U.K. now embrace; they are going to end child poverty. So they have put some 

programs and policies in place, they are monitoring progress, and, 

in fact, there has been a substantial reduction in child poverty in 

the U.K. over the last decade or so because there is a commitment 

by all the parties and a focused effort. 

I think it is important that our new President has made this 

commitment to end child poverty. He also wants to end child hunger. He wants to end child hunger by 2015. He wants to cut poverty in half. He has also made it clear that reducing world hunger 

is a theme in his foreign policy. 

I think the policies he outlined to end child hunger are really remarkably good. The policies are stronger nutrition programs and 

better nutrition programs, but it is also economic recovery. The 

policies are complementary efforts to reduce poverty, especially 

among poor families with children. And in the Obama statement 


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about child hunger, there is a strong emphasis on what churches 

and other community organizations do in fostering a more fruitful 

interaction between what communities can do and what we can do 

through Federal and State government. So I think that this White 

House conference under this President should really focus on the 

goal of ending child hunger and try to enlist a bipartisan effort and 

a society-wide effort. 

We are not going to end child hunger in America if this is not 

a bipartisan program. So, Mr. Sessions and Dr. Foxx, the themes 

that you have sounded of work, thrift, markets, growth, trade, 

those have got to be part of the solution. If it is just government 

programs, and if it is not a bipartisan, nationwide effort, it isn’t 

going to be sustained from now to 2015, and we are not going to 

succeed. 

So one thing that this White House conference could do is to 

strengthen the bipartisanship around this goal. Fortunately, ending hunger, reducing hunger, is an issue that has been a bipartisan 

issue for a long time. Bob Dole is a member of my board. He 

worked with George McGovern way back in the late 1960s and 

early 1970s to make progress against hunger. And what you, Mr. 

Chairman and Jo Ann Emerson, now do, your close partnership 

really maintains, embodies that bipartisanship that I think is crucial to success in reducing hunger. 

I think a White House conference could also foster fuller engagement of all sectors of society. Several state governments are committed to ending child hunger, so what are they learning? How do 

we get more state governments involved? How do we get our community organizations working in a strategic way as part of a broader system so all that effort helps to make the bigger system more 

effective? 

Corporations are clearly part of what needs to happen. We are 

not going to end child hunger if we don’t get more corporations that 

are serious about feeding people, and also pushing for systemic solutions that will actually solve the problem. 

So I think the White House conference is a great idea. And since 

I am a preacher, I just want to close with a religious comment. No 

matter what you think about God, we know that helping hungry 

people is something that is really good. It is holy. And I think that 

this White House conference could help to move our Nation so that 

we don’t have widespread hunger among our kids. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Rev. Beckmann follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REVEREND DAVID BECKMANN, PRESIDENT, BREAD FOR THE

WORLD

Ms. Chairwoman and members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity. 

I am David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, a collective Christian voice 

that urges our nation’s decision makers to end hunger at home and abroad. 

THE CASE FOR A NATIONWIDE EFFORT TO REDUCE HUNGER NOW

The need is obvious. As of 2007, 36 million Americans lived in households that 

struggled to put food on the table. One in six U.S. children lives in a food insecure 

household, and food insecurity does long-term damage to young children. 

The recession has sharply increased hunger and poverty. Food banks report an 

increase, a 33 percent increase in requests for emergency assistance over the last 

12 months. 


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The persistence of mass hunger in our richly blessed nation is completely unnecessary. 

Bread for the World works to reduce hunger both in this country and around the 

world, so we are struck by the fact that the world as a whole has made remarkable 

progress against hunger and poverty over the last several decades. High food prices 

and the recession have sharply increased world hunger recently. But even after this 

setback, less than one in five people in developing countries are undernourished. 

That is terrible, but it is down from more than one in three in 1970. 

We haven’t made sustained progress against hunger and poverty in this country 

over the last several decades, so it has become hard for us to imagine progress. Let 

me list some of the developing countries that have made dramatic progress: China, 

Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Brazil, and Mexico. In each case, the reduction of 

hunger and poverty has depended on economic growth combined with focused efforts. If Bangladesh and Brazil can dramatically reduce hunger and poverty, so can 

the U.S.A. 

The United States has been able to reduce hunger and poverty when our economy 

was strong and we made a focused effort. In the 1960s and early 1970s, for example, 

we cut the poverty rate in half and dramatically reduced hunger. We expanded nutrition and anti-poverty programs during both the Johnson and Nixon administrations. 

The recent experience of the United Kingdom is relevant. When the Labor Party 

took office, the nation adopted the goal of ending child poverty and established a 

timetable of intermediate targets. They increased support for child care, raised the 

minimum wage, tightened child support enforcement, and established child savings 

accounts. They reduced the child poverty rate from a third in 1997 to 18 percent 

in 2005. All three political parties in the United Kingdom now share the goal of ending child poverty. 

U.S. GOALS FOR REDUCING HUNGER AND POVERTY

President Obama has proposed that our nation commit to ending child hunger by 

2015 and cutting poverty in half over the next ten years. He and Secretary Clinton 

have also made reducing world hunger a priority in our nation’s foreign policy. 

I think the proposed White House conference would be very helpful. It could focus 

especially on more fully defining a strategy to meet the President’s goal of ending 

child hunger in this country by 2015 and to begin engaging enlisting our entire society in this effort. 

President Obama outlined a plan to end child hunger in America during his campaign. I have attached his proposal to this testimony. I find it compelling. It talks 

about strengthening the national nutrition programs. The child nutrition programs 

are being reauthorized this year, and the extra $1 billion a year that the President 

has proposed is crucial to progress against child hunger. Obama’s plan also calls for 

the engagement of communities. More charitable effort is focused on hunger than 

on any other social problem, and there’s a lot to be gained through collaboration between all these community efforts, state governments, and the federal government. 

The Hunger-Free Communities Program, authorized in the farm bill, is one way to 

help foster this collaboration, and the President has requested an initial appropriation for Hunger-Free Communities in his first budget request. 

The Obama plan is also clear that nutrition programs alone will not end child 

hunger. We also need economic recovery and broader efforts to reduce poverty, notably tax credits for poor families. 

Secretary Vilsack and White House staff are talking about the President’s goal 

of ending child hunger. But now that President Obama is in power, we need an official statement of the administration’s plan. That plan will need to be debated and 

win broad, bipartisan political support. 

Mounting and maintaining a national effort to end child hunger by 2015 will require bipartisan commitment. Hunger is not a Democratic or Republican issue. Fortunately, hunger has always been a bipartisan issue. Bob Dole and George McGovern worked together to reduce hunger in the early 1970s, just as Jo Anne Emerson 

and Jim McGovern often work together now. 

Some people will say we can’t afford to tackle the problem of hunger now. But 

efforts to reduce hunger stimulate the economy and boost worker productivity. Over 

the longer term, no investment pays higher returns than providing adequate nutrition for children. 

A successful national commitment to end child hunger will also require active 

leadership by state governments, and several are already committed to the goal. We 

also need the involvement of religious and charitable networks, civil rights groups, 


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unions, corporations, universities, and many committed individuals. The proposed 

White House conference can begin to shape a social movement to get the job done. 

A FAITH PERSPECTIVE

I’m a Christian preacher, so please permit me to speak briefly from the perspective of faith. As I have come to realize that hundreds of millions of people around 

the world are escaping from hunger and poverty, I’ve become convinced that this 

is God moving in our history. It is the great exodus of our time. 

No matter how you think about God, it’s hard to imagine that God is not impatient with the persistence of mass hunger in our richly blessed country. I’m hoping 

that we will emerge from this economic crisis as a better country. And what change 

would be more important ethically than ending widespread hunger among America’s 

children? 


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Mr. MCGOVERN. Mr. Egger. 

STATEMENT OF MR. ROBERT EGGER, PRESIDENT, D.C. 

CENTRAL KITCHEN 

Mr. EGGER. Thank you, everybody, for this opportunity. I am 

here to testify, of course, about the need, but also, as my friend 

David suggested, about this amazing opportunity for a White 

House Conference on Food and Nutrition. 

For those of you who don’t know, I work just down the Hill from 

this Chamber at the D.C. Central Kitchen. Every day we collect almost 2 tons of food from Federal buildings, restaurants, hotels and 

other food service businesses, which we use to train unemployed 

men and women, many of whom are homeless or fresh from prison, 

for jobs in the very businesses which donate the food. Since opening on Inauguration Day 1989, we have distributed 22 million 

meals and placed 700 men and women in food service jobs. 

In addition, I travel extensively throughout the country, first to 

help open similar community kitchens in most of your districts, and 

recently to start a new project we have called Campus Kitchens, 

which interestingly there is one at Wake Forest, one at Baylor, and 

soon one at Boston University. 

In all of these travels, what I see is, frankly, very troubling, and 

I am going to speak here more to almost the business side of hunger, because donated food for our national network of kitchens, food 

banks and pantries relies upon a rapidly decreasing supply. It is— 

and this has to be understood—lost profit for the businesses that 

donate it, and the advent of new inventory controls and alternate 

markets, this is taking up what used to be a steady stream of nutritionally dense donations and turning it into a trickle. 

In short, our supply of food is decreasing at the very moment the 

need is increasing. 

And I am not speaking about the current need that has been exacerbated by our economic downturn. While this is immediate and 

pronounced, it will also likely be mitigated when America’s economic ship is righted. 

And this next part, I am really glad to be looking up under the 

watchful glare of Claude Pepper, who was the last person in this 

body who really spoke passionately and consistently about our elders. What I am speaking about is the fact that 80 million baby 

boomers are going to be coming right down the road. Every day in 

America, 12,000 people turn 60. There is a waiting list in half of 

American cities today for Meals on Wheels. 

And, again, there are 80 million people coming. This generation 

will outlive every previous generation by an estimated 10 to 20 

years. Yet the level of saving for this generation will most likely 

be insufficient to ensure that they will be able to afford anything 

resembling their current lifestyle. Simply put, we can predict with 

alarming accuracy that there is going to be a wave of older Americans who will need substantial and sustained nutritional aid. 

This will be a very, very different group than the prideful generation that Representative Emerson spoke of, people who avoided 

the stigma. This new generation are already leaving traditional 

senior centers and congregant meal sites and they will require 

most likely demand meals that will be far more nutritionally comVerDate Mar 15 2010 03:09 May 21, 2010 Jkt 056021 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A021.XXX A021

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plex and varied than were currently provided by charitable outlets. 

In short, they are not our grandfathers’ seniors. 

So now is the time to really look hard. Again, this is the powerful 

opportunity to really look at childhood hunger, senior hunger, but 

more importantly, I think, as everyone suggested, the amazing opportunities we have to reorganize what is already here. 

For example, the current Federal reimbursement rate for a typ- ical senior meal is close to $5 per meal. In rural communities 

where small farms still operate, programs-that purchase local food 

will be able to elevate the impact of Federal funds while also serving more nutritious meals to our elders. 

This new generation will also want to maintain activity as long 

as possible, so linking food availability to volunteering could also 

be a way great way to ensure the physical and social well-being of 

our elders. 

Intergenerational food programs—and I am just going stop a second to say, we have built a system in which we feed children here 

and seniors here. So the idea of intergenerational programs could 

be a tremendous way for seniors to not only transfer knowledge at 

after-school programs, but also be involved in intergenerational 

service programs. And speaking for the program I work with, there 

are 60,000 school-based cafeterias where we could potentially have 

intergeneration after school, but where, frankly, we could produce 

for a generation of working Americans healthy, reasonably priced 

meals to go made from local foods, that are involved in job training 

programs and also, again, give our kids access to cafeterias as 

learning centers so we can talk about nutrition but also math, 

science, history and get community services at the same time. 

Historic charity has served our country well; however, the era of 

extra is coming to an end. The entire system relies on extra food, 

extra money, extra clothing, extra time; and we are just running 

out of that. A White House conference could pave the way for a 

new approach, one that incorporates revenue-generating employment projects, sustainable agriculture, school-based generational 

programs, along with many other important ideas that emphasize 

the value of our elders. 

I just want to add on two more things, based on some of the comments I heard earlier. A spectacular area to talk about—and I 

think Representative Arcuri was talking about small rural communities. Very few rural communities have processing centers. In fact, 

what you have in many states is fresh fruit and vegetables oftentimes that aren’t of the grade that is available to be sold. There is 

no place to process them except for sending them outside the state, 

and then they have to be sold back to people in the state. So rural 

processing plants are an amazing opportunity that is sitting right 

there. 

And the other thing I wanted to point out is, one of the top five 

things our country ever did was create a land grant university system. And the land grants were built around the agriculture schools. 

And those ag schools administer 4–H, WIC, and the entire extension program, and there is probably no greater existing resource 

than the American extension system. It is a little bit old and I 

think it is ideally suited for the kind of changes we are talking 

about. But this will only be brought about, I think, with the kind 


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of leadership that I think Mr. McGovern is alluding to in calling 

for this conference. So I heartily approve it. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Egger follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MR. ROBERT EGGER, PRESIDENT, D.C. CENTRAL KITCHEN


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Mr. MCGOVERN. Ms. Robinson. Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF MS. NICOLE R. ROBINSON, DIRECTOR OF 

CORPORATE COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT, KRAFT FOODS 

Ms. ROBINSON. Thank you. 

Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Sessions, and 

members of the subcommittee. I am Nicole Robinson, Director of 

Corporate Community Involvement at Kraft Foods, and I am sincerely honored and privileged to join you here today to share with 

you a little about Kraft Foods’ efforts to improve nutrition and hunger. I applaud you for your commitment and attention to this most 

pressing social issue. 

As the second largest food company in the world, Kraft Foods is 

really acutely aware that many men, women and children face hunger. In the U.S. alone, 36 million, nearly one in eight—quite staggering. And many of them lack access to the nutritious fresh fruits, 

vegetables, and dairy products necessary to avoid diseases like obesity, diabetes, and other chronic illnesses. So we are very concerned 

about that. 

With the recognition that these challenges cannot be resolved 

alone, Kraft Foods welcomes the opportunity to partner with nonprofit organizations and government. As embodied in your bill, we 

share your desire to foster a high-level dialogue on this effort. 

To that end, a little bit about Kraft Foods: We have donated 

nearly $770 million of cash and food over the last 25 years to address hunger, and we have recently pledged $180 million over the 

next 3 years to address malnutrition around the world. By 2010, 

we will have programming in the U.S., Indonesia, Philippines, 

China, Australia, Brazil, Russia, and select European markets; and 

with your permission, I would like to highlight a few of these efforts. 

In the U.S., I would like to say that Feeding America, our partnership, has really been rooted in that idea of collaboration. We are 

proud of our community nutrition program, which was designed to 

improve the quality and increase the quantity of food distributed 

through food banks. If you think about the early era of food banks, 

in the beginning it was primarily canned goods and other shelf-stable items, and Kraft Foods made a deliberate effort to, over the 

course of this decade-long partnership, award 600 grants across 46 

States which we are proud to say today delivered over 1 billion 

servings of fresh food. So we are quite proud of that effort. 

Now, during this unprecedented time of increased demand, during this economic environment, we have awarded Feeding America 

another $4.5 million over the next 3 years to purchase 25 mobile 

pantries. And mobile pantries are really a viable solution in communities where families are far away from food banks or pantries 

or grocery stores; the pantry brings the food to them. It is really 

a traveling pantry on wheels, and particularly in urban settings 

where there is an increase in ‘‘food deserts’’—places where there 

are no grocery stores, it is another viable option. 

I have had the opportunity to volunteer in several of these pantry distributions. Most recently I served on a Saturday morning on 

Chicago’s West Side. Although the distribution begins at 9 o’clock 

in the morning, I thought, well, I will arrive early, 8:00 a.m., and 


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1Kraft Foods (http://www.kraftfoodscompany.com) makes today delicious in 150 countries 

around the globe. Our 100,000 Kraft Foodies work tirelessly to make delicious foods consumers 

can feel good about. From American brand icons like Kraft cheeses, dinners and dressings, Maxwell House coffees and Oscar Mayer meats, to global powerhouse brands like Oreo and LU biscuits, Philadelphia cream cheeses, Jacobs and Carte Noire coffees, Tang powdered beverages and 

Milka, Coˆte d’Or, Lacta and Toblerone chocolates, our brands deliver millions of smiles a day. 

Kraft Foods (NYSE: KFT) is the world’s second largest food company with annual revenues of 

Continued 

it was kind of sobering to see 200 to 300 people lined up when I 

arrived at 8:00, and many of them had been there as early as 6:00 

a.m.; and I think that is certainly a testament to the need that is 

out there and exists today. 

But I am happy to say that by June we will have mobile pantries 

in New York; Chicago; San Antonio; Madison, Wisconsin; Central 

Valley, California; Cincinnati, Ohio; Newberry, South Carolina. 

But we are also—that is a little bit about what we have done in 

the U.S., but we are also very sensitive to the prevalence of malnutrition outside of our borders which threatens the health and 

well-being of children around the world. In the Philippines, for example, there are 2.9 million hungry children, and in Indonesia it 

is a staggering 13 million undernourished children. And to that 

end, earlier this year we awarded a $3 million grant to Save the 

Children for the next 3 years to help address malnutrition in those 

countries. 

So we are very excited about that effort as well; and that is just 

what we are doing on the corporate end, and it doesn’t really stop 

there. It then begins with our employees, and they are just as committed. The spirit of volunteerism is across our organization. We 

have a senior executive that is on the board of Feeding America. 

We have another that is on the board of the Congressional Hunger 

Center, and we have employees at food banks across our plants, 

our distribution centers. Everywhere they either serve on boards or 

they are volunteers at pantries, they are either packing food or distributing food; so we are equally proud of that. 

But there are also higher skilled opportunities and, in fact, we 

have a partnership with the United Nations Private Sector Program, and since 2001 Kraft Foods has sent over 100 employees to 

29 countries to assist farmers, agencies, and manufacturers so that 

they can learn how to produce food in country, which I think is 

really important. And we have had volunteers in Albania, West Africa, Ecuador, Fiji, Grenada and Nicaragua, among others. 

So, in closing, I would just like to say that Kraft really does have 

a strong appreciation for the role that private industry can play. 

We have done a lot and we have a commitment to continue to do 

so. The partnership between us and the nonprofit community 

across the globe has helped communities have better access to nutrition. 

Again, we are honored to partner with you in this effort, and 

many thanks for this opportunity. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Robinson follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MS. NICOLE R. ROBINSON, DIRECTOR OF CORPORATE

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT, KRAFT FOODS

Good afternoon Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Sessions and members of the 

Subcommittee. I am Nicole Robinson, Director of Corporate Community Involvement 

at Kraft Foods.1 It is a privilege to join you today to highlight Kraft Foods’ efforts 


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$42 billion. The company is a member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Standard & Poor’s 

500, the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and Ethibel Sustainability Index. 

to end hunger and improve nutrition in America. I commend you, Chairman McGovern and Ranking Member Sessions, for your commitment to this important cause. 

As the second-largest food company in the world, Kraft Foods is acutely aware 

that hunger ranks among our most pressing social problems. Thirty-six million 

Americans—nearly one in eight—are hungry. And many more cannot afford fresh 

fruits, vegetables and diary products that can help them avoid obesity and diseases 

related to calorie-rich, nutrition-poor diets. 

Kraft Foods is pleased to join you in your efforts to eradicate hunger in this country, and throughout the world. We share your desire—as embodied in the Chairman’s Bill—to foster a high-level dialogue on the subject. And we welcome the opportunity to partner with hunger relief organizations like those represented here 

today and with the federal government to find viable, effective solutions to this 

problem. 

To that end, I am proud to report that around the world Kraft Foods has donated 

nearly $770 million in cash and food over the last 25 years to support hunger relief. 

And we have pledged an additional $180 million over the next three years to address malnutrition globally. By 2010, we will have hunger programs in the US, Indonesia, the Philippines, Russia, Brazil, Australia, China and select European markets. 

As large as those numbers are, they only provide a general perspective on our efforts to combat hunger and malnutrition. With your permission, I would like to 

highlight some of our specific efforts. 

COLLABORATION—KRAFT FOODS & FEEDING AMERICA

Here in the United States, Kraft Foods is a founding corporate partner of Feeding 

America (formerly America’s Second Harvest) and remains among the organization’s 

top supporters today. Our partnership is rooted in the spirit of collaboration demonstrated by the Community Nutrition Program, which works to increase the quality and quantity of food distributed to families via the food bank network. 

I am particularly pleased to note to this audience that over the course of this decade-long partnership, we have provided needy Americans with 1 billion nutritious 

servings of fresh produce, dairy, and much needed protein-rich meat items. 

And we aren’t finished yet. Going forward, Kraft is evolving the Community Nutrition Program initiative. We recently announced a 3-year, $4.5 million grant to 

Feeding America to launch the national Kraft Mobile Pantry Program. We learned 

from Feeding America that rural food pantries frequently are located more than 120 

miles from the nearest food bank. And in urban settings, there is an increase in 

‘‘food deserts’’—places where there are no grocery stores or supermarkets within 

walking distance. The Kraft Mobile Pantry Program will rollout 25 mobile pantries 

that will bring nutritious food into these underserved neighborhoods. 

On average, each mobile pantry will make three trips a week and distribute 1.1 

million meals annually to Americans who might otherwise go hungry. Collectively, 

the Kraft Mobile Pantries will provide nearly 55 million meals to those in need. 

I am pleased to share that by June of this year, mobile pantries will be donated 

to Feeding America food banks in New York; Chicago; San Antonio; Madison, Wisconsin; Central Valley (Fresno area), California; Cincinnati, Ohio; and Newberry, 

South Carolina. In 2010–2011, we will expand to additional markets across the 

United States. 

COLLABORATION—KRAFT FOODS AND SAVE THE CHILDREN

Kraft Foods is also acutely aware that malnutrition threatens the health and 

well-being of children in other countries. In the Philippines, for example, 2.9 million 

families struggle with hunger. Indonesia faces a similar challenge with 13 million 

undernourished families. Earlier this year, Kraft Foods awarded Save the Children 

a $3 million dollar grant over the next three years to help improve the nutritional 

well-being of impoverished children in the Philippines and Indonesia. 

EMPLOYEE VOLUNTEERISM

Fighting hunger is more than just a corporate concern at Kraft Foods. Our employees are just as committed—and that is why we provide opportunities for them 

to give back to their communities. This spirit of volunteerism reaches across every 

level of the organization. For example, a senior Kraft Foods executive currently 

serves as Feeding America’s board chair. Another Kraft Foods executive serves on 


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the Board of the Congressional Hunger Center. Other Kraft Foods employees volunteer at food banks and pantries across this country, packing food and distributing 

meals. Still others serve on local food bank boards. 

Employees also share their expertise through a United Nations Private Sector 

Program. Since 2001, Kraft Foods has sent over 100 employees to 29 countries to 

assist local agencies, farmers, and manufacturers produce foods in-country. Our volunteers have helped Albanian coffee producers to create the formula to produce a 

consistently perfect bean and taught temperature control to meat processors in West 

Africa. Our employees have also assisted with projects in Ecuador, Fiji, Grenada 

and Nicaragua, among others. 

CONCLUSION

In closing, Kraft Foods has a strong appreciation for the role private industry can 

play in helping to address social issues. The partnership between Kraft Foods and 

hunger-relief experts across the globe has helped more people in more communities 

have better access to balanced nutrition. And we are honored to partner with you 

in this effort as well. Again, many thanks for this opportunity and I look forward 

to answering your questions. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. Thank you, all three of you, for your testimony. 

I appreciate it very much. 

Rev. Beckmann, I will be the first to admit that government can’t 

solve this problem all on its own. But I want to hear from you 

whether or not the faith-based community can solve this problem 

all on its own. 

Reverend BECKMANN. No, no way. Churches and charities can’t 

do it all. That is clear to anybody who is involved in church and 

charitable effort to help hungry people. Those people who are really 

involved in it know that they are overwhelmed, that people are lining up before and after the churches and charities are done. 

It would be great if churches had the resources to be doing more 

than they are doing, but they are doing an awful lot, and their 

charitable efforts are in some cases extraordinary. But government 

has substantially more resources than the other actors. There are 

also policy questions, questions about how you make a society in 

which people have an incentive to work and work pays and there 

are jobs. So there are lots of things that government needs to do 

to be doing its part to overcome hunger. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. Mr. Egger, I have visited DC Central Kitchen. 

I appreciate the fact that it is not only about food but about nutritious food. I actually cut up cucumbers and carrots, but I was told 

by the person who worked there that I was doing it poorly. But I 

saw of a lot of fresh vegetables going into the ingredients. So if you 

could comment about the importance of nutrition as part of our 

challenge here. 

But the other thing, too, is the types of people that you help. 

Some people are people that can be trained and go back into the 

workforce, but there is a big population out there that if it weren’t 

for the fact that you could bring them a meal, they would be basically helpless—people that are homebound, people that have physical challenges that don’t enable them to kind of, if I gave them a 

dollar, to be able to kind of stretch it and make it all work. 

If you could comment on the types—— 

Mr. EGGER. Yes. What has really been exciting over the past few 

years is how many organizations have really focused on nutritional 

content, recognizing, in effect, that it does no good to feed somebody unless you are going to feed them something that is going to 

be make them healthy versus unhealthy. 


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So many of us have really focused—in fact, I think in Mr. 

Arcuri’s district, the food bank in central New York was one of the 

very first to draw a line, saying, in fact, we are not going to serve 

anything that does not meet this nutritional content. 

We are very deliberate about where we distribute the meals we 

produce, and we are looking to create almost a ladder. So, in effect, 

we are trying to partner with agencies, for example, it might be a 

drug treatment program in which we are helping heal physically by 

giving them good food, so that they ultimately become productive 

citizens; but at the same time the meals we serve save that agency 

millions of dollars a year, which means they can produce more men 

and women who are not going to be using drugs anymore. 

If done correctly—and I think this is to your point in this conference—done correctly, it is more than just you are hungry, here 

is a meal. It is part of a broader system, whether it is educating 

children that become—I really want to frame this away from the 

right/wrong, good/bad rhetoric into the smart/dumb concept. 

And so this whole thing, by making sure kids are fed, they are 

just going to be productive, healthy, taxpaying citizens in our future versus young men and women who will be a drain on our 

economy at the very time, with 80 million people getting older, we 

will need them to be productive taxpayers. 

So the nutritional impact side is huge, and this is what I think 

many of us are now looking at. The traditional approach of saying, 

would you please give us, restaurants, hotels, farmers, give us 

what you have, versus a new approach where we start to actually 

purchase, subsidize local farmers, taking the food that they normally couldn’t sell in a retail outlet, but that they—it is still good 

food. If we could start to purchase that, use leveraged Federal dollars again, not only are we going to get better food, but we are 

going to be stimulating the economy at the same time. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. Ms. Robinson, first let me thank you for being 

here and let me thank Kraft for their generosity. Food banks and 

food pantries in Massachusetts have benefited from your generosity. And, again, not just the food and not just the money, but 

the help and support of your employees who have been willing to 

go out and volunteer and to help make our communities better. 

I appreciate the fact that you are even being more generous in 

the upcoming year. But the sad reality is that in America hunger 

is getting worse and the cost of food is more expensive than it was. So—if I gave you a $100 donation 2 years ago, it doesn’t buy the 

same today as it did 2 years ago, so I may think I am being just 

as generous, but people get less food with it. And I am wondering 

whether—you sell food products. I mean, have you been able to 

control your prices or has the cost of fuel and everything else resulted in some spikes in your products as well? 

Ms. ROBINSON. Kraft, too, has been impacted in that way. But 

what we have tried to do is help our consumers, which are also 

food bank clients, because they are the working poor, understand 

better how they can budget their meals. How do you create dinners 

off of $10? How do you generate that shopping list, which may or 

may not include Kraft products? And how do you learn how to cook 

nutritious meals and create those dinners on a lower budget? So 

we are doing things like that. 


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And healthy lifestyles, I know there has been a lot of talk about 

nutrition. To us, obesity—malnutrition is sort of the intersection 

between hunger and obesity. You can not have enough to eat and 

be malnourished, and still be malnourished at the end of the day. 

So to complement our hunger programs, we also deliver healthy 

lifestyle programs that include nutrition education and physical activity. 

And as a part of these programs, there is this huge component 

about shopping. When you go to a grocery store, how do you sort 

of navigate the store and select the right items and sort of build 

your shopping basket, which is a skill that, quite frankly, a lot of 

consumers don’t have today. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. I wish all grocery stores would have nutritionists come in once a week or that there was more truth in advertising. I mean, even those of us who consider ourselves educated 

shoppers, if you go to the supermarket and you see 50 percent less 

sodium, than what? The Dead Sea? I mean, you may think you are 

making the right choices, and you shouldn’t have to be a chemist 

to figure out a good diet. 

But also, too—and I learned this when I was on the Food Stamp 

Budget—it is tough to be poor. It takes a lot of time to shop when 

you are poor because, for me, if I run out of groceries on a Thursday and I go shopping on a Saturday, I mean, I will just go back 

and get more. But for a lot of people, that is it. And it takes a lot 

of time, and it is very, very difficult. And again, too often, people 

aren’t given an option for a healthy choice. So I appreciate, in particular, what Kraft is doing in terms of kind of educating people 

and helping provide people the kind of guidance on how you can 

do it for less. But I think just listening to the panelists here 

today—Democrat, Republican, I mean all of you and what you represent—getting everybody in a room together and figuring this out 

so that we could actually stand up and say, here is our plan, here 

is what the faith-based community is going to do, here is what the 

corporate community is going to do, here is what the nonprofit community is going to do, here is what the Federal Government is 

going to do, on the Federal, State, or local level; and just tie it all 

together and let us see who keeps their assignment. And whoever 

doesn’t do their assignment, we will yell at them and make them 

feel bad. 

But I appreciate that. 

Mr. Sessions. 

Mr. SESSIONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me thank each of you. I think each of you recognizes that 

there is not one way to solve this problem. I would, however, like 

to thank each of you because none of you work for the government 

the way I understand it. You are out in the free enterprise system, 

the marketplace, trying to do things because you see need. 

Robert, I hear you talk very plainly about children and elderly 

people, or at least the future. The numbers are staggering. To 

Members of Congress, they are staggering. We have heard these 

figures before. We recognize we need to prepare people for what is 

ahead. 

I would say that I think each of you needs to be a part of this 

White House conference when it does take place. I am very much 


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in favor of people who can thoughtfully articulate what we ought 

to have, rather than demonstrating or breaking down barriers, but 

rather coming and saying, here are the cold hard facts of the case, 

here is a strategic and a tactful way to get to where we want to 

go. 

And the fact of the matter is that we are starting with—I am not 

trying to start an argument. We are starting with a really good 

story about what exists out there, and we need somebody to complete it. We need to work better together. I am not going to say we 

are happy, we are satisfied; you didn’t say that. But I think that 

we should start with what we have and make it better and then 

go and find where the holes are. 

Nicole, thank you for taking time to do this. I probably put you 

up to this, and for that I apologize. But I think the story that you 

told was very compelling, and it is a commitment that you make, 

all three of you make. You know what the issue is, you see where 

the holes are, you see where we need to go. And like anything else, 

I think if you coach a lot of us, we can get there. 

Thanks to each of you. Thank you. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. I want to thank my colleague, Mr. Sessions, for 

his very thoughtful remarks. I appreciate very much your being a 

part of this hearing. 

Thank you for putting Nicole up to this. I appreciate that too. 

Mr. SESSIONS. It is my fault. She did great too. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. She was wonderful. And I think Robert and 

David are great friends of advocates. Thank you very much. I think 

we are on our way. 

Before we close this hearing, I want to ask unanimous consent 

to insert into the record 30 different letters of endorsement for this 

bill, and an op-ed by former Senator Bob Dole and George McGovern in support of a similar conference. 

So thank you for being here. 

The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:25 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

ADDITIONAL MATERIALS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

CURRICULUM VITAE AND TRUTH IN TESTIMONY FORMS FOR WITNESSES TESTIFYING

BEFORE THE COMMITTEE (WHERE APPLICABLE) 


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LETTER FROM MS. VICKI ESCARRA, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF FEEDING AMERICA, TO

REPRESENTATIVES JAMES MCGOVERN AND JO ANN EMERSON, DATED MAY 9, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM MS. CHRISTINE A. POWARD, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE ASSOCIATION

OF NUTRITION SERVICES AGENCIES, TO REPRESENTATIVE JAMES MCGOVERN, DATED

MAY 12, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM THE REVEREND LARRY SNYDER, PRESIDENT OF THE CATHOLIC

CHARITIES USA, TO REPRESENTATIVE JAMES MCGOVERN, DATED MAY 12, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM MS. MARGARET SAUNDERS, PRESIDENT, AND THE REVEREND DOUGLAS

A. GREENAWAY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL WIC ASSOCIATION, TO

REPRESENTATIVE JAMES MCGOVERN, DATED MAY 12, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM MR. MAX FINBERG, DIRECTOR OF THE ALLIANCE TO END HUNGER, TO

REPRESENTATIVE JAMES MCGOVERN, DATED MAY 13, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM MR. GARY A. DAVIS, CEO OF EAST SIDE ENTREES, TO REPRESENTATIVE

JAMES MCGOVERN, DATED MAY 13, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM MS. KAREN PEARL, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF GOD’S LOVE WE DELIVER, 

TO REPRESENTATIVE JAMES MCGOVERN, DATED MAY 13, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM MR. HADAR SUSSKIND, VICE PRESIDENT AND WASHINGTON DIRECTOR

FOR THE JEWISH COUNCIL FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS, TO REPRESENTATIVE JAMES

MCGOVERN, DATED MAY 13, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM MR. DAVID RICHART, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF LIFELONG AIDS 

ALLIANCE, TO REPRESENTATIVE JAMES MCGOVERN, DATED MAY 13, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM MR. JOEL BERG, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE NEW YORK CITY COALITION AGAINST HUNGER, TO REPRESENTATIVE JAMES MCGOVERN, DATED MAY 13, 

2009. 


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LETTER FROM MR. KEVIN WINGE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR OPEN ARMS OF

MINNESOTA, TO REPRESENTATIVE JAMES MCGOVERN, DATED MAY 13, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM MS. DEBORAH R. HINDE, PRESIDENT AND CEO TO VITAL BRIDGES, TO

REPRESENTATIVE JAMES MCGOVERN, DATED MAY 13, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM MR. GREG LUKEMAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF FOOD OUTREACH, INC., 

TO REPRESENTATIVE JAMES MCGOVERN, DATED MAY 14, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM MR. JAMES D. WEILL, PRESIDENT OF FOOD RESEARCH AND ACTION

CENTER, TO REPRESENTATIVE JAMES MCGOVERN, DATED MAY 14, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM MS. ERIN PULLING, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF PROJECT ANGEL HEART, 

TO REPRESENTATIVE JAMES MCGOVERN, DATED MAY 14, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM MS. ELLEN PARKER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF PROJECT BREAD—THE

WALK FOR HUNGER, TO REPRESENTATIVE JAMES MCGOVERN, DATED MAY 14, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM MS. PAT NICKLIN, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF SHARE OUR STRENGTH, TO

REPRESENTATIVE JAMES MCGOVERN, DATED MAY 14, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM MR. ROBERT GREENSTEIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER ON

BUDGET AND POLICY PRIORITIES, TO REPRESENTATIVE JAMES MCGOVERN, DATED

MAY 15, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM MR. JOHN T. EVERS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE FOOD BANK ASSOCIATION OF NEW YORK STATE, TO REPRESENTATIVE JAMES MCGOVERN, DATED MAY

15, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM MR. CLYDE W. FITZGERALD, JR., EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF SECOND

HARVEST FOOD BANK OF NORTHWEST NORTH CAROLINA, TO REPRESENTATIVE

JAMES MCGOVERN, DATED MAY 15, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM DR. KEITH SCHILDT, PRESIDENT, AND MR. BOB BLANCATO, EXECUTIVE

DIRECTOR, OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF NUTRITION AND AGING SERVICES

PROGRAMS (NANASP) TO THE CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON

RULES AND ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSE, DATED MAY 15, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM MR. BILL AYRES, CO-FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF WORLD

HUNGER YEAR, INC. TO MR. KEITH L. STERN, SUBCOMMITTEE STAFF DIRECTOR, 

DATED MAY 15, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM MS. DEBORAH WEINSTEIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE COALITION ON

HUMAN NEEDS, TO REPRESENTATIVE JAMES MCGOVERN, DATED MAY 18, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM MS. PAMELA BAILY, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF GROCERY MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION, TO REPRESENTATIVE JAMES MCGOVERN, DATED MAY 18, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM DR. H. ERIC SCHOCKMAN, PRESIDENT OF MAZON: A JEWISH RESPONSE

TO HUNGER, DATED MAY 18, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM MR. ROGER JOHNSON, PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL FARMERS UNION, 

TO REPRESENTATIVE JAMES MCGOVERN AND JO ANN EMERSON, DATED MAY 18, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM MS. KELLY D. JOHNSTON, VICE PRESIDENT GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS OF

CAMPBELL SOUP COMPANY, TO REPRESENTATIVE JAMES MCGOVERN, DATED MAY

21, 2009. 


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LETTER FROM MR. PAUL DOWNEY, PRESIDENT OF THE CALIFORNIA NUTRITION COALITION, TO THE CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON RULES AND ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSE. 


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LETTER FROM MR. EDWARD M. COONEY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE

CONGRESSIONAL HUNGER CENTER. 


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LETTER FROM THE HONORABLE DAN GLICKMAN, FORMER SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE AND FORMER MEMBER OF CONGRESS FROM KANSAS, TO REPRESENTATIVE

JAMES MCGOVERN. 


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THE WASHINGTON TIMES, OP-ED BY GEORGE MCGOVERN AND BOB DOLE, ENTITLED

‘‘OBESITY CONFERENCE CALL,’’ MARCH 27, 2009. 


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