Ensure Continued Nutrition to Children and the Elderly

"For the Hungry" - 2010 - by Debbie Buchanan Engle

Ensure Continued Nutrition to Children and the Elderly

"The House of Representatives will debate and vote this week on HR 2112 – Agriculture Appropriations for 2012.

Please ask your representative to speak out against the provisions which would reduce access to food for members of our communities who are living in poverty – particularly children and the elderly. 

Ask them to vote “NO” on the bill if these provisions are maintained."

Agriculture Appropriations for 2012 (H.R. 2112) contains significant cuts which will deny hundreds of thousands of our children and elders sufficient nutrition. These provisions of the bill need to be changed.

Anti-hunger advocates support $6.83 billion for WIC -- the amount estimated to serve the anticipated 2012 caseload. However, the current legislation would fund the program at $6.047 billion.

If food prices do NOT escalate during the 2012 fiscal year, the proposed funding would require roughly 200,000 fewer women and children receive WIC assistance. If food prices go up 5%, that would require 350,000 women and children be removed from the WIC program.

Pregnant women and new mothers are provided nutrition education -- so they know what foods are most helpful to the health and development of their children, and how to prepare them. This bill eliminates the portion of WIC funding for this education.

The WIC Farmers' Market program would be cut by $5 million (25%), making it more difficult for mothers to obtain fresh, local fruits and vegetables.

The Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) provided $176.8 million for food boxes to supplement the nutrition of seniors in 2011. The amount proposed for 2012 is $138.5. This would deny this necessary nutritional assistance to many thousands of our neighbors.

The Emergency Food Assistance Program should not be capped at $51 million below the 2011 spending level.