food and nutrition

On August 23, Secretary Vilsack visited the San Antonio Food Bank, which – with the help of USDA and the Recovery Act – is assisting the needy during these difficult economic times.  

Last Sunday, CBS News featured USDA Deputy Secretary Merrigan and discussed how farmers markets are part of a fundamental shift in the way people access their food and interact with their community.  And, as the story notes, “… [f]armers markets and other forms of selling straight to customers are helping to keep farmers in business,” which is why those of us at the Agriculture Marketing Service were excited to report that there are now 6,100-plus farmers markets, recognizing that these markets provide jobs and economic growth opportunities for their producers.

Farmers markets are a unique business structure: lower overhead costs and direct and valued contact with their customer base make for innovative and responsive farmers that can experiment with offering new items more easily.  If a producer is able to find the right product mix for consumer demand, they can develop a sound business, create new jobs, and grow successfully.

Last Sunday, CBS News featured USDA Deputy Secretary Merrigan and discussed how farmers markets are part of a fundamental shift in the way people access their food and interact with their community.  And, as the story notes, “… [f]armers markets and other forms of selling straight to customers are helping to keep farmers in business,” which is why those of us at the Agriculture Marketing Service were excited to report that there are now 6,100-plus farmers markets, recognizing that these markets provide jobs and economic growth opportunities for their producers.

On Friday, August 27, 2010, I was in New Orleans to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation to the Gulf Coast.  The event was held at the Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana.  It was a hot and humid morning as we began the assembly of emergency food boxes alongside Archbishop Gregory Michael Aymond, food bank executive director Natalie Jayroe and other notable citizens of New Orleans, the Gulf Coast and federal officials.

This week my kids headed back to school, and I’ll be busier than last year, having been drafted to be PTA president.  While  getting to know the new parents at our school, I learned that several are interested in improving school meals and exploring the possibility of purchasing locally and starting a school vegetable garden.  Our new principal is interested too.  I myself have something of a brown thumb, but everyone was excited to hear that I work at the Department of Agriculture and had have been studying Farm to School initiatives throughout the country. I have been in close touch with USDA’s Farm to School team that will visit 15 school districts across the country to learn about their Farm to School activities.

When our agency, the Economic Research Service (ERS), put together the Food Environment Atlas earlier this year, we included information on which counties had at least one Farm to School program, using data from the National Farm to School Network.  The Network maintains the only national data base of Farm to School programs.  After the Atlas was released on our website, we received phone calls from programs that hadn’t been included, and this underscored the need to build a complete data base of these programs.

Chicago in August concluded our USDA Community Roundtable tour, where our Food and Nutrition Service and Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships met with almost 100 community and state partners to discuss how to improve access to SNAP at a time of growing need for food throughout the country. There my colleague Max Finberg, Director of the Center, and I met with wonderful people all over the city dedicated to fighting hunger. From the South Side to the West Side, we shared ideas with churches and other faith-based organizations, community advocates, food banks, outreach workers, school districts, community hospitals and clinics, and our state partners to discuss how to improve access to SNAP and our other fourteen USDA nutrition assistance programs.

Cross-Posted from the Know Your Farmer Know Your Food Blog

I recently participated in the launch of a Fruit and Veggie Rx program in Portland, Maine.  It is a promising health initiative, led by the nonprofit Wholesome Wave, that allows physicians to track the overall well-being of at-risk patients after prescribing more fruits and vegetables to family diets.  In Portland, the pilot will focus on Somali refugee women at extremely high risk for diabetes as they transition to healthful diets. The initiative is a good example of partners working together to encourage and support efforts to address both hunger and obesity in our communities.  Farmers markets can and are playing a key role in this effort.

Every chance I get I try to see our nutrition programs at work to get a true sense of how we are improving the lives of millions of people we serve. While I was in Missouri yesterday, I stopped in at the Guadalupe Centers’ Plaza de Niños. That’s a child care center on the Kansas City Metro Community College campus.

Logan Elementary School in Topeka, Kansas, is pretty special, in my estimation. It’s is a great example of what a growing number of schools across the country are doing to tackle the obesity crisis gripping our kids and help their students develop healthy lifestyles.

One of our Nation's most pressing health challenges today is obesity with one in three children in America either overweight or obese.  Low-income individuals are particularly at-risk.  That’s why First Lady Michelle Obama launched Let’s Move! The campaign mobilizes the combined resources of the federal government, state and local governments, foundations, business and nonprofit organizations to help solve the problem of childhood obesity within a generation so that children born today will reach adulthood at a healthy weight and live healthier lives.