WASHINGTON, D.C. – While her audience dined on steak and wine, Shirley Watkins spoke passionately about food stamps.
At a banquet here for the National Association of Agricultural Journalists, Watkins spoke about children, the elderly and the disabled.
Watkins is an undersecretary for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and controls a budget of $40 billion (U.S.), which is 60 percent of the
total USDA budget.
She is also an active advocate of caring for America’s hungry and forging links with farmers to provide food. She wants schoolchildren to know where their food is coming from.
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“Kids need to know milk doesn’t come from the grocery store,” she said.
Last year, $19.6 billion went toward food stamps in the U.S. More than $900 million went to farm commodity programs, helping to distribute 1.4 billion pounds of food that included fresh fruit, vegetables and grain products.
Seventy percent of the food went to schools, as a “safety net … for people most in need,” said Watkins.
Millions of school children are served breakfast by government programs, but many more are still in need, she added.
Some children don’t get into the nutrition program because they’re told it’s for poor children. “Children don’t want to be labeled as poor, so they don’t go into the breakfast program.”
However, “breakfast should be part of the educational day … . We somehow have the mentality that breakfast is a time that parents should be providing for children.”
Needed by all
But some parents can’t afford food, and in other families both parents are working and breakfast is missed. Watkins stressed food programs are needed for the poor and the rich.
“Breakfast is for all children. If children have a good breakfast, they’ll be more successful in the classroom” as they concentrate better, behave better and visit the nurse less.
Lunch programs also need changes, said Watkins. School children are given 20 minutes to eat. They stand in line for 10 minutes, and by the time they get to a table and talk to their friends, they end up with five minutes in which to eat.
“Offer them some time … to have a nutritious meal.”
Rural areas pose a problem for summer food programs because it’s hard to find someone to sponsor the program, she said.
Some programs are in jeopardy as the Senate deals with a wide-ranging bill that includes food stamps for immigrants and crop insurance for farmers.
A main thrust of the bill is consideration of food stamps to cover the 935,000 legal immigrants in the country who need help. One in six is elderly, two thirds are families with children and a large number of the children are U.S. citizens.
“They are really, really hurting,” Watkins said.
Child and adult food care programs risk losing $1.2 billion in funding for the children, elderly and immigrants if the bill doesn’t pass, she said.
Within weeks politicians will decide if food stamps and school programs continue, or if money will go toward a highways bill instead.
Meanwhile Watkins is informing farmers that food programs work. She hopes to get farmers involved, and the USDA to help identify value-added opportunities and encourage formation of co-operatives.
