By Michele Simon and Daniel Bowman Simon
Some local food advocates are applauding the new Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive program in the finally-passed farm bill. The idea is to provide cash incentives to participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (aka food stamps) for healthy eating. But a closer look reveals the celebration may be premature at best.
With each attempt to pass the 2012 farm bill (yes, it has been that long), congressional Republicans keep ratcheting up their cruelty to poor Americans. While last year’s bill would have cut $16 billion to food stamps, the House of Representatives has now proposed an astonishing $39 billion reduction in benefits over 10 years. While many media pundits are outraged, and rightly so, missing from the national conversation are important questions about the effectiveness of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the federal food assistance plan formerly known as food stamps. Read rest at Al Jazeera America …
This year’s American Public Health Association Annual Meeting is in San Francisco, from October 27-31. (I live in that other city by the bay, Oakland.) The event draws about 13,000 public health professionals each year. I am honored to have been asked to participate in three stellar panels, so if you’re attending or can drop in for the day, please come say hello. (Check the printed program for room locations.)
Panel 1: Monday, October 29, 2012: 10:30 – 12:00
3167.0: Snack Food and Beverage Industry and Global Noncommunicable Chronic Disease
My talk: Case study of industry lobbying on junk food marketing to children
(Additional panelists include Marion Nestle and Jennifer Pomeranz from the Rudd Center.)
Panel 2: Monday, October 29, 2012: 12:30 -2:00
My talk: Food stamps, follow the money: Are corporations profiting from hungry Americans
Panel 3: Wednesday, October 31, 2012: 12:30 -2:00
My talk: Understanding food industry lobbying and countering corporate tactics
Last Tuesday, I released a report, Food Stamps, Follow the Money: Are Corporations Profiting From Hungry Americans? I am grateful to each of these media outlets for their coverage.
As Congress proposes cuts to hungry families, my new report raises questions about how much food makers, retailers, and big banks profit from food stamps.
With the debate over the 2012 Farm Bill currently underway in the Senate, most of the media’s attention has been focused on how direct payments—subsidies doled out regardless of actual farming—are being replaced with crop insurance, in a classic shell game that Big Ag’s powerful lobby is likely to pull off.
Meanwhile, the Senate may hurt the less powerful by cutting $4.5 billion from the largest piece of the farm bill pie: the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly called food stamps). Reducing this lifeline for 46 million struggling Americans (more than 1 in 7—nearly half of them children) has become a sideshow in the farm bill circus, even though SNAP spending grew to $78 billion in 2011, and is projected to go higher if the economy does not improve.
Contact: Haven Bourque 415.505.3473 haven@havenbmedia.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
As 2012 Farm Bill debate rages in Congress, a new report demands SNAP program transparency
Oakland, CA, June 12, 2012 — Are food stamps lining the pockets of the nation’s wealthiest corporations instead of closing the hunger gap in the United States? Why does Walmart benefit from more than $200 million in annual food stamp purchases in Oklahoma alone? Why does one bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, hold exclusive contracts in 24 states to administer public benefits?
