Food

Security and Nutrition 1. Support a national pilot program to provide incentives for SNAP recipients to purchase fruits and vegetables: Studies have shown that financial incentives help increase healthy food purchases. An expanded pilot program would investigate the impact of purchasing incentives for fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins among SNAP participants. 2. Protect funding for federal nutrition assistance programs, including SNAP: Nutrition assistance programs, including SNAP (formerly known as the Food Stamp Program), play a vital role in protecting vulnerable populations from hunger and from the health consequences of poor nutrition. The federal nutrition assistance programs also create market opportunities for farmers via increased purchasing power for food among low-income individuals 3. Protect funding for SNAP-Education: SNAP Nutrition Education, or SNAP-Ed is an important program for improving the health of SNAP participants while helping to stretch benefits to the end of the month to purchase healthy foods, and supporting Americas farmers through education that encourages the purchase of the healthy foods they grow. SNAP-Ed is an effective program for ensuring low-income Americans have the knowledge and skills to make healthy food choices, increase fruit and vegetable consumption, improve diets, and reduce their risk of chronic disease and obesity. 4. Promote the use of SNAP benefits at farmers markets, CSAs, and other farm-fresh outlets: Serving over 45 million Americans, the SNAP program can be a major economic driver. Enabling SNAP participants to purchase directly from farmers would have significant impact on participants access to fresh food, and farmers incomes. Currently, many non-brick and mortar food outlets do not have wireless EBT devices to enable SNAP participants to purchase food. Under this priority, USDA would support wireless EBT point of sale devices to farmers markets, CSAs, and other farm-fresh outlets. Enable and encourage smartphone SNAP EBT technology in this effort. 5. Allow third-party organizations to accept EBT on behalf of farmers and farmers markets with administrative or technological barriers to establishing an EBT system on their own. For example, one NGO could serve as the hub for various farmers to make their products available to SNAP participants without each farmer having to be provided individual EBT capabilities. Healthy Farms, Healthy People Coalition Priority Setting Survey 1 of 3 Details For more information about the coalition, please see hfhpcoalition.org

Description of Possible Priorities for HFHP Coalition Priority Setting Survey 1 of 3 http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HFHP_Survey_1


6. Strengthen SNAP retailer food stocking standards: SNAP plays a vital role in supporting food security for over 45 million Americans, many of whom do not have easy access to stores carrying fresh, healthy food. SNAP national vendor standards should be strengthened to increase the availability of fresh, healthy food across retail outlets that accept SNAP benefits. 7. Maintain and expand funding for Community Food Projects: Programs that enhance community food security, such as Community Food Projects, encourage job creation and economic growth. They also support farmers through the purchase of their products, as well as communities food security through access to these foods. 8. Provide federal guidance to local governments on how best to support access to healthy food: Just as CDC has developed guidance on the role of local government in preventing obesity, USDA could lead the charge with other federal agencies to explore how local zoning and land-use regulations relate to food access. A report and database highlighting positive examples and best practices would be invaluable resources. 9. Provide a tax credit to farmers for food donations to food banks: There are times that farmers are not able to sell all that they grow before the food spoils, yet donating these items requires time and resources which most farmers cannot afford. To support the food security of vulnerable Americans as well as farmers incomes, the government could provide a tax credit to farmers to incentivize donation earlier in the growing season of high quality produce to food banks for distribution through the charitable food system. 10. Increase support for the Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI): The HFFI supports the development of stores that carry fresh, healthy food in previously underserved areas. Supporting healthy food financing would enable more healthy, fresh food retailers to develop and thrive in communities that currently lack in these new markets. 11. Protect funding for Hunger-Free Community Grants/State Childhood Hunger Challenge Grants. These grants would generally provide competitive grant funding to states to develop and test innovative and collaborative benefit delivery models, with state and local governments, non-profit organizations, and research institutions to improve low income individuals, particularly childrens, access to healthy food to promote year round food security and end hunger. These grants would offer an opportunity to improve access to nutritious food through research, planning and implementation of hunger-relief activities in a manner that could develop an evidence-based framework for meeting unmet nutritional needs of vulnerable populations, while also benefiting local economies and promoting community development. Local and Regional Food 12. Require food stores receiving HFFI financing to source some local/regional food: Under this policy, food stores created through the HFFI would be required to source a percentage of their products locally or regionally. This policy change could have significant impacts on supporting local and regional farm economies.

Healthy Farms, Healthy People Coalition Priority Setting Survey 1 of 3 Details For more information about the coalition, please see hfhpcoalition.org


13. Expand funding for the Farmers Market Promotion Program: Programs like the Farmers Market Promotion Program encourage job creation and economic growth. They also support farmers through the purchase of their products. 14. Increase funds for local and regional food system infrastructure such as on-farm processing equipment and aggregation, distribution, and processing facilities: Such infrastructure would strengthen regional food hubs, Farm to School, value-added production, and other rural development programs. 15. Establish mechanism for schools to use Department of Defense (DoD) Fresh and USDA Foods funds to purchase local and regional product for school food programs: Establishing an avenue for schools to use DoD Fresh and USDA Foods funds to purchase and/or process local and regional products would help ensure that small- and mid-size farmers can participate in these programs and bring fresh products into school meals. Fruits and Vegetables: 16. Expand planting flexibility pilot program to allow more commodity crop farmers to produce fruits and vegetables for institutional purchasers: The 2008 Farm Bill included a provision allowing some commodity farmers to grow fruits and vegetables (for processing only) and remain eligible for commodity payments. Under this priority, the flexibility would be modified and expanded to allow for institutional purchase contracts, fruits and vegetables to be sold fresh. The program would also be expanded beyond the pilot states. 17. Increase funding for specialty crop research: Many specialty crops are an essential part of a healthy diet. Specialty crops refer to commonly eaten food crops including fruits and vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits, and herbs (both culinary and medicinal), as well horticultural and floricultural crops (flowers, trees etc.) Specialty crops do not include commodity crops (wheat, corn, soy etc.). Via this priority, money for research into production techniques, pest management and diversified production of Specialty Crops would be increased as a mandatory authorization. 18. Collect data on specialty crop production to create insurance and loan programs for underserved growers: Insurance and loans are important safety nets for farmers, yet farms growing fruits and vegetables, those with diversified crop mixes, and those producing in environmentally sustainable ways (such as organic) do not always have access to crop insurance. A key barrier is lack of historical actuarial data. To address this problem, this priority would have USDA collect more comprehensive data on production and prices for these crops and production methods, in order to better and more fairly target crop insurance and disaster assistance programs, ensure the reimbursement rates for the crops grown reflect their true value, and create loan products based on the value of the crops. 19. Protect funding for the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program: The USDA Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program has been a highly successful, cost-effective program, providing fruit and vegetable snacks to low-income elementary school students, thus increasing their consumption and introducing many to new foods. It runs in selected low-income elementary schools in the 50 States, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Healthy Farms, Healthy People Coalition Priority Setting Survey 1 of 3 Details For more information about the coalition, please see hfhpcoalition.org


Production Methods: 20. Extend conservation compliance provisions to crop insurance: Under Conservation compliance, farms operating on environmentally sensitive lands are required to comply with conservation provisions in order to receive some commodity payments. Crop insurance is currently excluded, and it is believed that some commodity payment programs will be eliminated with this farm bill. Extending conservation compliance to crop insurance would help keep some former commodity-program-enrolled land protected. 21. Maintain and increase funding for working lands conservation programs (such as, EQIP and Conservation Stewardship Program): Farmers play an extremely important role in preserving natural resources. Programs that encourage robust conservation practices on working lands benefit farmers, environmental health and ultimately, human health. 22. Maintain and increase funding for programs that promote organic production: Pesticide exposure has been linked to cancer and other health threats, such as endocrine disruption. Organic production protects farmers, farm workers and consumers from pesticide exposure and has numerous other environmental benefits. Organic programs in the farm bill include the National Organic Certification Cost-share Program and the EQIP Organic Initiative. Research 23. Require USDA to submit a report to Congress each year on the impact of US Agriculture on Health: In order for Congress to better understand these links and act accordingly to protect public health, via this priority, a written report covering topics such as environmental health, antibiotic resistance, farm and food worker health, and use of chemicals and pharmaceuticals in agriculture, would be complied by USDAin partnership with other relevant Agenciesand submitted to Congress on an annual basis. 24. Maintain funding for the National Institute of Food and Agriculture for programs that support health. Continued and expanded research on a range of topics could promote and protect health while assisting farmers and others in the food supply chain in their businesses. Such avenues include, small and mid-sized farms, reducing the use of toxic chemicals, and food security. Caps within NIFA to ensure some smaller projects get funded would also be useful. 25. Expand research to advance adaptation and preparedness of the agricultural sector in face of climate change, water shortages, peak oil and other ecological threats. USDA does critical research on these issues. This important work needs more support and more of a systems-research approach, including a focus on the development of sustainable agricultural methods that can balance improved efficiency and effectiveness of production with increasingly limited resources and a changing natural environment. 26. Maintain and increase mandatory funding for OREI, BFRDP and SCRI, three programs in the Research Title that would be eliminated after 2012 because they lack continued funding: The Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI), Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI), and Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP) address the lack of USDA research and extension serving organic, specialty crop, and beginning producers, who make up a growing portion of

Healthy Farms, Healthy People Coalition Priority Setting Survey 1 of 3 Details For more information about the coalition, please see hfhpcoalition.org


the agricultural sector. These programs do not have baseline dollars after 2012 and will expire unless specifically renewed in the next Farm Bill. 27. Add emphasis for sustainable agriculture to the Specialty Crop Research Initiative: Under this priority, SCRI would either set aside a portion of funds, or weigh proposals more heavily, for research on sustainable agriculture practices addressing specialty crop concerns, including pest management and disease, production efficiency and profitability. Fairness, Competition and Prices 28. Create mechanisms to stabilize farm prices, such as buffer stocks or a grain reserve: Protecting farmers incomes and maintaining a fair price for consumers is a key function of agriculture policy. Congress could create mechanisms to balance the highs and lows of commodity supplies, such as buffer stocks or a farmer-owned grain reserve. These approaches would be a means to achieve greater stability in the global agricultural marketplace and to provide assistance to the hungry, both at home and abroad. 29. Ensure fair grower contracts and competition by strengthening and enhancing GIPSA provisions from the 2008 Farm Bill, including clarifying unfair and discriminatory practices and price preferences, and strengthening recourse for farmers/ranchers to make complaints about unfair/deceptive practices. Such actions would give small livestock and poultry operations access to a level playing field given industry concentration. 30. Provide authority to the USDA to assure that workplace health and safety, wage and hour and other protections for farmworkers are met by all vendors who sell fresh fruit and vegetables and other food to the USDA. 31. Include a set-aside for Socially Disadvantaged producers in specialty crop block grants and fresh fruit and vegetable purchase programs. There is a wide need for more support for specialty crops and fresh fruit and vegetable purchases in order to address the health and safety concerns of American consumers and meet the increased demand for fresh vegetables and fruit for all consumers. As Congress seeks to enhance authority and funding to increase the production and distribution of specialty crops, it is also important and a matter of fairness to ensure that socially disadvantaged farmers are included in any such expansion via a specific set-aside. Rural Development: 32. Increase USDA intradepartmental and federal agencies interdepartmental collaboration on urban/rural linkage issues: Create an intradepartmental workforce within USDA responsible for urban- rural linkages across existing programs. Such an initiative could foster collaboration between Farm Service Agency and Extension staff to better address urban and rural food access. It would also provide a structure for enhanced collaboration with other agencies such as EPA, CDC and HUDfor example through formal USDA membership in the Presidents Sustainable Communities interagency workforce. Healthy Farms, Healthy People Coalition Priority Setting Survey 1 of 3 Details For more information about the coalition, please see hfhpcoalition.org


USDA and other Agencies: 33. Improve farm and food system worker health: Farm and food system workers play a major role in getting food from field to plate. Many do not have health insurance, face occupational health issues and other health impacts of their work. Farmers and companies that employ these workers also have a need for a healthy work force. 34. Improve food safety while protecting small and mid-sized farmers: A lack of food safety clearly impacts peoples health, but it also affects farmers bottom lines. The recent Food Safety Modernization Act laid out important changes for food safety. While these changes should be good for health, some of the provisions may negatively impact small and mid-sized farmers if attention is not paid to the details of implementing the law. 35. Ensure farmland preservation: Having enough land for food production is a national security issue, as well as an economic and health one. A range of tactics to preserve farmland could be employed, such as zoning changes at the local level and tax incentives at the federal level for farmers who will their land to beginning farmers.

Healthy Farms, Healthy People Coalition Priority Setting Survey 1 of 3 Details For more information about the coalition, please see hfhpcoalition.org