Ranking Member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Senator Saxby Chambliss, received testimony last week focused on child nutrition and the school setting. Witnesses testified on behalf of school meal programs, the Summer Food Service Program, WIC, and the Child and Adult Care Feeding Program.
“I am greatly concerned with several proposals outlined in the President’s budget pertaining to agriculture and our current farm safety net. This budget suggests that the current economic downturn has had no impact on our agriculture sector. Just last year, Congress overwhelmingly approved a five-year farm bill designed to strengthen the nation’s food security, protect the livelihood of our farmers and ranchers, preserve our efforts to remain good stewards of the environment, and enhance our nation’s energy security initiatives.
“Efforts to cut direct payments and make other sweeping changes to current farm policy will only inject additional uncertainty into the farm economy and will be met with my strong opposition. Our focus should be on offering producers the certainty they expect and work with the agriculture community at the appropriate time to make any changes in the current farm safety net. I believe it is unwise to completely alter the makeup of this farm safety net before we have the opportunity to assess the effects of the reforms included in the 2008 farm bill.”