A bill to help keep kids fed moves forward. That’s coming up on This Land of Ours.
The House and Senate each passed the Keep Kids Fed Act this month, but the bill had to return to the House because the Senate version was slightly different. The Hagstrom Report says the House passed the Senate’s version of the bill that requires the re-establishment of the reduced price category that Rand Paul of Kentucky insisted on including in the Senate version. The agreement between the leaders of each committee in charge of school meals originally merged the reduced price and free meal categories into one free meal category for the upcoming school year. The legislation also provides $3 billion in additional funding for the school meals program, with offsets coming from rescissions from the Agriculture Department and Small Business Administration programs. Senate Ag Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow says, “Schools and parents can rest easy knowing that help is on the way so kids can continue getting school and summer meals.”
Story contributed by the NAFB.
Listen to Sabrina Halvorson’s This Land of Ours program here.
Statement from Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Passage of Keep Kids Fed Act
(USDA/WASHINGTON, June 24, 2022) — “I am pleased to see that Congress has taken action to provide much needed support to help USDA’s child nutrition programs serve nutritious meals to America’s children. Throughout the pandemic, the school nutrition professionals who feed our children faced enormous challenges, which persist today, and they desperately need additional resources and continued flexibilities. The deal passed by Congress will ease some of the uncertainty and provide partial relief to our schools, summer sites and child care feeding programs. As I have said before, it is important to note that schools across the country will still face ongoing challenges and at USDA we will continue to use every tool at our disposal to ensure kids get the nutritious meals they need and deserve.”
Sabrina Halvorson
National Correspondent / AgNet Media, Inc.
Sabrina Halvorson is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, and public speaker who specializes in agriculture. She primarily reports on legislative issues and hosts The AgNet Weekly podcast. Sabrina is a native of California’s agriculture-rich Central Valley.