Congress must not forget urban
America in 2007 Farm Bill

Marc H. Morial

The nation’s capital leads the nation in childhood obesity, according to a recent U.S. Department of Health and Human Services survey. This fact comes as no surprise to the National Urban League. We studied D.C.’s 8th Ward, where more than one-third of residents live in poverty and more than one-third of its children are obese.

The neighborhood is a classic food desert. Saturated with fast food outlets, it doesn’t offer a single full-size chain supermarket, and the three small grocery stores that do business there offer outdated meat and tired-looking produce. Fast food and convenience stores make up 81 percent of food resources. The Food Research and Action Center, a D.C.-based nonprofit working to eradicate hunger in the United States, has given the neighborhood a grade of “D” for community food security.

Communities such as the 8th Ward are one reason why this country is paying over $100 billion a year in obesity-related health costs. Urban League affiliates are attempting to combat obesity by teaching people about healthy eating habits and the need to limit intake of processed foods laden with fat and sodium. These efforts, however, are fruitless if people are without places to buy healthy food.

As 8th Ward residents struggled to find a decent apple or a non-wilted bunch of collard greens, only one mile away, the U.S. House of Representatives was writing its 2007 Farm Bill, the nation’s most vital piece of food legislation. Calls for reform in farm support programs and significant increases in nutrition and conservation spending made little progress. While the House included new programs and increased spending for existing ones, their size and scale simply do not measure up to the scope of the problem.

Over 300 doctors and other health professionals asked Congress to write a farm bill that will improve access to healthy foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, and help to build the infrastructure to get healthy foods to low-income communities.

At the National Urban League’s annual conference, our affiliate CEOs called upon the House Agriculture Committee to authorize $30 million in funding for the Community Food Projects program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which helps low-income neighborhoods develop innovative solutions to food problems.

Did Congress listen? With 35 million Americans classified by the USDA as food insecure, the House passed a bill that made only marginal improvements to the Food Stamp Program, the nation’s most important defense against hunger. It increased the minimum monthly allotment from $10 per person — where it has been for over 30 years — to a stingy $18.

Did Congress take significant steps to increase the availability of healthy food? Yes and no. It did authorize increased funding for distribution of fresh fruits and vegetables to the nation’s schools over current levels, but by only enough to reach 2 percent of all schools participating in the National School Lunch Program. This hardly represents progress when childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions.

Did Congress address the issue of food desertification? The House passed legislation directing federal agencies to “study” the problem, but failed to authorize funding for the Community Food Projects, a program that has helped neighborhoods address food deserts for the past 10 years.

Congress has also made little progress in reforming a system of commodity food production that rewards the overproduction of crops, adding unnecessary pounds to our waistlines.

Since 1985, the actual price of fruits and vegetables has risen 40 percent, while the prices of sugar and fatty foods have fallen as much as 14 percent. These disparities in the cost of healthy and unhealthy food reflect U.S. farm policies that give nearly nothing to fruit and vegetable producers while passing along the lion’s share of public support to commodity crop farmers.

Let there be no mistake about it — urban America wants farmers to succeed. We have watched with delight as 4,500 farmers markets have blossomed nationwide. As those farmers have brought their abundance to urban consumers, we have brought our demand for healthy locally grown food. The synergy between city and country has never been so robust, nor the market opportunities so immense. That is why our farm policies must do more to strengthen the viability of local and regional farming to help meet the surging demand.

Underserved communities cannot be denied access to the same healthy and affordable food that is available to more affluent Americans. With good food and farm policies, we can realistically expect that our future generations will be free of the dietary challenges that now confront them.

We urge Congress to take into account urban America’s concerns before sending a final version of the Farm Bill to the president’s desk — for the sake of D.C.’s 8th Ward and other communities facing serious health problems and limited access to healthy foods.

Marc H. Morial is the president and CEO of the National Urban League.