[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 18988-18989]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               FRUITS AND VEGETABLES FOR SCHOOL CHILDREN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Speaker, there was a tough article in the 
Sunday, December 4, New York Times entitled, ``How the Food Industry 
Eats Your Kids' Lunch.'' This has serious consequences for the 32 
million children who rely on school lunches, and often the breakfast 
program as well. Unfortunately, when one-third of our children of 
school age, 6 to 19, are overweight or obese, this matters.
  There's no denying that the institutional and political forces 
combine to favor giving our kids unhealthy food. It doesn't just 
shortchange the children and their families with huge medical costs in 
the future from obesity, from diabetes and other problems. It also 
poses problems for local farmers and the local economy.
  The good news is that we know how to fix this. Without help from the 
Federal Government--or despite the Federal Government--there are areas 
where the local governments are leading. In 2001, there were only six 
programs that were farm-to-school, providing healthy produce and fruit 
that found its way into the schools. There are now more than 2,300 
programs involving more than 10,000 schools across the country.
  On this House floor, I have referenced a pilot project that I think 
is a model in Abernathy School in Portland, Oregon, which I am 
privileged to represent, but there are dozens more in my community. 
There are 160 edible gardens around Oregon. California led the way with 
special payments that are made to local school districts to provide 
opportunities to purchase local fruits and vegetables. It's been 
followed by similar programs in D.C. and Maine.
  Now, this doesn't just deal with the health of kids. It also deals 
with the health of local economies. When you are able to buy fresh 
fruits and vegetables locally and put them into the schools, it has a 
significant multiplier effect. Each dollar there actually has more 
economic impact than a dollar spent on infrastructure or a dollar that 
would be spent on food stamps. It's one of the most valuable economic 
impact generators, almost $2 of economic impact for each dollar 
invested, according to a study from Ecotrust.
  Let's accept the challenge to try to help improve this process. There 
are some additional steps that can be taken locally--don't build or 
remodel schools that don't have kitchens. It's simple, but it's more 
cost effective to do it when you're constructing or remodeling than to 
have to come back later.
  Let's hold Members of Congress accountable. Last month, we once again 
on the floor of the House reaffirmed the fact that pizza dough with a 
little bit of tomato sauce is a vegetable. Maybe people in the course 
of this next year, when politicians are going to be out campaigning, 
may be able to pin them down on whether or not they believe pizza is a 
vegetable and whether they will act to override that outrage.
  It's also important to expand the USDA pilot project that's going to 
be starting next month in Florida and Michigan. Let's see if we can 
give other States the opportunity for cash instead of commodities, to 
be able to purchase these local products. This will give opportunities 
for our school districts to strengthen the local partnerships; to be 
able to give kids healthy food; to be able to model behaviors that are 
important; and, most important, for the Federal Government to realign 
its interests away from large agribusiness and in favor of the health 
of our children.
  Now, in the midst of the rubble of the so-called supercommittee, 
there was some good that came out of it. One good element was that 
there was not a

[[Page 18989]]

secret sort of farm bill that was embedded that would have denied us 
the opportunity this year to reform farm legislation, because one of 
the simplest things we can do is to move payments from large 
agribusiness, put it in the hands of local schools, and local farmers 
to be able to improve the health of our children and our local economy.

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