The USDA has announced the availability of $4.7 million in grants for food safety education, training, and technical assistance projects that address the needs of owners and operators of small to mid-sized farms, beginning farmers, socially-disadvantaged farmers, small processors, small fresh fruit and vegetable merchant wholesalers, food hubs, farmers' markets, and others. The grants, offered through the Food Safety Outreach Program and administered by USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), are designed to help these stakeholders comply with new food safety guidelines established by the Food and Drug Administration under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). Learn more here.
healthy food - FRAC Focus: Obesity and Poverty - SIBEJO
The Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) is pleased to release this new issue of FRAC Focus: Obesity and Poverty. This periodical e-newsletter focuses on obesity and low-income children and adults, looking at the intersection of obesity, low income, food insecurity, the federal nutrition programs, and federal food and nutrition policy.
This issue first features a summary of the Aspen Institute�s Advancing Health through Food Security: A Multi-Sector Approach to Address the Disease Burden and Costs of U.S. Food Insecurity on our Health System. The report explores our current understanding of the short- and long-term impacts of food insecurity on healthcare costs as well as potential solutions to address food insecurity and its health implications.
This issue first features a summary of the Aspen Institute�s Advancing Health through Food Security: A Multi-Sector Approach to Address the Disease Burden and Costs of U.S. Food Insecurity on our Health System. The report explores our current understanding of the short- and long-term impacts of food insecurity on healthcare costs as well as potential solutions to address food insecurity and its health implications.
April 2016
Online Version
Online Version
healthy food - Help kids get meals in the summer - SIBEJO
HOW DOES THIS PROGRAM WORK?
Purpose: To serve free, healthy meals to low-income children and teens during summer months when school is out.
Where: Any safe place for kids (for example: school, park, rec center, library, faith organization, etc.) can be a summer meal site.
Who: Summer meal sites receive meals from local sponsoring organizations (for example: Boys and Girls Club, YMCA, local school district, etc.). Sponsors prepare the food (or order it), deliver it to the meal site, and are reimbursed by USDA for the costs.
Eligibility: Any meal site open to the public is eligible if it is in a school attendance area where 50% or more children qualify for free and reduced-priced school meals. If it is not open to the public (for example: a summer camp), 50% of more of the enrolled students must qualify for free and reduced-priced school meals.
HOW DO I BECOME A SITE OR SPONSOR?
Contact your State Agency that operates the program for your state. They will provide information about the eligibility of your area and local sponsors that serve meals to sites.
We encourage you to learn if sites are already nearby in your community before starting a new one. Through community outreach and promotion of the program, you can increase the number of children participating in sites that already exist.
Learn about sites that may have been in your community last summer, and nearby organizations that can work with sites through USDA's Summer Meals Capacity Builder. It will be updated with 2016 meal sites closer to summer time.
WHERE CAN I LEARN MORE?
Summer Meals Short Videos: Watch these inspiring YouTube videos about the program.
USDA Summer Meals Toolkit: Learn tips for getting the word out through community planning and outreach, success stories, and more.
Summer Food, Summer Moves Toolkit: Explore fun games that children can play at sites.
healthy food - Earth Day is tomorrow - lots going on in Canton! - SIBEJO
This year, people around the world will be celebrating the 46th Earth Day on Friday, April 22. There will be public rallies, protests against fossil fuels, and demonstrations about mass extinctions all over the globe. But what�s happening in our neck of the woods?
Students at St. Lawrence University have taken it upon themselves to make sure that Earth Day does not go unnoticed. Thursday night kicks off the �Earth Day Extravaganza� with an event called EARTHx � a spinoff of the international podcast series, TED Talks. Professors and community members have been invited to answer the question, in a time of environmental crisis, how can we live right now?, from each of their unique perspectives. Homesteaders, outdoor recreationalists, economists, farmers, and environmentalists are just some of the speakers who will have five minutes to share their personal stories. EARTHx will take place on campus at Pub 56 at 7:OO PM, on Thursday, April 21. The event is free and open to the public. A map of St. Lawrence�s campus can be found here.
On Friday, the focus shifts to more community engagement and participation with the issues surrounding Earth Day, as students join together to stand up for the environment.
Plastic water bottles that were salvaged from trashcans will be strung together and hung up in Sullivan Student Center to showcase the ridiculous amount of waste produced by not using reusable water bottles. White Spruce saplings will be planted in rusty oil barrels and placed on display in the Student Center to urge the St. Lawrence community to question our energy investments. �On behalf of Mother Earth, let�s uproot society from the false security of fossil fuel dependency,� reads the sign that will accompany the trees. Over one hundred people plan to �drop dead� during the lunch rush to represent the number of species that face extinction every day. And the food miles of all of our exotic favorites will be calculated, as well as the carbon that their travel emits into the atmosphere, so that we might be less inclined to pick up that banana, and opt for the local apple instead.
Students have chosen to focus on the issues because they want to demonstrate that complacency is not an option. The earth that we live on is experiencing huge amounts of environmental stress, and our actions have a direct impact on it.
From 12PM to 2PM, there will be a tie dying station outside the Student Center. The dyes will be made from natural ingredients instead of chemicals, and will use locally grown products. Beets, onion skins, and black beans � all grown by students at the Sustainability House on Rt. 68 in Canton � produce beautiful, earthy colors that aren�t toxic if they spill into the soil. Materials will be provided. At 3PM, anyone is invited to the ice cream social behind Commons College at 78 Park Street in exchange for a few seeds sowed. Seed to Table, a club on campus that grows food for the dining halls, needs help starting seeds for their upcoming season, and anyone can take a stab at making soil blocks or getting their hands dirty in the permaculture garden. All of these events are free and open to the public.
But students aren�t the only ones celebrating Earth Day. Nature Up North, another local non-profit, is hosting an #EncounterEarth campaign all day Friday which calls on participants to post a picture on their website of something they did outside. Nature Up North hopes that the contest will urge people to get outdoors and appreciate their local environments � one lucky Encounter poster will win a prize! You can find more information on how to participate here.
The festivities continue into the weekend, with Nature Up North�s Earth Day 7K at 9:30 on Saturday morning at the Wachtmeister Field Station. After the race, runners can make their way to Folk Fest at St. Lawrence University, where bands from near and far will be playing music from noon to nearly midnight outside on the Java Quad. Local vendors will be at the festival from 12PM until 6PM, so make sure to stop by and check them out � both GardenShare and Nature Up North will have tables there!
There are many ways to celebrate Earth Day, and many ways to make a difference. Here at GardenShare, we hope that you will choose to think about where your food comes from and how it was grown � not just on Earth Day, but everyday. Your choices have an impact on our environment and our community! How will you be appreciating nature?
healthy food - Free Webinar on How to Evaluate Economic Benefits of Local Food Systems - SIBEJO
Local and regional food systems are helping revitalize rural and urban communities across the country. The authors of a new U.S. Department of Agriculture guide to evaluate the economic impacts of investing in farmers markets, community supported agriculture (CSA), food hubs, and other local food systems will discuss the toolkit during a free webinar on Thursday, April 28, 2016, at 3 p.m. E.T.
The Economics of Local Food Systems: A Toolkit to Guide Community Discussions, Assessments and Choices, developed by the USDA�s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) in cooperation with Colorado State University (CSU), uses real-world projects, experiences, and applied research to help community leaders, planners, economic development specialists, public agencies, and private businesses or foundations evaluate the economic benefits of local and regional food systems.
Audience: Community leaders, planners, economic development specialists, public agencies, and private businesses or foundations
What: Free webinar on how to use The Economics of Local Food Systems: A Toolkit to Guide Community Discussions, Assessments and Choices. The webinar will last approximately 90- minutes.
When: 3 p.m. E.T., Thursday, April 28, 2016
Speakers: Debra Tropp, USDA Agricultural Marketing Service
Alfonso Morales, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Becca Jablonski, Colorado State University
Dave Swenson, Iowa State University
Dawn Thilmany, Colorado State University
To register for the webinar, please use this link: http://goo.gl/forms/JIOrvfQiMM
If you have any questions, please email: becca.jablonski@colostate.edu
healthy food - THE SAFETY NET IS FRAYING - SIBEJO
Today, in large part because of welfare reform laws enacted in 1996, the safety net�the set of government efforts to come to the aid of the country�s citizens when they are down on their luck, much of which has existed since the Great Depression�is thin and getting thinner. The number of people receiving cash assistance, the traditional form of welfare, dropped to 3 million today from 13 million in 1995. Welfare reform had big goals of moving people to self-sufficiency by training them to work. But it did little to create job opportunities or the types of programs that help people stay in jobs once they get them. Instead, they�re on their own.
And this thinning goes beyond giving needy families cash support: On April 1, between 500,000 and one million childless adults will lose access to food stamps). This is the belated consequence of a rule that was part of the 1996 welfare reform, which stipulated that childless adults can only receive three months of food stamps if they aren�t employed at least 20 hours a week or in a training program. For years states received waivers for the rule, but in many states, governors have chosen not to ask for extensions for this year.
Source: Atlantic, 4/1/16, Safety Net Frays
healthy food - DRUG TESTING SNAP RECIPIENTS - SIBEJO
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and 11 other Republican governors have asked Congress to allow their states to drug test SNAP recipients. Their letter asserts that �Drug testing recipients of SNAP benefits� will aid in our ability to move individuals off of this welfare program and back into the workforce as productive members of their communities.� But research shows that drug testing welfare recipients is a solution in search of a problem. While the federal government has thus far vetoed state proposals to drug test SNAP recipients, states are allowed to drug test people who receive cash welfare benefits from the TANF program. Seven states do so, but, as of early 2015, the positive test rates in all but one were below 1%, and all of them were below the national drug use rate. Those states together spent nearly $1 million on the testing.
Source: Think Progress, 4/13/16, SNAP Drug Tests
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