By Karen Spangler, NFSN Policy Director

This week, the House and Senate are at work on a new round of relief legislation to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a complex procedural move known as reconciliation, the House and Senate may be able to advance relief and stimulus funds with a narrow majority vote. House Committees have released their portions of the proposal, including the House Committee on Education and Labor, and the House Committee on Agriculture. Included are numerous measures that will support those most in need in our farm to school and early care and education community, including an increase in pandemic EBT (P-EBT) for young children, funds for child care stabilization, and an increase of 15% in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP) benefits. In addition, the bill would provide money to purchase directly from producers (such as the Farmers to Families food box program), and to strengthen food supply chain infrastructure and worker protection.

Also included in the proposal from the House Agriculture Committee is a historic measure to provide $4 billion in debt relief and financial support for producers of color with USDA farm loans. An additional $1 billion would address historic and ongoing discrimination in the food system, including oversight for racial equity at USDA, support for historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and historically Black land-grant universities, and legal resources for Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC) producers. This legislative language first debuted in the Senate in the Emergency Relief for Producers of Color Act, introduced by new Senate Ag Committee members Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), as well as committee Chair Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and longtime farm to school champion Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT).

The leadership of House Agriculture Committee Chairman David Scott (D-GA-13) and Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-GA-2) in including this measure comes at an especially crucial time. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and exacerbated long-existing inequities in farm policy, and Black and Indigenous communities have suffered disproportionately from the health, economic, and food security effects of the pandemic. A newly-released analysis from Environmental Working Group found that nearly 97 percent of $9.2 billion in pandemic relief direct payments went to white producers as of October 2020, with white farmers on average receiving four times more than the average Black farmer. Clearly, the status quo is not enough to provide real, equitable relief to BIPOC producers struggling during this pandemic. Debt forgiveness is a direct and immediate measure that government can take to address the structural injustices that are still happening.

As the full legislative package makes its way to the House floor this week, and as the Senate takes up relief measures, National Farm to School Network urges policymakers to prioritize the urgent need for bold measures such as this one during and after the current crisis.

This blog was originally posted on February 23, 2021.

National Farm to School Network is fortunate to have an Advisory Board composed of 17 smart and passionate advocates who guide us in the work we do. At the beginning of this new year, we want to extend our deep thanks and gratitude to those who served on our Advisory Board in 2020 and welcome a few new members to this important cohort.

This past year was a significant one for National Farm to School Network, which included navigating the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, deepening our commitment to racial justice, and announcing our new Call to Action. We are grateful to these 2020 Advisory Board members who worked alongside us last year:

• Anneliese Tanner, Austin Independent School District
• Bertrand Weber, Minneapolis Public Schools
• Betsy Rosenbluth, Vermont FEED
• Brandon Seng, Michigan Farm to Freezer
• Caree Jackson Cotwright, University of Georgia - College of Family and Consumer Sciences
• Catherine Compitello, The Beacon Fund
• Erin Croom, Small Bites Adventure Club
• Haile Johnston, The Common Market
• Jamese Kwele, Ecotrust
• Janie Hipp, Native American Agriculture Fund
• Laura Edwards-Orr, Center for Good Food Purchasing
• Ricardo Salvador, Union of Concerned Scientists
• Silvia Abel-Caines, Organic Valley
• Simone Washington, Business for Social Responsibility
• Sommer Sibilly-Brown, Virgin Islands Good Food Coalition
• Wande Okunoren-Meadows, Little Ones Learning Center
• Vanessa Herald, University of Wisconsin - Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems

At the end of 2020, we said farewell to Janie, Ricardo and Vanessa. We are especially grateful to Janie for advising us on working with Native communities, to Ricardo for contributing his racial justice and policy advocacy expertise, and to Vanessa for her farm to school content expertise and for being a long-time and continued NFSN state partner.

As we say these thank yous and farewells, we are also excited to announce the addition of three new board members in 2021:

• Jennifer Gaddis - Jennifer is an assistant professor of Civil Society and Community Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Jennifer's scholarship centers the perspectives of frontline cafeteria workers and focuses on topics including the history of the national school lunch program, farm to school efforts, food work as a form of care work, and values-based universal school lunch programs.
• May Tsupros - May is a Founding Collaborator of SunTree Collaboration and co-founder of Gardeneers. In addition to her work with SunTree Collaboration, whose mission is to unearth, build, and strengthen connections between many local food, environmental, and health-related stakeholders, May is also Director of People and Partnerships at Partridge Creek Farms where she works to promote food education and improve local access to fresh produce.
• Valerie Segrest - Valerie is a Native foods nutritionist and the Regional Director of Native Food and Knowledge Systems for the Native American Agriculture Fund. Valerie is an enrolled member of the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe and is a nutritionist who specializes in Native American Food Traditions and has over a decade of experience developing food sovereignty strategies and culturally relevant food and nutrition curriculum and educational interventions.

We are also appreciative of those stepping into leadership positions on the board this year:

• Haile Johnston, Chair
• Simone Washington, Vice-Chair
• Laura Edwards-Orr, Governance Committee Chair
• Betsy Rosenbluth, Strategic Plan Committee Chair

This year, the Advisory Board will be focused on implementing our 2020-2025 Call to Action, which focuses on racial equity and shifting power in our food system; continuing the NFSN Advisor-Staff Mentor Program; taking part in board professional development activities (including racial equity, shifting power, and policy advocacy); and diversifying our funding and increasing support for general operations of our organization. (Want to give them a jump start? It’s easy to make a donation right now! )

Many thanks again to our outgoing Advisory Board members, and welcome to our new members! We look forward to working alongside you these next 12 months towards our vision of a racially just food system for all.

By Karen Spangler, NFSN Policy Director

In a late-night sprint on Monday, Congress passed a combined bill of $900 billion in coronavirus relief aid and $1.4 trillion in spending for fiscal year (FY) 2021. While the need for economic, nutrition, and public health relief is far greater than the scope of the relief provided, it nevertheless contains some wins for farm to school and farm to early care and education (ECE), and much-needed funds for our farmers and communities.

Highlights of the COVID relief measures include:

• Relief for CACFP providers, replacing 55 percent of the total reimbursement funding lost for each claiming month from April 2020 to June 2020, plus half of March 2020.
• A similar relief measure for schools participating in federal Child Nutrition Programs.
• Expanded Pandemic EBT (P-EBT) to all income-eligible children under six years old.
• Relief funding for a number of local food systems programs, and reduction of the matching funds requirements (note: unfortunately this does not include the Farm to School Grant Program) and measures to better tailor direct agricultural payments to specialty producers.

The FY 2021 spending bill also contains a number of big wins for farm to school and farm to ECE:

• The highest-ever level of funding for the Farm to School Grant Program – $17 million total!
• $500,000 allocated for a regional institute to disseminate farm to school and ECE research and technical assistance.
• $2 million in Centers for Disease Control (CDC) funding for farm to ECE work.
• Robust funding for other CDC programs promoting nutrition and addressing racial health equity, such as $63 million in funding for the Racial and Ethnic Aspects of Community Health (REACH) grants, of which $22 million is set aside for Native communities.

Update: These measures were passed in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, which was signed into law on December 27, 2020.