US Senator Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., chairman of the US Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, has unveiled the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, a bipartisan, fiscally responsible bill, which marks the largest investment in US federal child nutrition programmes to date.
Senator Lincoln’s bill will provide US$4.5bn in new child nutrition program funding over 10 years, a significant increase over previous efforts. The highest previous increase was US$500m over 10 years.
“We are poised for a truly historic moment in the Senate Agriculture Committee with the unveiling of a bill that makes the largest investment in our child nutrition programs to date,” said Senator Lincoln in a press statement.”
“This proposal is a monumental step forward as we work to end childhood hunger and address the epidemic of childhood obesity in the United States. It invests roughly US$4.5bn in new funding in child nutrition programmes over the next 10 years – more new money than we have provided for child nutrition programmes since their inception.
“This legislation will also mark the first time since the inception of the National School Lunch Program that Congress has dedicated this level of resources to increasing the programme’s reimbursement rate. It also invests heavily in new initiatives designed to automatically enroll more eligible low-income children with our National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs and includes a major expansion of afterschool feeding programmes,” Senator Lincoln continued.
The legislation aims to ensure that all children eligible for nutrition programmes are actually participating, improve the quality of meal benefits, and modernise and improve the integrity of the programmes.
