SNAP-Ed: Where SNAP budget cuts lie

From the March 5 edition of the Food Journal – we take a look at The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which provides food for as many as 48 million people each month.

From the March 5 edition of the Food Journal – we take a look at The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, provides food for as many as 48 million people each month according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Households typically include a child, elderly person or a disabled person, and a gross income of $744 a month. In the Farm Bill extension of 2013 SNAP will take on an approximate 10% reduction in per person benefits by October 31, 2013 if the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009’s SNAP increases are amended to fund the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act and the Educations Jobs Fund. What people are not discussing is that one of the most effective and critical programs of SNAP, SNAP-Ed (informally known as the Nutrition Education and Obesity Prevention Grant Program), will be cut by almost a third for the 2013 fiscal year. The $110 million cut will greatly diminish the likelihood that persons eligible for SNAP will make healthy food choices within a limited budget if they don’t have education through SNAP-Ed funded projects across America. The future of the government to educate low-income participants on how to eat healthy comes into question. Nutritional guidelines on product labels only go so far with people who have no time to read details. Participants will continue to receive money (with a slight reduction) but without education empowering their eating habits, their younger offspring (nearly half of children on SNAP are under 18 years of age) will be affected. We have learned with these budget cuts, supermarkets sales will be affected only minimally. In fact, supermarkets have an opportunity here to step in and fill the gap in education for their customers, perhaps with dieticians on staff. If they can form relationships with SNAP recipients, show they care about nutrition and longevity, they will build a brand loyalty with their store. Money for food is not as big an issue here as the loss of nutrition education - and with it, recipient empowerment. SNAP and the Farm Bill were linked decades ago in an effort to combine food assistance and agriculture programs to pass both with minimum of debate and controversy. Hardly the case any longer, politicians push for their split in order to have a separate vote on each piece while other lawmakers disagree, citing the isolation of SNAP would make it vulnerable for severe cuts. In a House of Agriculture Committee opinion piece, overall, Republicans are insisting that the cuts are far more minor in scope than the Democrats are hailing. For your free subscription just go to TheFoodJournal.com