SCHOOL LUNCH PARTICIPATION Percentage change from previous year 2 JAN The downward pressures that will continue to be with us involve enrollment and other changes in school operation which reduce the number of students at lunchtime, for example, double sessions, yearround schools, and work study programs. Significant Changes In School Enrollment The enrollment changes are particularly significant. For example, the Office of Education estimates that total enrollment this year was about half a million less than last year; and a greater percentage of the remaining enrollment is in secondary schools where student participation in lunch programs has traditionally been lower. Now, we estimate these changes would have caused over a 300,000 drop in participation if everything else had remained the same. In other words, any decline less than 300,000 would indicate we made some net progress. We have known for some time, of course, that these enrollment changes were coming; and there are various efforts underway which may offset their negative effect on participation. First, of course, there is increased program availability. Preliminary figures from an October survey show an additional 1 million children in Non-School Lunch Program schools over last October. Second, we are working with State agencies on numerous projects to increase participation in high schools. Third, the liberalized eligibility standards for free and reduced price lunches should help keep borderline income children in the program, especially if local schools take advantage of the option to offer reduced price lunches. In this connection, many people assume that the decline over the past few years in the number of paid participants in the program means that these children stopped participating altogether. To some extent this may be true, but at the same time, eligibility standards for free- and reduced-price lunches have increased considerably. For example, in many schools the eligibility standard for free meals went from $3,940 in fiscal 1971 to $5,310 currently for a family of four. With this big an increase, many children who might formerly have paid for their lunches are now getting free lunches. We will be following participation trends closely to see if the January increase continues and if special actions are called for. All of us must also, of course, start readjusting our thinking a bit, since the years of steadily increasing participation based on booming enrollments are over. For example, the Office of Education projects a total enrollment decline of over 5 million children during this decade, and this is bound to affect lunch program participation. Secondly, we would like to discuss with the committee, the matter of "commodities." To you and to us—while the dictionary doesn't agree—"commodities" has come to mean the surplus foods that farmers could not sell, and that Government intervened to provide to people who needed them. That whole, broad, complicated, sophisticated operation is what has come to be known as the Federal-State Good Distribution Program. We won't get into too much of the history of these programs, Mr. Chairman, because I know how long you have been associated with them, and how well you are acquainted with their history. I am sure you recognize a similarity of circumstances, now—to those that led to the formal establishment of the School Lunch Program in 1946. Until that time, the support that Government had given to school lunches was mainly in the form of commodities—the commodities that had been acquired in the efforts to deal with surpluses. But that kind of support ran thin especially during World War II and in its aftermath, when we had tremendous food obligations literally around the world. Ht:rrLT Cash Ijt Lieu or Commodities That situation led, at that time, to the introduction of cash payments into the Government's support structure for school lunches. And now we are facing a similar situation. We think the solution that was found then—to supply cash, in hea of commodities—is sound and useful now, as it was then. Jn the intervening years, as food surpluses mounted, we aetively songht new outlets for them. The list of surplus food users gradually broadened to include not only schools and needy families, but numerous other special categories including summer camps and recreation program*, day care centers, hospitals, homes for the aged and other charitable institutions, disaster relief agencies, and more recently, meals on wheels and group dining programs for the elderly, along with supplemental food programs for mothers and infants. Now what was once referred to as "The Farm Problem" has completely turned around, thanks in large measure to the enactment of progressive farm legislation in 1970 and again in 1973. Food surpluses stored and handled at taxpayer expense, are largely a thing of the past. The emergence of an agricultural program which is market oriented coupled with the resulting diminishing food surpluses is obviously having major impact on our ability to acquire food for the variety of outlets which have become "customers" for these foods. We have, however, continued to struggle to meet the needs of the people and organizations who have come to depend on Federal food donations as a source of supply. But, we have encountered great difficulties. The. days when the Government could depend on large surpluses of food at bargain rates are gone. 1n fact, our efforts to purchase food, even at market levels, are facing stifF competition. The result being that sometimes USDA receives no bids on orders at all. For the current year, the special purchase authority Congress provided in the Agriculture and Consumer Protection Act of 1973 has enabled us to use price-support and surplus-removal funds to purchase foods to maintain the annually programed levels of assistance for schools and other domestic food assistance programs. As a result, we were fortunate to announce last week that we are ill rend v assured of delivering 95 percent of the dollar value of donated foods budgeted for distribution to schools in the current year. But obviously, wo are attempting to make workable a system that is struggling under changed circumstances of need and availability. 1t is imperative that we, along with our cooperators, formulate a planned, graduated system for reconciling the needs that were once so well supplied by federally donated foods. Change To Food Stamp Program Continuing That is happening in the family food assistance programs. I am gratified to be able to toll you that we are making excellent progress in implementing the mandate that you gave us in the 1973 Farm Bill to switch all remaining food distribution counties into the Food Stamp I'ro^-iam by Juno 30, 1974. \\'e are now down to only one county which has no food assistance for needy families or no plans to start one. That is Beaver County Okla. Five years ago when the President was developing the broad.' historic program that he announced on May 6, 1969—that number stood at 430 no-program counties. We know now that there will have to be a few exceptions, as the law allows, in the timetable for implementing a nationwide Food Stamp Program. We have just announced plans, developed jointly with Puerto Rican officials to phase in their Food Stamp Program on a gradual basis, beginning in May of this year. And in the Navajo Nation, we are finding good acceptance of the Food Stamp Program as a practical way of providing food assistance, to Indians who have for long used the food distribution method. In carrying out your mandate, we have worked with all concerned to study and find the best way to make the change. And this is the FEDERAL SUPPORT FOR |