The University of California Press has released a new edition of Jan Poppendieck’s Breadlines Knee Deep in Wheat: Food Assistance in the Great Depression, this one with a foreword by Marion Nestle and an Epilogue by Poppendieck, updating the history of federal food assistance. There are now 15 separate federal food and nutrition programs administered by USDA, and one in four Americans participates in at least one of these. Last year, these programs transferred about 100 billion dollars worth of food and food specific purchasing power to low income Americans. Basically, the epilogue asks why food assistance has fared so much better than welfare in the United States.
At this session of Food Policy for Breakfast, Poppendieck will explore the factors that explain this relative success, and then use this explanation to consider the prospects for Child Nutrition Reauthorization, now coming up in a Congress in which the GOP controls both houses. What can we learn from the history of food assistance that can help us prepare to make CNR 2015 a victory for America’s children?
Representatives from NYC for CNR will serve as respondents:
David DeVaughn, Manager, Policy & Government Relations, City Harvest
Claire Uno, Assistant Executive Director, Laurie M. Tisch Center for Food, Education & Policy, Teachers College Columbia University, Program in Nutrition