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Post by kimmsr🕊 on Mar 2, 2018 6:33:56 GMT -5
From the Organic Consumers Association.
Thumbs Down
Roman woman in a robe with thumbs down in disapproval
That’s how Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) described Trump’s latest scheme to prop up industrial agriculture and Big Food, while delivering another hit to the health and wellbeing of America’s most vulnerable families.
Trump’s “America’s Harvest Box” plan would slash, by nearly half, the amount of money provided to families who are struggling to put food on their tables. Instead of being able to purchase locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables, families would receive a box of government-issued “shelf-stable” food products such as peanut butter, canned goods (including meat from factory farms), pasta, cereal, “shelf stable” milk and other products.
In other words, some of the highest-calorie, least nutritious food available, most of it produced with pesticides.
Trump claims the “Harvest Box” food would be “preselected for nutritional value and economic benefit to American farmers.”
But the only farmers who would benefit under the Trump’s proposal are the already heavily subsidized growers of industrial GMO crops—the kind grown with massive amounts of chemicals, and used to make highly processed foods that dish up plenty of calories with minimal nutritional value.
Trump’s “Harvest Box” scheme has been met with widespread scorn, including from the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), which told Politico the idea is “a Rube-Goldberg designed system” that would be “costly, inefficient, stigmatizing and prone to failure.”
But that doesn’t mean the plan is dead on arrival. "America's Harvest Box" has the full support of Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, who recently told the Los Angeles Times the plan should be “seriously considered and debated."
Given what we’ve seen come out of the Trump administration so far, we can’t count on saner heads to prevail. So we’re asking you to ask your members of Congress to give Trump’s “Harvest Box” plan a big thumbs down.
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Post by Mumsey on Mar 2, 2018 7:20:44 GMT -5
Back to the days of free "commodities", anyone remember these? There was a time when we were kids that Mom had to resort to this. Based on income your family could receive things like cheese, powdered milk, dry beans, etc. I do remember the cheese being particularly good, it came in 5 lb blocks and was not Velveeta type. Back when there were no GMOs and fewer pesticides.
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Post by lisaann on Mar 2, 2018 19:05:01 GMT -5
I have lived a life of chatter about people selling the welfare money for drugs and so forth. I would like to hear from someone who actually uses them and what they buy............If the government can get you twice as much for your buck, would that be better, or not? I would like to know how many people use welfare at your farmer's markets. That would be interesting to me. Do farmer's give the people redeeming their welfare money a slight deal? Do you figure they got the money free, so pay up? Maybe you have Never seen a welfare person ever even try to buy something from you? Let me think: How can I pull up ALL names of friends here that either sell at market or buy at market, and what have YOU guys Noticed? desertwoman, hit up our friends. What is happening around the country?
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Post by tom 🕊 on Mar 2, 2018 19:25:26 GMT -5
I have lived a life of chatter about people selling the welfare money for drugs and so forth. Hasn't the system moved to Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards?
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Post by lisaann on Mar 2, 2018 19:31:21 GMT -5
Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards? Yeah, I guess that is the name. They just take the money and hand over the card for that buyer to use. Not that complicated, from what I have heard. Have you heard that you can't let someone use your card if they buy it? No grocery store CARDS you..............you do know that, right? Tell me what you know.............
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Post by tom 🕊 on Mar 2, 2018 19:59:22 GMT -5
There was a sign at the local health food store saying to show your EBT card before making purchases. I didn't know what it meant, and asked, and a customer kindly showed me his card. That's all I know.
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Post by lisaann on Mar 2, 2018 20:10:44 GMT -5
So, They did not ask for Identification to see if the person was the real owner of the card. Yep, you can sell the card and who is to know?
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Post by tom 🕊 on Mar 2, 2018 20:59:39 GMT -5
So, They did not ask for Identification to see if the person was the real owner of the card. Yep, you can sell the card and who is to know? I only glimpsed the card, but thought it had the card holder's picture on it, like a driver's license. The appearance of these cards may vary from state to state. From brief reading, I think a PIN may be required to use the card.
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Post by Mumsey on Mar 3, 2018 4:44:26 GMT -5
lisaann , First of all, you have to be able to take EBT, credit cards, etc. as a vendor. I don't see many vendors doing it, maybe more so at large markets. I would think you need to be a large scale vendor to justify the cost of these options. Iowa has a program through the Dept. of Agriculture, Farmers Market Nutrition Program which provides coupons to the elderly exclusively for use at farmers markets. This is a program that requires training every 3 years and yearly certification, which Dad and I have done. It also includes the WIC program for low income families with small children, during summer they give clients vouchers for farmers markets. These two items are vouchers that must be signed by the customer, as vendors we take these to the bank and they are run through just like a check. In our training, we are told we are not the "police", just take the coupons as presented and signed, if anything is amiss it will likely be caught by the system. Then there is a wellness program run by University of Northern Iowa that gives out farmers market coupons to patients of Unity Point Health system who are referred to dietitians, regardless of income or age, and do not need to be signed. As vendors, we send the coupons to the college and they send us a check. I don't play favorites at farmers market. It's the same price no matter who you are or how your situation is perceived, after all, how am I to know if a person is struggling to make ends meet? I do provide education to all about the use of veggies and encourage people to try new things. The only discounted deals we make are for large quantities of an item, i.e. apples, cukes, rhubarb, tomatoes. And that is the same price for anyone who asks.
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Post by Mumsey on Mar 3, 2018 4:54:16 GMT -5
highly processed foods that dish up plenty of calories with minimal nutritional value. America's Harvest Box would give people no choice but to consume inferior foods. No choice about what it is, where it came from, what's in it, not to mention the items that are common allergens nowadays. It would be an epic failure.
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Post by desertwoman on Mar 3, 2018 10:23:14 GMT -5
As with all things, there will be some who abuse a system or situation, but for the most part the people who get food assistance are very grateful and appreciative. I think our perspectives on this can depend on external factors. If I was working in law enforcement for instance , and interacted with a lot of drug addicts, I might think all the food assistance is being abused and sold to support their habits. If I was a social worker, working with people who are earnestly trying to turn their lives around I might think no one is abusing the assistance. All I can say is that I have had clients, over the years, who have truly needed the support and have used their EBT (aka food stamps) responsibly.
The large Farmers Market in Santa Fe accepts SNAP/EBT. In fact they have a program (first supported through local funding/donations and now funded through NM Farmers Market Association in conjunction with State Government) that matches recipients' SNAP/EBT dollars at the Farmers Market. So their SNAP/EBT purchase power is doubled at the Farmers Markets as well as local grocery stores. These recipients are getting fresh high quality nutritious food that fosters health- not the high processed /minimally nutritious foods the American Harvest Boxes would offer.
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Post by Latitude33 on Mar 4, 2018 15:35:58 GMT -5
Is there a family connection between the Ag Secretary and Perdue Poultry? Common enough name but now I am curious.
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Post by tom 🕊 on Mar 4, 2018 15:41:39 GMT -5
Is there a family connection between the Ag Secretary and Perdue Poultry? Perdue is not related to the family that owns and operates Perdue Farms (commonly associated with "Perdue Chicken"). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Perdue
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