PHI Comments on Fiscal Cliff Cuts to Critical Nutrition Funding

From the HuffPostHill:

DAILY DELANEY DOWNER – The fiscal cliff deal cut more than $100 million from food stamps to prevent a spike in milk prices. The legislation reduced the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s nutrition education efforts for fiscal 2013 from $395 million to $285 million to offset the cost of preserving the USDA’s Milk Income Loss Contract, which protects dairy farmers from price fluctuations. The cut doesn’t affect SNAP benefits, and it’s a small amount of money considering the government will spend more than $80 billion on food stamps this year, but nutrition education experts aren’t exactly thrilled. “This funding cut to the program undermines and weakens a critical component of our nationwide efforts to address promote healthy eating and prevent chronic disease just as investments to prevent obesity and promote healthy eating are beginning to show results,” Matthew Marsom, an executive with the Public Health Institute, said of the nutrition education program. Rep. Reid Ribble (R-Wisc.) said in a statement to a farm industry publication that the Milk Income Loss Contract is an important safety net for farmers. “Without further legislative action, the MILC program would have expired and dairy price supports would have dramatically risen, saddling our dairy market with major uncertainty and causing consumer prices to skyrocket.” You win this round, milk cliff!

Originally published by HuffPostHill