School Lunch Proposals Would Cut Into Farm Programs

Washington—Senate lawmakers moved this week to make school lunches more healthful by cutting farm conservation programs, while leaving intact the crop subsidies that many experts say contribute to the high fat and starchy diets behind the obesity epidemic.

A remake of the $17 billion school lunch program, which feeds 32 million children a day, is under way in Congress in tandem with first lady Michelle Obama's campaign to end childhood obesity.

There is widespread agreement in both parties that corn chips with cheese sauce, fried chicken nuggets and other staples of the school lunch menu have to go. Obesity has risen dramatically in children, and the cost of treating the conditions linked to being overweight have reached nearly $150 billion a year, or 50 percent more than the cost of the new health care law.

The Senate Agriculture Committee approved a $4.5 billion increase for school nutrition over the next decade, with broad bipartisan support—less than half the $10 billion that the White House wants. The problem for Congress is that new pay-as-you-go budget rules require cutting other spending or raising taxes to offset the cost.

To pay for the increase, the committee targeted cuts of a farm conservation program, Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), that goes to farmers of all crops, many of them small. Left untouched were the larger crop subsidies to big corn, grain and cotton growers.

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