The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has scored the farm bill (“HR 2”) meaning that they have estimated its costs.

Here’s the CBO summary, and its key paragraph in perfect CBO-speak (I’ve divided the sentences up into bullets to make this a bit easier to read):

• Relative to spending projected under CBO’s April 2018 baseline, CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 2 would increase direct spending by $3.2 billion over the 2019-2023 period.
• Following the rules specified in BBEDCA [Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act], CBO has incorporated the assumption that the changes made to those programs would continue after 2023, the final year of authorization under the bill.
• On that basis, CBO estimates that direct spending would decrease by $2.7 billion over the 2024-2028 period, for a net increase in direct spending of $0.5 billion over the 2019-2028 period.
• CBO also estimates that enacting the bill would increase revenues by $0.5 billion over the 2019-2028 period.

Huh?  Got that?

Next, we have the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition’s analyses of key Farm Bill provisions.  Start with these from the bottom up for Farm Bill 101:

• RELEASE: END OF PAYMENT LIMITATIONS WOULD PAVE WAY FOR FURTHER FARM CONSOLIDATION: End of Payment Limitations Would Pave Way for Further Farm Consolidation House Draft Farm Bill proposes to eliminate annual subsidy caps, opening subsidy floodgates Washington, DC, April 16, 2018 – Included in the draft farm bill presented by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway (R-TX) last […]
• DRAFT HOUSE FARM BILL: ORGANIC AGRICULTURE:  This is the sixth and final post in a multi-part blog series analyzing the draft farm bill released on April 12, 2018 by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway (R-TX). Previous posts focused on: beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers, crop insurance and commodity subsidies local/regional food systems and rural development, research and seed breeding, and […]
• DRAFT HOUSE FARM BILL: CONSERVATION: This is the fifth post in a multi-part blog series analyzing the draft farm bill released on April 12, 2018 by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway (R-TX). Previous posts focused on: beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers, crop insurance and commodity subsidies local/regional food systems and rural development, and research and seed breeding. The bill […]
• DRAFT HOUSE FARM BILL: RESEARCH AND SEED BREEDING: This is the fourth post in a multi-part blog series analyzing the draft farm bill released on April 12, 2018 by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway (R-TX). The first was on beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers, the second on crop insurance and commodity subsidies, and the third on local/regional food systems. The bill is […]
• DRAFT HOUSE FARM BILL: LOCAL & REGIONAL FOOD AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT: This is the third post in a multi-part blog series analyzing the draft farm bill released on April 12, 2018 by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway (R-TX). The first was on beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers and the second on crop insurance and commodity subsidies. The bill is expected to be considered and “marked-up” […]
• DRAFT HOUSE FARM BILL: CROP INSURANCE AND COMMODITY PROGRAMS: This is the second post in a multi-part blog series analyzing the draft farm bill released on April 12, 2018 by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway (R-TX). The first was on beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers, the third on local/regional food systems, and the fourth on research and seed breeding. The bill is expected to […]
• DRAFT HOUSE FARM BILL: BEGINNING AND SOCIALLY DISADVANTAGED FARMERS: This is the first post in a multi-part blog series analyzing the draft farm bill released on April 12, 2018 by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway (R-TX). Subsequent posts focus on: crop insurance and commodity subsidies local/regional food systems and rural development, research and seed breeding, conservation, and organic agriculture. The bill is expected to be considered and […]
• RELEASE: DRAFT FARM BILL DELIVERS KNOCK-OUT PUNCH TO “TINY BUT MIGHTY” PROGRAMS:  Local/regional food system and rural development programs are among the hardest hit Washington, DC, April 13, 2018 – At a price tag of well over $800 billion dollars, the farm bill wouldn’t be considered by […]
• RELEASE: THE FACTS ABOUT WORKING LANDS CONSERVATION IN THE HOUSE DRAFT FARM BILL:  Yesterday, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway (R-TX) presented a draft farm bill to America’s farmers and ranchers that would eradicate the nation’s largest voluntary […]
• COMMENT: AMERICAN AGRICULTURE NEEDS A STRONG FARM BILL, DRAFT HOUSE BILL DOESN’T DELIVER:  Today, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway (R-TX) introduced his draft of the 2018 […]

As for the Farm Bill itself:

• Farm Bill (Nutrition on pp 223-305 /Nutrition Education on p. 292):
• Section-by-Section (Nutrition Begins on p. 24/Nutrition Education on p. 30)

I will never understand the push to increase dairy consumption in China.

Many if not most Asian adults lack the enzyme that digests the lactose in milk.  Undigested lactose tends to pass unscathed to the large intestine where bacteria ferment it, producing gas and diarrhea.

So why dairy products?

More protein to promote growth, is what they say.

An article in DairyReporter quotes Mintel research as saying the Chinese are eating more cheese, yogurt, and added protein.

The rising demand for dairy in China, growing at 6% to 7% rate annually, is teetering on outpacing volume growth of the category (increasing by 3% to 4% every year) as the country shows great interest in dairy products, according to Mintel.

The Chinese Nutrition Society issued updated dietary guidelines for Chinese consumers in 2016, recommending that each adult should consume 300 grams (10.6 ounces) of dairy products per day – current consumption is 100 grams (3.5 ounces).

The dairy industry is thrilled:

There is still opportunity for growth of dairy consumption in China, especially from lower tier markets, as a result of consumers’ growing awareness of nutrition intake, increasing household income levels, and the accelerated urbanization process.

Exporters of dairy products to China are particularly thrilled:

Imported dairy products are still in high demand due to the some food safety concerns surrounding China’s domestic dairy products leading to a consumer perception that international dairy products are of higher quality.

Environmentalists are not so thrilled.

One consequence: the replacement of sheep by cows in New Zealand, which now has heavily polluted waterways.

Another: China’s dairy farms are huge, with herds of 50,000 to 100,000 cows.  Just think of what their waste does to the environment.

While the farm bill is in play, it’s worth looking at what The Bipartisan Policy Center has to say about SNAP:

It provides evidence for a long list of recommendations for improving SNAP, among them:

• Make diet quality a core SNAP objective
• Eliminate sugar-sweetened beverages from SNAP eligibility
• Provide incentives for purchases of fruits and vegetables
• Authorize USDA to collect and share data on SNAP purchases

It also has recommendations for improving education of SNAP recipients, and no wonder.

This is an excellent follow-up to the 2012 SNAP to Health initiative in which I participated.  That report made similar recommendations.

Maybe now is the time?

It will take more than a weekend to figure out what is actually in this 641-page monster.

Its table of contents alone is 13 pages.

The House produced a section-by-section summary 

It also produced a quick overview of the top-ten highlights.

This draft calls for an expenditure of about $865 billion over 10 years.

Lots of groups have lots to say about this bill.

My favorite quote comes from Mike Conaway, chair of the House Agriculture Committee:

Except for the SNAP portion, this is a bipartisan bill.

Some exception.

The farm bill always presents a forest vs. trees problem.  It is an enormous collection of trees.

I found this one especially interesting: Sec. 4003. Gus Schumacher food insecurity nutrition incentive program.

If I understand it correctly, this is to fund pilot projects to promote fruit and vegetable consumption in low-income communities.  If it survives, it might be a fitting tribute to Gus, who died in 2017 after a long career promoting agriculture as a means to improve public health.

Happy reading.  No telling what will happen to this, but it will be interesting to watch.  Stay tuned.

I was fascinated to read in Global Meat News that the Australian agriculture department has had to come to the defense of eating kangaroo meat.

Australian animal welfare advocates oppose eating kangaroos, and some retailers are refusing to sell it.

Why eat kangaroos?

Last year, an increase in the kangaroo population in Australia led to industry experts’ encouraging consumers to eat more of the protein.  Government data revealed the kangaroo population grew from 27 million to under 45 million.

Kangaroo meat was also deemed a healthier choice for consumers by the Kangaroo Industries Association of Australia…who said that it was a nutritionally-rich and low-fat meat choice for consumers.

All of this reminded me of my experience with kangaroos in Australia a couple of years ago.

• They are ubiquitous in the countryside and fun to watch, especially when sparring.
• Restaurants serve kangaroo meat frequently.  I particularly enjoyed a Chinese restaurant that served Kung Pao Kangaroo.
• I once tried to bring small (110-gram) cans of kangaroo (and emu) meat back to the US, but New Zealand customs officers confiscated them for exceeding 3 ounces.

Remember way back when the FDA proposed updating the Nutrition Facts label?  It’s hard to keep track of the delays but the label, first proposed in 2016, is scheduled to appear in supermarkets near you by January 1. 2020 for manufacturers with $10 million or more in annual food sales and to January 1, 2021 for those below that amount.

In March, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced new guidances for perplexed food makers who still can’t figure out what they are supposed to say on labels.

• Guidance for Industry: Scientific Evaluation of the Evidence on the Beneficial Physiological Effects of Isolated or Synthetic Non-Digestible Carbohydrates Submitted as a Citizen Petition (i.e., Fiber)
• Draft Guidance for Industry: Declaration of Added Sugars on Honey, Maple Syrup, and Certain Cranberry Products
• Guidance for Industry: Proper Labeling of Honey and Honey Products
• Guidance for Industry: Reference Amounts Customarily Consumed: List of Products for Each Product Category
• Guidance for Industry: Food Labeling: Serving Sizes of Foods That Can Reasonably Be Consumed at One Eating Occasion; Small Entity Compliance Guide

The fiber guidance is particularly interesting.  FDA wants “dietary fiber” to have a proven health benefit, thereby excluding substances like chicory root, oat hulls, or other added plant components.

CSPI points out that the guidance is plenty clear enough, many food manufacturers are already using the new label, and the long delay is unnecessary.

I agree.  FDA: stop dilly-dallying on the food label.  The absurd delay makes it look like you are caving in to industry objectiosn.

It’s always seemed obvious to me that feeding hungry people would prevent nutritional deficiencies, and that feeding healthy diets to people who needed them would make them healthier.

We now have evidence.

The study appeared in Health Affairs:

For the people who received medically-tailored home-delivered meals, the net savings in medical costs was $220 per person per month.

For those just getting home-delivered meals, the savings was $10 per month per person.

These results are spectacular—nutrition programs hardly ever show effect sizes this large.

As the L.A. Times puts it,

The new study offers some clear evidence that even costly nutrition programs can pay handsome dividends when they are focused on low-income Americans who tend to have especially complex medical problems.

It quoted me:

New York University food and nutrition expert Marion Nestle, who was not involved with the study, called the savings almost too large to be real.  “If it were that simple: you just have to give people meals to keep them out of hospitals?” Nestle said. “Wow! I’m for it!”

I sure am.  Healthy home-delivered meals look like a great way to promote health and reduce health-care costs.  A win-win.

Here is another collection of Food Navigator articles on special topics from a food-industry perspective.

Special Edition: Sugar reduction and sweeteners

Food and beverage manufacturers have a far wider range of sweetening options than ever before, from coconut sugar to allulose, monk fruit and new stevia blends. This special edition looks at the latest market developments, the changing political landscape, formulation challenges and consumer research.

• FlavorHealth seeks to commercialize novel natural high intensity sweetener with a more sugar-like taste than stevia: New Jersey-based FlavorHealth – best known for using high-throughput cell-based screening to identify natural compounds that enhance sweetness and saltiness and reduce bitterness – is aiming to commercialize a novel natural high-intensity sweetener with a flavor profile it claims is much closer to sugar than stevia… Read

• Cargill launches EverSweet fermented steviol glycosides: EverSweet – the hotly-anticipated ‘next-generation’ Reb D and Reb M sweetener from Cargill and Evolva produced via fermentation – is now available in commercial quantities, say the partners, who have also struck a deal to explore whether other high intensity sweeteners could be produced in the same way… Read
• Icon Foods CEO: ‘Out of all of the projects that are in the R&D queue right now, allulose is dominating’: Allulose is the sweetener generating the most buzz among food formulators right now, although many are waiting to see if the FDA exempts it from sugar labeling (it’s technically a sugar, but it’s not metabolized like one), before launching products featuring the ingredient, says Icon Foods CEO Thom King… Read
• Stevia outshines aspartame as high intensity sweetener of choice in global new product launches in 2017: Mintel data* shared by stevia supplier PureCircle shows the number of global new product launches containing stevia grew by 10% in 2017, with stevia utilized in 28% of new products containing high intensity sweeteners, slightly ahead of aspartame – which featured in 25% of launches… Read
• Does diet soda promote weight gain? Debate rages in the courts as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, challenge ‘outlandish’ lawsuits: Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have urged courts to toss claims in a series of lawsuits* alleging consumers are being led to believe that diet sodas “will assist in weight loss or management,” when in fact the opposite may be true… Read
• Kill Cliff exec shares challenges in marketing specialty carbohydrates in age of sugar reduction: Atlanta-based Kill Cliff, a sports beverage brand focusing on clean label formulations, launched a new line of sports drinks called Endure, which features a slow-burning specialty carbohydrate, at the Natural Products Expo West show. However, the carbohydrate may be a double-edged sword….. Read
• ‘Entirely new’ approach to sensory testing is a gamechanger for taste evaluation, claims Opertech Bio. Opertech Bio has developed a novel approach to sensory testing utilising games and rewards, which it claims enables human testers to analyze hundreds of samples in a fraction of the time – and with a greater degree of accuracy – than is possible using traditional taste panel testing… Read
• Ongoing ‘war on sugar’ is not cause for ‘panic just yet,’ stakeholders say: Despite the escalating ‘war on sugar,’ including so-called sin taxes and manufacturers’ efforts to cut-back on the ingredient in some products, industry stakeholders remain confident sugar can hold its own against competing sweeteners and reduction efforts in the coming years… Read
• Mediterranean Umami may help savory applications reduce sugar and sodium: Salt of the Earth’s Mediterranean Umami may allow simultaneous sodium and sugar reduction in clean label foods like savory sauces… Read
• Yooga has ‘drastically less sugar’ than other plant-based yogurts, claims CEO: Multiple exhibitors at the Natural Products Expo West show were showcasing plant-based yogurts this year, but each with a slightly different slant, says Jody Polishchuk, who claims his product – Yooga – delivers on taste and nutrition, without as much sugar… Watch now
• New products from KIND Snacks offer reduced sugar for healthier alternatives to competing options: For KIND Snacks, rising consumer concern about sugar and upcoming changes to the Nutrition Facts panel that will more boldly highlight the nutrient represent an opportunity – rather than a threat – to set itself apart from the competition with new products that have reduced sugar but not reduced taste… Watch now
• Sugar taxes: The global picture in 2017: Sugar taxes have continued to gain momentum in 2017, but the introduction of new legislation is rarely straight-forward. We take a look at countries around the globe where sugar taxes have been making headlines this year… Read
• Pyure Brands: Amazon can be an ‘insanely disruptive’ platform for challenger brands: Amazon can be an “insanely disruptive” platform for challenger brands willing to put in the time and effort to understand how to maximize their prospects on the site, says Pyure Brands, which is giving far larger rivals a run for their money in the stevia-based sweeteners market… Read
• HEYLO! There’s a new sugar replacer in town… and this one’s a game-changer, says ex-PepsiCo exec: The term ‘game-changer’ is bandied around with wearying regularity by food start-ups, but HEYLO – a patented combination of acacia fiber and stevia promising to blow rivals out of the water in the sugar replacement stakes – may actually warrant this moniker, argues the firm behind the new clean label ingredient… Read
• Where next for natural sweeteners? In conversation with Layn USA: Monk fruit is still more expensive than stevia, but significant progress is being made on tackling the pricing and regulatory issues that have historically held the market back, says Layn Corp, a leading supplier of monk fruit and stevia based natural sweeteners… Read