Today the Senate Committee on Agriculture considers legislation to reauthorize the federal child nutrition program. This legislation, "Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010, was recently introduced by Chairman Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. This legislation is critical to our nation's efforts to eliminate child hunger and reduce child obesity, especially for our most vulnerable, low-income children.

The bill would provide $4.5 billion in new funding for child nutrition over 10 years, and would support much needed investments in child nutrition programs. While this increase is less than what was called for in the President's proposed budget and less than what is really needed, it nonetheless represents a major step forward in the nation's efforts to reduce child hunger and child obesity, especially given the current economic and budgetary environment at the federal level.

The Chairman's mark offered by Senator Lincoln takes several major steps forward in attacking child hunger and providing the nutritious meals and snacks that low-income children need to thrive and succeed. It allows schools in high poverty areas to offer free meals to all of their students, without the usual paperwork and administrative burdens. It expands access to afterschool meals for at-risk children nation-wide through the Child and Adult Care Food at-risk afterschool program. It adds foster care children, among our most vulnerable children, to the list of children who are automatically eligible for free school meals. It eliminates unnecessary paperwork and red tape that can stand in the way of children receiving meals in child care settings.

The Chairman's mark also takes significant steps to reduce child obesity and improve child health. To improve the nutritional quality of food in the schools, the bill gives the Secretary of Agriculture the authority to establish national nutrition standards for all foods sold on schools during the day. The bill also takes other bold steps to improve nutrition quality, including providing mandatory funding to pilot innovative local farm-to-school programs that would provide more healthy and nutritious foods for children.

AACF thanks Chairman Lincoln and members of the Committee for their hard work and for making the reduction of child hunger and child obesity a top priority in the child nutrition bill. We are committed to working with Chairman Lincoln and the Committee to develop and pass a strong child nutrition bill that improves the well-being of Arkansas's children.