Child Nutrition A Big Deal. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack has been making a lot of noise lately when it comes to our kids in school and the food that they eat. I t has become a bit of heated issue in Washington as the Secretary and the First Lady push their school nutrition programs. Vilsack told an audience in Washington D.C. that they need as much as $1-billion more dollars to supplement these programs and that they need to be a top priority.

VILSACK: But then when you ask them how’re we going to pay for this you begin to get less interest in this issue because it requires a prioritization, it requires making decisions, it requires paygo and offsets and that makes this issue so difficult. It isn’t that people don’t want children to be well fed, it’s the question of where does it rank in terms of our priorities.

A lot of lawmakers are expressing resistance to the Administration's request for more money for child nutrition programs but Vilsack is adamant about better supporting schools.

VILSACK: Part of this effort and part of the resources we seek is to improve the quality – part of it is to make sure schools are adequately equipped and that school personnel have the resources and the training necessary to do a better job of making more nutritious options available. And part of it is making sure that parents and students have better education and understanding about nutrition and about what is being served, not only caloric content but all the other issues relating to food.

Bottom line according to Vilsack is the kids themselves.

VILSACK: Research shows that youngsters who are either obese or who are hungry simply do not learn as well as they ought to learn. And the reality is that these youngsters find themselves in a competitive world where they compete not just against youngsters in this country but youngsters around the world for economic opportunity. They have to be at the top of their game. They can’t be if they are hungry and they can’t be if they have self image issues associated with weight.

These programs serve nearly 32 million children each school day and work in concert to form a national safety net against hunger. Improving the Child Nutrition Act is the legislative centerpiece of First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! campaign and highlighted in the White House report Solving the Problem of Childhood Obesity Within a Generation released Tuesday, May 11.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.