12/11/06 WIC Changes Concern Milk Industry

WIC Changes Concern Milk Industry. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. The mission of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women  Infants - and Children  or WIC - is to safeguard the health of low-income women  infants - and children up to age 5 - who are at nutrition risk. Milk has long been considered a key component to any nutrition program. But if a USDA proposal is implemented  milk will be replaced in the program with other products. Simply put  the pie is not growing but the sizes of the slices are being changed. Chris Galen  Senior Vice President of the National Milk Producers Federation  explains. GALEN: In order to increase the slice of the pie or the size of the basket for fruits and vegetables, they have to reduce the portion that goes for dairy products, fluid milk and cheese primarily and so that certainly has the National Milk Producers Federation concerned. Galen says the milk industry has a message for USDA. GALEN: The whole idea behind having this women, infants and children program is that there are certain nutritional needs that are met by the government providing vouchers to purchase these foods. And dairy foods are very nutrient rich as we all know they have a lot of protein, they have a lot of calcium, vitamins A and D and other minerals. And if you reduce the amount of cheese and milk available to the WIC population, that means then you're not making certain that they have the right nutrition so that's the message that we are delivering to the USDA as they consider making this change. Nutritionists and anti-hunger organizations are supporting the proposed change to include more fruits and vegetables available to participants in the WIC program. GALEN: I think that we all agree that we should be eating more fresh fruits and vegetables and we're not arguing against that. But the way the USDA is going about it is that rather than trying to get more money, have Congress appropriate more money so that you can have both the fruits and vegetables plus the dairy products, its robbing Peter to pay Paul. You either have to have the current dairy allocation and not as much fruits and vegetables or if they spend more on the fruits that means less money for dairy so I think the nutritionists and the people representing the WIC program are well intentioned but we also want them to recognize that you have a lot of bang for your buck from milk that you don't get from a lot of fruits and vegetables. The proposed changes in the Women - Infants - and Children program are tentatively scheduled to be placed into action next September. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.