--------- Forwarded message ---------- From: John Jackson <[email protected]> Date: Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 1:07 PM Subject: food justice news june 11 To: johnaimani <[email protected]>
** *To All Those Interested in Food and Justice... * * * A (usually) weekly update on food issues, promoting access to sufficient, affordable, healthy food ---with a focus on campaigns you can become active in! *Follow us *on Twitter @HungerActionLA . Welcome to all the new people on the list: please respond to [email protected] if you wish to use a different e mail or be removed *Monday June 11, 2012:* * * *Hunger Action LA News* * * *Actions:* *1. **State Budget* *2. **Farm Bill* * * *News:* *1. **County Officials Want To Crack Down on General Relief Program: Advocates Warn Measures Will Hurt The Poorest* *2. **Latinos At Higher Risk of Hunger in U.S. * *3. **UCLA Releases Data on Child Obesity* *4. **Food Workers Dont Earn Living Wage: 13% Need Food Assistance*** Hunger Action LA News ** Visit the HALA Website www.hungeractionla.org for news on Market Match, the Peoples Guide, current and past archived news articles and more *Next Hunger Action LA Meeting Friday June 22. *We are continuing our discussion on the congruence of urban agriculture, poverty, and the criminalization of growing and distributing food. The next meeting of the full group will be Friday June 22 at LAANE, 464 S Lucas Ave, LA CA 90017, from 10 am-Noon. For more information contact [email protected] [image: Text Box: actions] ** *State Budget Deadline Looms: Call In To Protect Vulnerable Families* * * June 15th is the constitutional deadline for the legislature to pass a budget and this is the final week to influence the legislature. Please focus on your State Senator and ask: No Rainy Day Fund No More Cuts to Health and Human Services We need more revenues than the Governors Revenue Initiative 1. *Need to find out who your state Senator is? *Dont worry, you need this information anyway. Go to 2. http://lacounty.gov/wps/portal/lac/government/ . 3. Go to Services Locator in the upper right of the page and enter your address and city. 4. Hit Enter 5. Scroll down to the bottom of the new page, look on your right hand side. Hey! Its a list of all your county and state representatives and their local phone numbers. Get on the horn with the message above * * *Farm Bill Is In Senate: Call Our Senators To Say No Cuts to SNAP* * * The federal government Senate Ag Committee has introduced S 3240, otherwise known as The Farm Bill. The Senate proposal includes a cut of about $4.5 billion out of the SNAP program. That includes taking away funding that will help millions of California families next year especially seniors and families with high utility bills to get more assistance. Please call the office of Senator Diane Feinstein and tell her we need to save the SNAP program from cuts in the Farm Bill. Ask her to support the Gillibrand amendment, which will restore the cut that is proposed. Senator Boxer has already signed on in support of this amendment. Senator Feinsteins phone number is: (202) 224-3841 Please tell the person you talk to on the phone: Hi, my name is _____________________________. Im very concerned about the Farm Bill that is being debated in the Senate.Please oppose any cuts to SNAP or any changes in eligibility for people participating in SNAP. Please support Senator Gillibrands amendment to restore the $4.5 billion being cut from SNAP *You can also help out in other ways:* 1- You can write an Op Ed about the Farm Bill. Share our Strength has provided a template you can use: check out our friends at CFPA on their website http://cfpa.net/calfresh/protect-snap-in-the-farm-bill-write-an-op-ed-to-your-local-newspapers 2- Pass this alert on to other folks. *More on the Farm Bill:* * * Conservative Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) have offered amendments to the farm bill that would greatly cut federal spending on food stamps. http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/budget/231555-sessions-paul-seek-big-cuts-to-food-stamps-in-farm-bill In a statement, the Obama administration said that while it supported the new farm bill, it opposed cuts to the food-stamp program and wanted deeper cuts to farm programs, including crop insurance. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/06/08/us/politics/farm-bill-advances-in-senate.xml * * Editorial: Farm Bill should protect hungry kids, not big insurance companies http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/rep-kirsten-gillibrand/the-farm-bill-should-prot_b_1574909.html LA Times: Four changes needed: This year's farm bill will allocate somewhere in the range of $100 billion a year, enough money to target such challenges as the obesity epidemic, water pollution, the loss of soil and biodiversity, and the need to usher in a new generation of farmers, ranchers and land stewards. But that would require at least four fundamental shifts. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-imhoff-farm-bill-20120608,0,7923048.story California farmers see mixed benefits in current Farm Bill proposal: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/06/06/3647479/senate-kicks-off-debate-on-farm.html *From Bread for the World:* During our Lobby Day tomorrow, Bread for the World members will personally deliver petitions to Congress that oppose the view that churches are solely responsible for feeding hungry and poor people. More than 30,000 people of faith signed these petitions. Even if you cant join us in person, you can participate in our virtual Lobby Day. Heres how: Call your U.S. senators and your U.S. representative using our special toll-free number: 1-800-826-3688. Tell them youre a Bread for the World member. Ask them to create a circle of protection around funding for programs vital for hungry and poor people in the United States and around the world. [image: Text Box: news] ** *County Officials Want To Crack Down on General Relief Program: Advocates Warn Measures Will Hurt The Poorest* * * Alexandra Zavis, LA Times: Concerned about growing welfare costs, Los Angeles County officials are considering additional measures to root out fraud and impose tougher sanctions on aid recipients who fail to comply with program rules ..But advocates for the poor contend the crackdown would end up denying help to some of the region's most destitute residents who are eligible for assistance. "They are absolutely going to cut the number of people" receiving general relief payments, said Jennifer del Castillo, an attorney with Public Counsel Law Center. "But they are going to do this by putting in place these administrative hurdles that people can't overcome, rather than eliminate people who shouldn't have GR." http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-welfare-rolls-20120611,0,7649315.story *Latinos At Higher Risk of Hunger in U.S. * Latinos living in the United States are more than twice as likely to be at risk of hunger than white, non-Hispanic households, according to Feeding America, a network of food banks that serve nearly six million people each week. http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/health/2012/06/06/hunger-among-latino-disproportionately-high/#ixzz1x3m3mwUE *A new Pew survey shows that only 40% of Republicans support safety net programs:* http://crooksandliars.com/blue-texan/new-pew-survey-only-40-republicans-supp *UCLA Releases Data on Child Obesity* The UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the California Center for Public Health Advocacy are releasing data of overweight and obese children by city. Over 250 California cities (populations over 20,000) were analyzed for the study. Here is the link to the public health advocacy website where you can find the entire report, state and county fact sheets, and recommendations: http://www.publichealthadvocacy.org/research_overweight2010.html *Food Workers Dont Earn Living Wage: 13% Need Food Assistance* Tiffany Hsu, LA Times: The roughly 20 million workers involved up and down the American food chain make up a sixth of the countrys entire workforce -- a fifth if you exclude public employees. But theyre not treated especially well, according to a new report. Researchers found that food sector workers outnumber healthcare, education and manufacturing employees and are responsible for annually producing $1.8 trillion in goods and services, more than 13% of gross domestic product. But just more than 1 in 10 of them earn a livable wage. The vast majority dont get basic benefits from their employers and dont have many opportunities for advancement. The food industry, according to the studys authors, could be endangering its workers and customers by forcing employees to operate in conditions of high stress and little payback. The median wage for a food industry worker is $9.65 an hour. Compared with the 8.3% of American workers on food stamps, 13.8% of food industry employees depend on the aid. http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-food-industry-workers-20120605,0,1730541.story Frank Tamborello Hunger Action Los Angeles 961 S. 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