Amid the cacophony of confirmation hearings for Cabinet nominees, President-elect Donald Trump reportedly has settled on former : secretary of agriculture. Although consumers may simply think of the Department of Agriculture (USDA) as responsible for overseeing the farming industry, it also plays a .
The department is聽influential in maintaining the nation’s health in four key areas:
Nutrition Assistance
Although food insecurity across the nation has declined in recent years, the USDA . The department helps address this problem by managing the nation’s food assistance initiatives.
The (SNAP) is among the best known of those efforts. SNAP, formerly called food stamps, provides a monthly stipend to eligible residents through an Electronic Benefit Transfer, or EBT, card to use at any qualifying grocer. Since its inception, SNAP has become the nation’s largest safety net for the hungry, feeding more than last year.
Other pivotal food assistance comes through the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program, which provides benefits to pregnant and nursing women and children up to their fifth birthday. WIC has
Older children also receive help through USDA initiatives that provide low-cost food at school.聽Kids from families with incomes below 185 percent of the poverty threshold 聽(nearly $38,000 for a family of three) can receive breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks there for little to no cost.聽The National School Program helped serve low-cost lunches to an average of each day in 2015.
When school is not in session, the Summer Food Service Program distributes meals at public areas such as churches and playgrounds. This program helped feed 2.6 million children .
Supporting Rural Medicine聽
The Department of Agriculture provides a variety of grants to help rural communities meet their health needs.
Among those efforts is the Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grants, which distributes millions of dollars to strengthen telecommunications in rural communities and increase access to . The money has been , including setting up a tele-pharmacy dispensing system in Alaska and connecting a medical school to rural clinics in Georgia.
Access to clean water is also a priority for the department. Water and waste disposal grants are available to federally recognized tribal lands, communities along the U.S.-Mexico border and rural towns. The and, in some cases, outfit homes with new plumbing.
Health Education
For decades, the USDA has been involved in efforts to educate Americans of all ages how to keep off excess weight and lead a healthy lifestyle.
Since 1969, the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program to develop healthy diet and exercise habits and educate them about food safety.
The program uses peer educators from the participants’ communities and operates in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and six territories.聽In 2015 alone, .
Agriculture also plays a hand in developing the nation’s nutritional guidelines. In partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services, the department issued the . The report outlines five key strategies to develop healthier eating patterns, as well as templates to maintain healthy Mediterranean and vegetarian diets. Online tools to assist in healthy eating, such as , are also maintained by the department.
Preventing Foodborne Illness Nationally And In Your Home
The USDA helps protect the food supply through the Food Safety and Inspection Service. the importation of meat, poultry and egg products by issuing safety certifications to some foods from other countries and auditing their food inspection systems.
Domestically, the same agency monitors food processing and distribution through microbiological testing. It also maintains a system .聽For consumers, the office maintains a USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline to answer individual questions about food preparation.
