Farm Bill Requests Abound at California Listening Session
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program received a lot of support at a farm bill listening session held in Modesto, California, as hunger advocates and academics from the state's Central Valley urged House lawmakers to protect and even expand the program to benefit families, food banks, farmers markets and California fruit and vegetable growers... Denise Hunt, a registered nurse and representative on the Stanislaus County Children and Families Commission, cited data showing high rates of children in poverty on the San Joaquin Valley. A recent report from the UC Davis Center for Regional Change said that while the Valley "includes the top agricultural producing counties in California, almost 400,000 of the region's children live in poverty and seven of the 10 counties with the highest child poverty rates in the state are in the Valley."