Thinking like an economist ... about grocery stores

In a recent blog post, my Friedman School colleague Will Masters considers the differences in the economic incentives that manufacturers, restaurants, and supermarkets face when it comes to selling healthier food:

Today’s New York Times has a terrific news story about this frontier of research by their reporter Michael Moss. Moss just released a lively new book about how food manufacturers raise the levels of salt, sugar, fat and other ingredients in processed foods far beyond what you’d add in your own kitchen, while research at Tufts and elsewhere has shown similar problems in restaurant food. In contrast, grocery stores sell a lot of fruits, vegetables and other relatively healthy stuff, generally around the perimeter of the store. So, in the choice between processed foods, restaurant foods, and plain old groceries, what determines how consumers’ spend their hard-earned money?

Part of the answer is advertising.  I imagine other key factors are consumer tastes, demand for convenience, prices, and overall health orientation. The comments to Will's post are interesting.

Will, incidentally, this year won the prestigious Bruce Gardner Memorial Prize for Applied Policy Analysis from the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA).

Food Tank recommends books for fall 2013

Danielle Nierenberg and Anna Glasser at Food Tank this week listed Food Policy in the United States: An Introduction as a "must read" book for fall 2013.

Food Tank: The Food Think Tank was founded by Nierenberg (a graduate of the Friedman School at Tufts) and Ellen Gustafson. This video lays out the initiative's objectives.
 

Agribusiness reviews Food Policy in the United States

In the forthcoming issue of the journal Agribusiness, Neal Hooker reviews my book, Food Policy in the United States: An Introduction (Routledge/Earthscan, 2013).  Neal is an economist, a nationally known food policy expert, and professor at The Ohio State University.  He recommends the book warmly for university classes in food policy at the upper-level undergraduate and graduate levels.

So returning to the goal of comprehension, does this book deliver? Having taught food policy courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels and being faced with the challenge of an appropriate text with a strong disciplinary base, I believe the answer is yes. Detailed and timely enough to give more than a cursory description of the economics of policy in an important and salient area (food, always a good pedagogical vehicle for students), the book encourages the reader to learn more. Clearly enthusiastic and knowledgeable, Parke has distilled his understanding of the often complex U.S. food policy environment for many to explore.

Using the Visual Understanding Environment software from Tufts University to illustrate food industry input-output flows

This new visualization tool allows you to explore resource flows between industries.

For example, you can see how much meat and poultry flows into the restaurant food industry, and then how much restaurant food flows to the final consumer (all measured in billions of dollars per year). You can create your own diagram showing the industries and flows that you select, in any order you choose.

This project extends the capability of Tufts University’s Visual Understanding Environment (VUE).  I worked on this with Rebecca Nemec, Graham Jeffries, Mike Korcynski, and Jonelle Lonergan.  Our working paper (.pdf) gives instructions for using several practice data sets, or for downloading your own data from the federal government's Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).  Accompanying data files and a processing program are available on my department's working paper series page.

The best way to understand the capabilities of this visualization tool is to watch this video, also available full-size on Vimeo.

Visualizing Input-Output Data Using VUE from Tufts University - Online on Vimeo.

Josh Balk of HSUS at the Friedman School April 24

Josh Balk, director of corporate policy for the farm animal protection campaign of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), will speak at the Friedman School, tomorrow, Wednesday, April 24, at 12:15 pm, in the Behrakis Auditorium of the Jaharis Building on Tufts University's Boston Campus.

The abstract says:

His seminar will offer an exceptional opportunity to discuss the controversial strategies and tactics used by HSUS, addressing the vexing issue of animal welfare in a meat-eating society.

You may register to see a live stream of this presentation.

I will introduce the event and moderate a conversation afterwards.

I have been especially interested in the work of HSUS in recent years, following the organization's successful negotiation with leading egg industry associations about egg production practices and labeling.  You can read an impartial and even-handed summary of that agreement (.pdf) from the Congressional Research Service.

The Humane Society is one of the few major public interest organizations that shares my curiosity about the semi-governmental National Pork Board's questionable $60 million purchase of the "Other White Meat" brand from a leading pork industry trade association.

Reason Magazine highlights food policy

Baylen Linnekin's new column at Reason Magazine this week highlights the nationwide interest in food policy in recent years.

Linnekin gives at least four main examples, with links for more detail.

1. Emily Broad Leib's Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic (see our coverage earlier this year). 

For example, a recent Harvard Law School news article claims "there may be no hotter topic in law schools right now than food law and policy[.]" 

2. My new book Food Policy in the United States: An Introduction (Routledge/Earthscan).

“As a pundit once said, ‘When we leave farm policy to the experts, we actually leave it to the lobbyists,’” says Wilde, himself the author of the new book Food Policy in the United States. “This book pulls open the curtains and lets any interested reader understand the fundamentals of U.S. food policy.”

The pundit, by the way, was Ezra Klein.  Umm, may I say "pundit" is not pejorative?

3.  Oklahoma State University agricultural economist Jayson Lusk.  I have long admired Jayson's work and enjoyed contributing a chapter on food security to the multi-author handbook on the economics of food consumption and policy that Jayson co-edited for Oxford University Press a couple years ago.  After reading Linnekin's column, I have just this very minute pre-ordered Jayson's new book The Food Police.  It seems possible that Jayson's book will agree with one key theme of this blog (that government regulation sometimes overreaches badly) and perhaps downplay another (that more vigorous public sector action commonly is needed to advance the public interest, so we should all work together to make government more effective rather than undermining it).

Lusk, too, has a new food policy book out. In The Food Police, Lusk pushes back against what he sees as a dominant, pro-regulatory bent among food writers, which he calls “condescending paternalism.”

4.  David Gumpert's forthcoming book, which I also have just pre-ordered.

Still another such book, David Gumpert’s Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Food Rights, is set for release this summer.

As a nice timely hook to close this post, the Consumer Federation of America's annual Food Policy Conference begins today (April 15) in Washington, DC. If you attend, say hello to the two Friedman School graduate students who have set up a table with flyers and copies of Food Policy in the United States.

Obama proposes food aid reforms

President Obama's budget proposal includes several sensible reforms to U.S. food aid to other countries.

As Eric Muňoz at Oxfam America explains, "The proposal would end the practice of 'monetization' which provides cash to NGOs doing food security programs in developing countries but is highly inefficient and wastes a lot of money."

Also, the administration's proposal appears to reduce, but not eliminate, requirements that a large portion of U.S. food aid be purchased in the United States.  These requirements increase the aid programs' support among U.S. farmers, but generally are inefficient for meeting humanitarian assistance and development objectives.

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Rajiv Shah this week explained why local purchases closer to the recipient countries make more sense:

The President’s proposal reflects the growing, bipartisan consensus that the traditional approach to development must be modernized to help us efficiently meet the economic and moral challenges of our time.

The truth is that for years our practice in food assistance has lagged behind our knowledge. In the last decade, more than 30 different studies—from Cornell University to Lancet medical journal to the Government Accountability Office—have revealed the inefficiencies of the current system.

They’ve shown that buying food locally—instead of in the United States costs—much less—as much as 50 percent for cereals and as much as 31 percent for pulses. That’s because the average prices of buying and delivering American food across an ocean has increased from $390 per metric ton in 2001 to $1,180 today.

These costs eat into precious resources designed to feed hungry people—causing more than 16 percent of Title II funds to be spent on ocean shipping.

Buying food locally can also speed the arrival of life-saving aid by as many as 14 weeks. Those 98 days take on an entirely new meaning when you consider that waiting every additional day—every additional hour—can mean the difference between life and death.

Buying food locally is not only faster. It can also be a more effective approach to achieving our ultimate goal of replacing aid with self-sufficiency. In Bangladesh, we worked with Land o’ Lakes to buy cereal bars locally, helping create a commercially viable and nutritious product for the local market, while supporting U.S. jobs at home.

Shah's speech also highlighted the work of my Friedman School colleagues, led by Patrick Webb and Bea Rogers, to improve the nutritional quality of food aid.  Shah said, "In 2011, we completed a two-year food aid quality review in partnership with Tufts University that resulted in the most far-reaching improvements to U.S. food aid since 1966."

Demonstration kitchen at a clinic in Burkina Faso, West Africa, where mothers combine food aid products with local ingredients to help treat child undernutrition. Source: Patrick Webb 2008.

 

Update (later the same day): Corrected a name spelling as suggested in the comments. Thanks!

IOM's Food Forum announces a workshop on sustainable diets, May 7-8

The Institute of Medicine's Food Forum announces an upcoming workshop on a great topic:

Sustainable Diets:

 Food for Healthy People and a Healthy Planet   

May 7-8, 2013

The National Academies Auditorium 

  2101 Constitution Avenue, NW

Washington, DC   

The Institute of Medicine's Food Forum and Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine are  holding a 1.5 day workshop on “Sustainable Diets: Food for Healthy People and a Healthy Planet.” We hope you will attend. The workshop will explore current and emerging knowledge on the food and nutrition policy implications of the increasing strain on the natural resources in our food system, and seek to further discussion of how to incorporate environmental sustainability into U.S. dietary guidance policies.   

Visit here for more information and to register for the workshop. 

The agenda (.pdf) includes former USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan as keynote speaker, my Tufts colleague Christian Peters speaking about land use effects of dietary patterns, and myself speaking about consumer responses to economic incentives.

Panera Cares covered in the Friedman Sprout

In the February issue of the Friedman Sprout, the Friedman School's graduate student publication, M.E. Malone describes the innovative Panera Cares cafe in Boston:

Walk into the 1-month-old Panera Cares community café in Center Plaza across from Boston City Hall and look around. Notice anything different? There are great scents, a line at the counter, laptop-tapping at a nearby table, pleasantries exchanged about the weather – all the usual sights and sounds of a weekday morning caffeine rush.

But unlike the Panera cafés you may have visited before, this one doesn’t have prices listed next to the items on the menu board. Instead, there are suggested contributions. And, if you choose, you don’t have to pay anything at all for your meal. 

The Sprout also includes a review of the New England Journal of Medicine's list of weight loss myths, ways to keep active in Boston, and more.

Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic

For a couple years, I have been following the work of Emily Broad Leib and the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic.  The clinic has projects related to food access in the Mississippi Delta, school meals programs here in Massachusetts, state laws governing farmers markets, urban food initiatives, and more.  Several Friedman School students have been involved at one time or another.  The clinic keeps a blog describing activities, internships, and events.

For example, one upcoming event will be held jointly with the Friedman School and the Food Sol initiative at Babson College.

WHAT: Community Table

HOSTS: Members of the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic, Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, and Food Sol at Babson College

WHEN: Friday, March 29th 2013 from 12:00 – 2:00 pm

WHERE: Whole Foods Market, River Street Store, Community Room *Free and open to the public

Community Table is a hub and resource for students pursuing a personal or professional food focus. Conversation will center on what students of food policy, law, nutrition science, technology, business and entrepreneurship are up to in the field and directly support what each is working on (e.g. class, project, internship, job) with ideas, feedback and connections. Community Table is designed to be a relaxed, open brainstorming forum. Format is drop-in, so attendees should feel free to come and go as their calendars permit.

A concept for insurance company investment in community supported agriculture

Friedman School Ph.D. student Nicole Tichenor explains the concept of community supported agriculture (CSA) health insurance rebates on the Rodale Institute blog:

Here’s how it works: insurance policyholders read about member farms on the Coalition’s website, all of which are certified organic or have exempt status. They then contact a farmer directly to sign up and pay up front for the share, as with any traditional CSA. Finally, they fill out their respective health plan’s CSA rebate form (available online) and mail/fax it to the health plan with proof of payment and a copy of their sign-up form. A few weeks later, policyholders receive a reimbursement check for up to $100 for an individual contract or $200 for a family contract.

The FairShare partnership has been wildly successful.

From the Environmental Working Group: Good Food on a Tight Budget

Should dietary guidance advice encompass environmental issues?

The federal government's Dietary Guidelines for Americans document does address some issues beyond just diet, including both physical activity and food safety.  For a number of reasons, environmental issues are not yet included.

But several interesting efforts have gone further.

A classic source is the 1986 article "Dietary Guidelines for Sustainability," by Joan Dye Gussow and Kate Clancy (may be gated).

One more recent resource, which incorporates environmental issues into a dietary guidance graphic akin to MyPyramid or MyPlate is the Barilla Double Pyramid: "Good for you, sustainable for the planet."

Another resource, from Fall 2012, is the "Good Food on a Tight Budget" guidance from the Environmental Working Group.  In this video, EWG's Dawn Undurraga -- a Friedman School alum and former U.S. food policy student -- explains how the guide combines both diet and nutrition issues.

The most droll line in the video comes from a chef, who said (unless I misheard it!): "Income is not consistent with my life right now."

Dietitians discuss appropriate policies to govern corporate sponsorship at the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND)

The Hunger and Environmental Nutrition (HEN) practice group within the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND) has long been encouraging greater transparency about corporate sponsorship issues.  The AND (formerly known as the American Dietetic Association) serves as an influential advocate in U.S. nutrition policy and also as the professional association for registered dietitians.

My students and former students who are registered dietitians have worried about AND corporate sponsorships.  They send me a steady stream of awkward examples of ill-chosen sponsorships, for example with sugar sweetened beverage companies and meat checkoff programs.  One Friedman School graduate student, Ashley Colpaart (who for some years co-blogged here at U.S. Food Policy), has been proposing reforms for AND's corporate sponsorship practices for many years.

Other Friedman School graduate students conducted analyzed a survey of dietitians last year, noting that many dietitians share at least some of these concerns [small edit Feb. 3].  The article was an important source for Michele Simon's hard-hitting and highly critical report this week on AND corporate sponsorship.  The students, Lauren Adler, Alyssa Koomas, and Catherine Wright, wrote:

ADA’s corporate sponsorship program has become a topic of public discussion in recent years. A total of 370 HEN members were surveyed to shed light on member opinions of the corporate sponsorship program and whether our DPG approves or disapproves of the program. The majority of survey respondents appear to disapprove of the corporate sponsorship program, indicating that it negatively impacts their public image as food and nutrition professionals. Additionally, 61% of respondents were willing to pay higher ADA membership fees in order to decrease reliance on corporate sponsors.

In a letter to AND leadership last year (.pdf), some Hunger and Environmental Nutrition practice group members recounted the common experience of having their own independence called into question by others who were aware of the Academy's corporate sponsorship relationships:

[R]egardless if they are real or perceived, the influence of Academy corporate  sponsors has not only sparked scrutiny among journalists, but has led to several conversations in which members have had to defend these relationships and the profession at national conferences and forums. These confrontations have led to rising humiliation and a growing discomfort while fulfilling the role as Delegates. In some instances, this has led to long-­‐time members leaving the organization. We urge the Academy to uphold more transparent and stricter guidelines on access of corporate  sponsors to Academy leadership and to remove their presence at meetings, such as HOD [the AND House of Delegates], in which decisions about the profession and/or the organization are made. This will avoid conflict of interest, advance transparency, maintain professional and organizational integrity, and establish a more credible national presence.

It is difficult for any professional association to find a business model that works, providing needed support for association activities without conflicts of interests.  For example, the HEN practice group itself last year sought to develop its own policies for sponsorships (.pdf), describing the ideal potential sponsors as companies with a combination of nutrition and environmental virtues. I wish them well finding such terrific sponsors, but, realistically, we should admit that giving up compromised sponsorships may imply accepting a smaller scale of operation and revenue for a professional association.

Even recognizing those difficulties, it would have been wise for AND to listen to the input from its own internal rank and file.  As an outsider to AND, nutrition policy advocate Michele Simon offers much harsher criticism of the Academy in her report this week. With hindsight AND leaders might wish they had listened more sympathetically to internal concerns before matters came to this point.

When Marion Nestle blogged about this issue yesterday, generally agreeing with Simon's report, some of the open comments from dietitians were defensive, while others agreed with the concerns about corporate sponsorship.  Nestle has a very good follow-up post today, responding to the discussion so far.  The New York Times also covered this issue, which is unlikely to just fade away any time soon.

TuftsNow: Counsel for the second term

Timed to coincide with the inauguration, Tufts University's online news and features site TuftsNow this week invited six faculty members to offer comments in advance of the second Obama administration.

Harris Berman (dean of the School of Medicine) addressed health care. James Glaser (dean of academic affairs in Arts and Sciences) focused broadly on legislative opportunities. Michael Klein (Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy) tackled economics. Sociologist Helen Marrow discussed immigration reform. Chris Swan (associate dean in the School of Engineering) emphasized infrastructure. And I commented on food policy. 

Parke Wilde, associate professor, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy; author of the forthcoming book  Food Policy in the United States: An Introduction (Routledge/Earthscan).

As a nation, we face important challenges related to food and agriculture. We hope for environmentally sustainable farming and meat production, we wish for less hunger and poverty, and we want better protection from chronic diseases and unsafe food. I know that these things are beyond the president’s power to accomplish alone. For example, I know it was mainly our broken Congress, and not the administration, that dropped the ball and left the Farm Bill uncompleted in 2012. Looking ahead, here are some priorities:

Improve agricultural policy. Traditionally, U.S. policymakers have worried that food prices are too low, and farmers are less prosperous than non-farm households on average. Now environmental constraints and a growing world population have increased prices and raised concerns about food scarcity. This scarcity is mostly a challenge, but it does also present an opportunity to reform U.S. agricultural policy. Support reforms to traditional crop subsidies, limit payments to high-income farmers, and resist the temptation to use subsidized crop insurance and corn-based biofuels incentives as a back door to maintaining outdated subsidies.

Improve the healthfulness of food retail and marketing. Continue to support the First Lady’s Let’s Move campaign, including promoting local retail access to healthy foods using moderate budgetary support, taking some care to avoid unnecessary supermarket subsidies. If some health-promotion measures are too bold for legislators to support today, such as soda taxes or marginal changes to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, then conduct pilot programs with strong evaluation designs to collect the information for sensible future policy decisions.

Protect food safety and the environment. Vigorously implement the new Food Safety Modernization Act. Raise awareness of the role of the food system in water scarcity, soil loss and climate change. Americans are a decent people. We might be willing to get along with less meat, less packaging, less energy intensity and less waste if we have the right price signals and a clear vision of how to do so.

Link between television and weight

In the current issue (.pdf) of the magazine Tufts Nutrition, Jacqueline Mitchell describes recent research on television viewing and weight status.

Americans spend an average of more than 150 hours a month in front of the television — that’s six days—and never mind other sedentary hours we spend with computers or mobile devices. As our screen time has exploded, so has the national waistline. Two-thirds of adults are overweight, and childhood obesity has more than doubled in the last 20 years.

One reason obesity may be on the rise is that people who watch a lot of television may eat more, particularly pizza, soda and other fast foods, according to a recent Tufts study that evaluated 30 years of research linking TV viewing with weight gain. The paper, written by four students and their adviser, Robin Kanarek, Ph.D., interim dean of the Friedman School, was published online in the June 4 edition of Physiology and Behavior....  The research by Kanarek and the students—Rebecca Boulos, N13; Emily Vikre, N08, N13; Sophie Oppenheimer, N11, MPH11; and Hannah Chang, A10—also indicated that television can shape societal views about overweight and obese people.

New Entry Sustainable Farming Project

Tufts University's New Entry Sustainable Farming Project was covered this week in the Boston Globe, which described the project's matchmaking service connecting new farmers to both mentors and tillable land.

New Entry uses GIS mapping data to screen for potential farm plots.

The map sets contain a long list of criteria to distinguish individual parcels. For example, New Entry can filter the parcels based on size, ownership, zoned usage, and the quality of the soil.

The system is so sophisticated it can pick out suburban homesteads with large patches of unused land, so New Entry was no longer limited to looking at obvious candidates, such as existing farms.

The screenings are used to narrow the farmland hunt to the best candidates to approach about allowing use their land.

Once New Entry identifies sites, it approaches agricultural officials in the towns involved to work with landowners interested in turning over property to farmers.

See the project's website for an inspiring array of resources and training programs for both farmers (including a special focus on small-scale immigrant farmers in Massachusetts) and consumers.

December issue of the Friedman Sprout

The December issue of the Friedman School's graduate student publication, the Friedman Sprout, came out today.  It includes articles on the local Slow Food chapter, how to survive a New England winter, craft ideas, and book reviews.  I was interviewed for an article on the Prop 37 vote in California over GMO foods.

October Friedman Sprout: Organic issue

The Friedman Sprout (the Friedman School's graduate student newspaper) has just posted its October issue, with an organic food theme.

Welcome to our Organic Issue! Here at Friedman, organic and local foods are more synonymous with lunch than peanut butter and jelly.  But more and more it's not just nutrition students who care about where their food is from and how it's grown.  In fact, a study on organic food and health recently stirred up some national controversy.  We break down the research for you in this issue.  We also feature an alumni interview with Jody Biergiel, who certifies organic farmers and handlers as Director of Handler Certification for CCOF.  In addition, read on to find a delicious recipe featuring organic apples, a restaurant review of a local organic restaurant, and a spotlight feature of Friedman's own organic garden.

Check out our very own organic vegetable garden.

After WIC package revisions, mixed changes in breastfeeding outcomes

A Tufts press release last week describes recent research by Ann Collins, Meena Fernandes and Anne Wolf at Abt Associates, and myself, which was published in the September 2012 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN) (may be gated). 

In 2009, the federal government’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) changed the make-up of its food packages to meet several nutritional goals, including stronger promotion of breastfeeding. For new mothers participating in WIC, there were mixed outcomes after implementation of the policy change, according to an analysis from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science Policy at Tufts University and the global research and program implementation firm Abt Associates.

WIC provides three main food packages for mothers and infants: a full breastfeeding option with no infant formula but more supplemental food for the mother, a partial breastfeeding option with some formula, and a full formula option with less supplemental food for the mother. Among other changes, the new 2009 policy, called an “interim rule,” lowered the amount of infant formula in the partial breastfeeding option.

By studying administrative records of more than 206,000 mother-infant pairs from 17 local WIC agencies (LWAs) nationwide, the researchers found that more mothers received the full breastfeeding option after the 2009 package change but more mothers also received the full formula option. Fewer mothers received the partial breastfeeding option.

In the first four weeks following birth, the percentage receiving the full breastfeeding option increased from 9.8% to 17.1% and the percentage receiving the full formula option increased from 20.5% to 28.5%. The percentage receiving the partial breastfeeding option fell from 24.7% to 13.8%. The remaining mothers fell into other miscellaneous classifications.

After the implementation of the interim rule, there was a small increase in the amount of infant formula provided in the first month of life (548.6 fluid ounces to 559.6 fluid ounces per mother). The percentage of mothers who “initiated”, or reported trying to breastfeed the infant at least once, remained unchanged at approximately 65%.

“There had been some hope that breastfeeding initiation would increase after the policy change,” said Parke E. Wilde, Ph.D., corresponding author and an associate professor at the Friedman School. “While this did not happen, the good news is there was no decrease in the breastfeeding initiation, and more mothers did, at least, adopt the full breastfeeding package.”

The article in the AJCN also discusses opportunities for WIC to make further progress in breastfeeding promotion.

“We asked WIC participants about the point in time when they made their decisions about breastfeeding and what helped them when they made their choices about the decision to breastfeed,” said senior author Ann Collins, a principal associate at Abt Associates.  “More than three quarters of the women reported that they had decided before delivery how they wanted to feed their baby. What’s more, more than 84% of women reported that information on breastfeeding from WIC was ‘important’ or ‘very important.’ These findings suggest that special efforts by WIC agencies to reach out to WIC participants during pregnancy with information on breastfeeding could be very beneficial.”

The analysis does not account for all factors that changed during the same time period, for example the volatility of the 2009 economy. The study compared outcomes in the three months before the policy change and the nine months afterward.

The study also is a "recent featured journal article" on the Abt Associates front page.  The analysis was conducted with the support of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service.  [Minor edit Sep 27:] The views and opinions expressed by the authors of the journal article do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

There is a lot happening on the topic of further improving WIC's impact on breastfeeding.  Here are some links.  A longer report (.pdf) from this same research effort is available on the USDA FNS website.  An excellent literature review (.pdf) by Silvie Colman and coauthors helps put the new study in the context of a larger body of research.  In another report, Nancy Cole and colleagues explain the various detailed options selected by different states (.pdf), which is important for understanding how the changes actually were implemented.  A workshop summary (.pdf) posted on the FNS site describes a wide variety of ambitious options for future research.

Figure 1.  Food packages issued to new mothers, by age of infant.

(click for larger image)

Food aid reforms would be like money back on your grocery bill

Oxfam America and the American Jewish World Service (AJWS) explain here how much money could be saved -- and how many more hungry people could be fed -- if the United States reformed its food aid programs. Some of the key reforms include eliminating a rule that most food must be sourced from the United States and shipped in U.S. ships.

For more detail on such issues, the best book is Food Aid After Fifty Years, by Chris Barrett at Cornell and my colleague Dan Maxwell here at the Friedman School at Tufts. A good recent report comes from the GAO: Local and Regional Procurement Can Enhance the Efficiency of U.S. Food Aid, but Challenges May Constrain Its Implementation.