House bill OKs white potatoes for WIC program

06/19/2012
Tom Karst

White potatoes are an arm’s length away from long-sought inclusion in the Women, Infants and Children voucher program for fruits and vegetables.

Aiming to reverse U.S. Department of Agriculture rules in place since the debut of the vouchers in 2009, the House Appropriations Committee approved an amendment to the fiscal year 2013 agriculture appropriations bill that allows potatoes to be purchased as part of the WIC nutrition program.

Women in the program receive $10 vouchers each month for fruits and vegetables, while children one to four years old receive $6 vouchers.

In 2010, 9.17 million participated in WIC.

According to the USDA’s Economic Research Service, the vouchers in 2009 were worth about $292 million in farm revenue for fruit and vegetable producers and about $600 million in retail sales.

House Appropriations Committee member Rep.. Michael Simpson, R-Idaho, offered the potato amendment.

The potato industry has been working for several years for white potatoes — sweet potatoes are already approved — to be included in the voucher system, said John Keeling, executive vice president and chief executive officer of the National Potato Council, Washington, D.C.

“The USDA allowed WIC mothers to use WIC vouchers to purchase white potatoes at farmers markets but they didn’t allow them to purchase the same thing at grocery stores,” Keeling said. “We have just been trying to set that right.”

Keeling said science and the way moms shop support including potatoes as the lowest-cost way to deliver many of the nutrients WIC mothers are deficient in.

The 2013 agriculture appropriations bill will be considered by the full House and then conference with the Senate version, Keeling said. The Senate legislation does not include the provision for potatoes.

When the House appropriations bill passes, it would then go to conference and be combined with the Senate version. Keeling said the industry will continue to work on making sure the amendment is in the House-Senate conference legislation.

“Frankly, we hoped that USDA would see the error in their ways and fix it now, and that’s what we have really been encouraging them to do,” Keeling said.

The National Potato Council is preparing a letter to send to the USDA with support from more than 50 House members.

‘Tremendous overreach’

Douglas Greenaway, executive director of the National Women, Infants and Children Association, Washington, D.C., said he is disappointed the amendment passed, making it the first time in WIC’s 38-year history that Congress interfered with the program’s approved foods.

Comments (3) Leave a comment 

When our WIC clients were poled this last week concerning the addition of white potatoes, the most common reply was ," I want fresh fruits and vegetables that I can't get out of the garden or at the local farmer's market. I doubt I will be buying potatoes with that voucher."

My brother is a widower raising an infant alone. The crazy instructional pamphlet he has for the scant amount of WIC food checks he receives reads like stereo instructions. For someone in mourning, trying to feed his daughter correctly, it is very time consuming and frustrating to get in line after carefully choosing items that he thinks are "ok" only to be told at the register he can't buy a bag of potatoes is really discouraging. Potatoes are inexpensive, children will usually eat them, and they are nutritional. From the looks of the brands of juice, cereals and canned goods that are approved, it hints of corporate intervention, in my opinion. I just added perfectly nutritional bags of frozen vegetable meals to his freezer that the baby will actually eat. It's hard enough for parents to get their kids to eat right, why make it even more difficult?