The International Fresh Produce Association submitted an eight-point plan of recommendations illustrating how fresh fruits and vegetables must be an integral part of the U.S. nutrition security blueprint, according to a news release.
The blueprint will be unveiled at the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health in September.
“IFPA and its board of directors believe our nation’s overweight and obesity epidemic cannot be reversed without a bold, targeted, systemic approach — a ‘fruit and vegetable nutrition moonshot’ by 2030 — to increase Americans’ fruit and vegetable consumption,” IFPA CEO Cathy Burns said in the release. “Now is the time to prioritize nutrition security for everyone. For fresh produce, there are barriers to that becoming a reality — some visible, some invisible — but overcoming all of them is why IFPA exists.”
IFPA’s recommendations call for:
- Embedding produce prescriptions as a covered benefit within the health system;
- Embedding a dedicated fruit and vegetable benefit within the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program;
- Expanding the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program to all elementary schools that qualify under the community eligibility provision and work toward expanding the program to all low-income middle and high schools;
- Recalibrating and modernizing USDA purchasing programs to address nutrition insecurity and reach additional communities and nonprofit entities;
- Promoting nutrition clarity in food labeling of fruits and vegetables at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration;
- Financially incentivizing fruit and vegetables for all Americans;
- Establishing a cabinet-level national director of food and nutrition to coordinate food and nutrition security research across governmental departments; and
- Collecting and analyzing purchasing data from all federal feeding and nutrition programs as a mechanism to measure alignment with, and progress toward, achieving nutrition security.
“This is an exciting time for our industry, as there is a lot of momentum around fruits and vegetables as the solution to diet-related disease,” IFPA Vice President of Nutrition & Health Mollie Van Lieu said in the release. “Systemic, scalable policy and programs are how we will embed and institutionalize the principle of ‘millions of mouths at a time’ and achieve the federal government’s dietary guidance to make half the plate fruits and vegetables.”
