FNS Documents & Resources

This information collection is requesting a revision to the previously approved burden hours due to program adjustments that primarily reflect expected changes in the number of SFMNP state agencies, individual/households (program recipients), and the number of farmers, farmers' markets, roadside stands, and CSA programs, from year to year.

Attached is the 2017 Edition of Accommodating Children with Disabilities in the School Meal Programs. This guide provides guidance on the requirement for school food authorities to ensure equal access to Program benefits for children with disabilities, which includes providing special meals to children with a disability that restricts their diet.

This policy memorandum includes important updates to requirements related to accommodating children with disabilities participating in the school meal programs.

This memorandum and its attachment supersede SP-37-2011, Child Nutrition 2010: Enhancing the School Food Safety Program. Attached are questions and answers regarding the school food safety requirements for schools participating in FNS child nutrition programs.

This memorandum satisfies GAO’s recommendations for the Food and Nutrition Service to issue more specific guidance to states and school districts regarding the applicability of the food safety inspections requirement in schools that do not prepare food, such as those that only serve pre-packaged meals or meals delivered from a central preparation location (referred to in this memorandum as service-only sites). 

The purpose of this proposed rule is to incorporate this procurement option in the programs' regulations and to define the term "unprocessed locally grown or locally raised agricultural products'' to ensure that both the intent of Congress in providing for such a procurement option is met and that any such definition will facilitate ease of implementation for institutions participating in the child nutrition programs.

This final rule incorporates into the Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program regulations, statutory provisions set forth in the Farm Bill of 2008. The three provisions include adding honey as an eligible food for purchase with SFMNP  benefits, prohibiting the value of SFMNP benefits from consideration as income or resources when determining eligibility for other programs under any federal, state or local law, and prohibiting the collection of state or local tax on a purchase of food with a benefit distributed under the SFMNP.

A number of schools nationwide are still having difficulty obtaining the two food safety inspections required by the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004. Although FNS realizes that many of the difficulties schools face are beyond their control, we would like to stress that local program operators are responsible for requesting the food safety inspections from the public health department and documenting their efforts.

This memo clarifies how the food safety inspection requirement is to be carried out by program operators on military bases, Indian reservations and Residential Child Care Institutions (RCCIs).