The Agricultural Act of 2014 required the establishment of a Multi-Agency Task Force to provide coordination and direction for USDA Foods administered by FNS. FNS submits this report to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry and the House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture.
The Agricultural Act of 2014 required the establishment of a Multi-Agency Task Force to provide coordination and direction for USDA Foods administered by FNS. FNS submits this report covering the period of January 2021 through July 2022 to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry and the House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture.
FNS conducted a study of the first two years of this demonstration to describe the implementation process and explore the effects on certification, participation, federal reimbursements, and state administrative costs. This report presents the findings from the first year of the demonstration evaluation, school year 2016–17.
The 2014 Farm Bill established a Multi-Agency Taskforce to provide coordination and direction for U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) foods administered by the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS). The Task Force is responsible for evaluating and monitoring USDA commodity programs to ensure that through the distribution of domestic agricultural products, the programs support the U.S. farm sector and contribute to the health and well-being of individuals in the United States. This third annual report to Congress describes the activities of the taskforce in 2017.
This report responds to the requirement of PL 110-246 to assess the effectiveness of state and local efforts to directly certify children for free school meals.
This study—authorized by the 2010 Child Nutrition Act—tests innovative strategies to end childhood hunger and food insecurity.
The Food and Nutrition Service conducted the Direct Certification with Medicaid (DC-M) demonstration that enables selected States and districts to use household income data from Medicaid files to directly certify students for free school meals. This report focuses on the experiences of States and districts conducting DC-M during School Year (SY) 2013-2014, the second year of the demonstration. It examines whether DC-M leads to changes in the percentage of students certified, the number of meals served, Federal reimbursements, and certification costs incurred by districts. It also assesses State-level administrative costs and identifies the challenges that States and districts face when implementing DC-M.
This report responds to the requirement of PL 110-246 to assess the effectiveness of state and local efforts to directly certify children for free school meals. Direct certification is a process conducted by the states and by local educational agencies to certify eligible children for free meals without the need for household applications.
This report uses statistical modeling techniques to assess the relationship between direct certification performance and specific State practices, seeking best practices and providing recommendations for States to use when developing their Continuous Improvement Plans.
The evaluation analyzed administrative data acquired from the six States that participated in the 2012 Enhanced Summer Food Service Program (eSFSP) Demonstrations to examine the impact of the demonstrations on participation. It found that the impacts on participation were mixed. For the Backpack demonstration, sites in one State increased the number of children and meals served, sites in another State served more meals but did not increase the number of children served, and both meals and children served decreased in the third State. Analysis of the Meal Delivery demonstration indicates the demonstration likely increased the number of children served.