USDA asks for comments on Buy American for school lunch, breakfast

The Agriculture Department’s Food and Nutrition Service has published a notice in the Federal Register asking stakeholders for their views on how the Buy American policy applies to the school lunch and breakfast program.

A Buy American Coalition led by the California Canning Peach Association and including the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters favors stricter enforcement of Buy American provisions for school meals and has been urging officials in the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Agriculture Department to enforce the policy. The coalition has also urged the Senate Agriculture Committee to address the issue in the reauthorization of child nutrition programs.

–The Hagstrom Report