According to the latest Food Research and Action Center's School Breakfast Report Card, New Jersey currently ranks last in the number of schools participating in school breakfast programs and 50th in the number of low-income students participating in those programs. Only 24.4 percent of those students who are enrolled in the school lunch program are also enrolled in the school breakfast program. Only 43.6 percent of the schools that participate in the school lunch program also participate in the school breakfast program.

In January 2003, Governor McGreevey signed a school breakfast bill requiring schools with 20 percent or more students eligible for free/reduced priced meals to offer a school breakfast program. The bill requires that targeted schools with grades K- 6 submit a plan for a school breakfast program to the Department of Agriculture by November 2003, with implementation of the program by September 2004. All other targeted schools will have to submit a plan by November 2004, with implementation by September 2005. The Division of Food and Nutrition provided training and technical assistance to targeted schools and model plans for implementation of breakfast programs have been reviewed and approved.

Since 1994, The Women, Infant and Children (WIC) Farmers Market Program, has created an excellent opportunity to provide Jersey Fresh fruits and vegetables to a segment of the nutritionally at risk population who wouldn't normally purchase farm fresh produce. In 2002, the WIC Farmers Market Program served more than 38,000 New Jersey children, infants and breastfeeding women.

Making elderly citizens eligible for the Senior Farmers Market Program during the 2003 growing season further expanded the nutritional benefits of farm fresh produce to over 23,000 economically disadvantaged senior citizens who participated in the pilot program. A sound, balanced, nutritional diet is important to the well being of society both in terms of the future productivity of our children and the health and well being of the population in general.

We applaud the New Jersey Agricultural Society’s Farmers Against Hunger Program, which through its gleaning and distribution programs reach our needy. Farmers Against Hunger distributed 1.5 million pounds of food to over 6,000 families in 2003. Over 500,000 pounds came from our New Jersey farmers through the gleaning and donation programs.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that we, the delegates to the 89th State Agricultural Convention, assembled in Long Branch, New Jersey in February 4, 2004, support the WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program and Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program and encourage the New Jersey Congressional Delegation to support and sponsor the movement in Washington, D.C., to increase federal funding in the USDA's budget for both the WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program and the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program in 2004.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that all of the food banks in New Jersey, Tri-County Community Action Agency, and Farmers Against Hunger continue to collaborate in their efforts to collect excess produce from farms and distribute this produce to needy families through the NJ Produce Recovery Network.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we support full Title 32 funding from USDA to ensure the provision of bonus food commodities through The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) to more than 250,000 families via emergency food pantries, soup kitchens and homeless shelters throughout New Jersey to be used in the preparation of more than 300,000 meals per month.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, recognizing that children learn eating habits at home as well as at school, we support and encourage the dedication of additional funding for the Rutgers Cooperative Education Family and Consumer Science Program to provide healthy lifestyle education to all citizens of New Jersey regardless of income level.