Last week, the House Appropriations Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Subcommittee marked up its Fiscal Year 2022 funding bill that included two priority issues for NPC and the U.S. potato industry: SCRI funding and a prohibition on excluding potatoes from the federal school breakfast program.
Since the 2018 Farm Bill inadvertently left out the matching fund waiver authority for the Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI), NPC and our potato industry partners have needed to request a waiver authority in each successive appropriations bills. At the request of NPC and the U.S. potato industry, this waiver authority was once again included in the FY22 Appropriations Bill marked up by the subcommittee.
In addition, the bill included language that prevents USDA from limiting potato access to the school breakfast program for the 2022-23 school year.