May 6, 2008 (LPAC)--According to an column in the Washington Post today co-authored by former Senators George McGovern and Robert Dole entitled "A Slap at Schoolchildren," the current farm bill reduces by more than 90 percent the mandatory funding to feed hungry children. If the current law passes, funding for the program would go from $840 million over five years to $60 million this coming year. After that, there would be no guarantee of funding at all.

McGovern and Dole, who initiated the program, which the current farm bill would cut, demand that the farm bill conferees restore the full $840 million in mandatory funding for the "McGovern-Dole Program." "At a time when increasingly high food prices are pushing millions of families around the globe deeper into poverty, we must step up, not reduce, our efforts to feed hungry schoolchildren."