Providing Services to Migrant Farmworkers: Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children, and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program

Excerpts from the report Introduction: The first handbook on providing services to migrant farmworkers was distributed by the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) in 1979. Since that time, significant progress has been made in the delivery of migrant services. FNS recognizes, however, the need for additional technical assistance in order to continue to improve the accessibility of the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) to migrant populations. Therefore, this updated handbook brings together all pertinent program information and compiles it into a single resource document. The handbook is intended to serve as a comprehensive guide for State and local agencies administering WIC and CSF programs in areas where migrant farmworkers are employed. In addition, legislation which authorizes the WIC program, Public Law 95-627, requires USDA to report to the National Advisory Council on Maternal, Infant, and Fetal Nutrition on efforts to ensure, to the maximum extent possible, that WIC services are provided to members of eligible migrant populations as such persons move among States. Therefore, this handbook also serves as such a report. The WIC and CSF programs are part of the complex of public programs serving migrants. It is the intent of the WIC and CSF programs to provide needy migrant families with some protection against inadequate nutrition as well as to provide access to health care. The continuation of WIC or CSF program benefits to this population as it migrates during the year is an important step towards improving the health status of many at-risk pregnant women and their children -- now and in the years to come. Such benefits can only be acknowledged if significant efforts are made to provide program benefits to needy migrants regardless of where they live and work.