At USDA, Taking on Ambitious Goals and Intractable Problems

The most urgent change needed for the Obama USDA, according to the GAO and the Congressional Research Service, is improving the department's food safety inspections. At present, the USDA and 14 other departments and agencies administer a patchwork of food safety laws that often overlap and do not always make public safety the first priority.

For example, the USDA inspects packaged open-face meat sandwiches, with one slice of bread, and the Food and Drug Administration inspects packaged meat sandwiches with two slices of bread. The USDA does daily inspections of sandwiches, while the FDA inspects sandwiches an average of once every five years. Efforts to bring federal inspections under one agency have failed.

"We need to create a single agency that makes food safety its core mission," said Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.), chairwoman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture.

DeLauro said change is needed because the USDA is now playing a conflicting dual role. "They have a blurred mission: One is to promote a product and another to protect the public," she said.

Another Obama campaign pledge -- to end childhood hunger by 2015 -- also presents immediate challenges. The nation's economic crisis has pushed the number of families relying on food stamps to 30 million, an unprecedented high expected to climb as unemployment rates continue to rise.

Bush officials in the USDA say the demands are staggering.

Already, nutrition programs administered by the department cost $63 billion annually, representing two-thirds of the USDA's budget. One in five Americans are "touched" by the programs, meaning they either rely on one of them for food or have an immediate family member who does. Still, USDA officials said only 63 percent of those who qualify for the programs have been identified and enrolled.

Outreach efforts have intensified in both the public and private sectors, and the numbers are expected to rise.

"That is currently creating a budgetary stressor," said Kate Houston, the USDA's deputy undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services. "Although most programs are entitlement programs, there are some that are not. There's a finite amount of money set aside, and decisions will have to be made."

Food banks and pantries -- which operate largely using private donations but receive 20 percent of their food from the USDA -- have said they are stretched thin; over the past year, demand has increased more than 20 percent. That is mostly because of jumps in food prices, which mean the poor have trouble paying their grocery bills and food stamps do not stretch as far.

"They only last until about halfway through the month, which is when we see our clients turning to food banks," said Maura Daly, vice president of government relations for Feeding America, a national network of food banks.

Staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.