WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. John Baldacci expressed concern Wednesday over the Bush administration’s proposal to eliminate funds for programs that provide supplementary food for low-income seniors, women and children.

This is “unacceptable, especially for … programs with such clear means that demonstrate a track record of success,” Baldacci said during a press conference with fellow members of Congress and Seniors Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program officials. “I encourage the administration to fully fund these programs because they are so critical.”

The program for seniors and a similar program for low-income women, infants and children provide vouchers to qualified participants who then can use them to buy fresh produce, dairy products and meat directly from farmers who support the programs.

Baldacci, a member of the House Agriculture Committee, long has promoted the Maine Senior Farm Share Program – an offspring of the federal Seniors Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program. Baldacci said that rather than see the programs eliminated, he wants to increase funds to compensate for the program’s rising popularity among low-income seniors in Maine.

Others at the press conference said they were surprised when they first heard of the administration’s proposal to cut the programs.

“I kind of felt like I was punched in the stomach,” said Jim Duffy, a Maryland Agriculture Department official.

Duffy was among the 20 or so farmers, nutritionists and others at the press conference who questioned how programs they said are beneficial to both farmers and recipients could be sacrificed. They asked what they could do to save the programs.

“Don’t take no for an answer,” Baldacci said.

Ned Porter, a spokesman for the Maine Agriculture Department, which runs the Maine Senior Farm Share Program, also said he could not understand the reason for cutting the popular national program.

“I see no justification in cutting it,” Porter said. “It’s got some strong champions. … It’s a winner all around.”

Under Bush’s proposed budget, funding for the Seniors Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program and the Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program – a subsidiary of the Agriculture Department’s Women, Infants and Children program – would be zeroed out for fiscal year 2003.

However, Baldacci’s staff said the congressman was responsible for language in the House-passed farm bill, which is now before a Senate-House conference committee, to allocate $15 million to the Seniors Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program in each of the next 10 years.