Anti-hunger groups, environmentalists, and fiscal conservatives are mobilizing against the House Republicans’ proposed farm bill ahead of its markup later this week, arguing that it benefits agribusiness at the expense of low-income people, taxpayers, and the climate.
The $1.5-trillion proposal, released Friday by House Agriculture Committee Chair Glenn Thompson, would cut SNAP by about $30 billion over a decade by curtailing adjustments to the Thrifty Food Plan, which is used to set SNAP benefits.
The proposed cuts pose “a serious threat to the health and wellbeing of the more than 4.1 million people” who rely on the program, said Kelly Horton, interim president of the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) in a statement.
The House bill would expand access to SNAP for some people, such as college students and people with felony drug convictions, who are currently banned for life from the program. But Horton said these expansions should not come at the cost of cutting benefits overall.
Meanwhile, environmental groups say the proposed farm bill would be a step backward on climate change, as it would increase funding for conservation by rolling the Inflation Reduction Act funds into the farm bill, but strip the climate focus from those funds.
“This partisan bill undermines the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) essential investments in climate-smart agriculture programs,” wrote Ranjani Prabhakar, legislative director for Earthjustice’s Healthy Communities Program, in a letter to Thompson on Friday. The proposal would remove “a critical tool for farmers to address climate change, improve profitability, and advance their resilience in the face of increasingly frequent extreme weather events.”
The National Young Farmers Coalition, which also opposes removing the climate focus from IRA funds, added that the proposal would shift conservation funds to precision agriculture, a move it says could “result in federal support for costly and exclusive practices at the expense of helping producers at all scales.”
Environmental groups also say the bill would put farmworkers and local communities at risk because it limits the ability of state and local authorities to regulate pesticides.
“Once again, Republicans are working to take away our right to protect our communities and deepen Big Ag’s stranglehold on our food system with provisions to roll back decades of progress on pesticide regulations,” said Molly Armus, the manager for Animal Agriculture Policy at Friends of the Earth.
On Tuesday, the Environmental Working Group will join fiscally conservative organizations, including the Heritage Foundation and the National Taxpayers Union, for a press conference outlining their concerns that the bill will increase subsidies for farmers at the expense of taxpayers.