The “very difficult” politics of SNAP are among the greatest obstacles to passing the new farm bill, said Senate Agriculture Committee chair Debbie Stabenow on Wednesday. The Michigan Democrat is a stalwart defender of public nutrition programs in a year when House Republicans want to apply a 90-day limit on food stamps to a greater number of recipients.
Congress appears unlikely to enact a farm bill before the Sept. 30 expiration of the current law. The House and Senate Agriculture committees are not expected to vote on the legislation before September, although work is being done behind the scenes. House Agriculture Committee chair Glenn Thompson says he will draft a version of the farm bill in August, during the congressional summer recess, so it can be considered by the House committee in mid-September.
“There’s always, unfortunately, politics around nutrition. There shouldn’t be,” responded Stabenow when asked during an Axios conference on world hunger to name the biggest obstacle to enacting the 2023 farm bill. She also listed regional squabbling over farm subsidies and the task of educating lawmakers about the merits of the bill. Roughly three of every five members of Congress were not in office when the 2018 law was passed.
“I think we should be proud as a country that we help people,” said Stabenow. SNAP benefits of $6 a day per person reduce hunger in America, “but the politics around that always get very difficult,” she conceded.
House Republicans insisted as part of the debt limit bill earlier this year on expanding the age range of so-called ABAWDs — able-bodied adults without dependents — who are limited to 90 days of SNAP benefits unless they work at least 80 hours a month, perform workfare, or are in a job-training program. The expansion was counterbalanced by exempting veterans, homeless people, and young adults up to age 26 who have “aged” out of foster care from the time limit.
Stabenow has repeatedly ruled out SNAP rollbacks in the farm bill. Conservative Republicans tried during consideration of the 2014 and 2018 farm bills to slash SNAP spending and restrict eligibility for benefits.
Also during the Axios conference, Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, chief executive of the humanitarian group Mercy Corps, said the collapse of the Black Sea Grain Initiative would drive up prices and imperil food supplies for millions of people in the Middle East and Africa. “This is an unwelcome shock to the system,” she said. The United States is the world’s largest food-aid donor, and the farm bill includes Food for Peace, the biggest U.S. international food program.
Barron Segar, president of World Food Program USA, a nonprofit that encourages U.S. public- and private-sector support of the UN World Food Program, pointed to estimates that tens of millions of people worldwide face severe food insecurity. “Forty-three million people are marching toward famine,” he said.
To watch a video of the Axios conference, click here.