Farm bill veteran Colin Peterson, a former chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, offered some firsthand advice on Monday for drafting the 2023 farm bill: Make an agreement on SNAP the first order of business. But he doubts lawmakers will avoid the prolonged fights over public nutrition that derailed the 2014 and 2018 farm bills.
“I think we’re looking at an extension of at least one year and it could be longer than that,” said Peterson, a Democrat, at a farm conference sponsored by the Kansas City Agribusiness Council. Farm-state leaders in Congress say they are committed to completing the farm bill on time, he said, but “I can’t get anybody to explain to me how they’re going to do it, you know, and they keep getting into fights, which is not helpful.”
For decades, the key to enactment of a farm bill was support from a coalition of urban and rural lawmakers. Farm bills are broad-ranging bills, covering everything from SNAP to farm subsidies and agricultural research.
As the largest U.S. anti-hunger program, SNAP accounts for three-fourths of farm bill spending and increasingly has come under attack by congressional conservatives, who want to reduce federal spending or shrink the social safety net. Attempts to cut SNAP failed in the past two farm bills in the face of fierce Democratic support for the program.
“You know, I think they’re going to try it again,” said Peterson, despite the certainty that President Biden would veto a bill with draconian cuts in SNAP.
“If I were chairman, in this climate, the first thing I would do … I would sit down and settle this food stamp issue before I started on anything else,” he said. “Get an agreement between the two parties that this is what we’re going to do and this is what we’re going to live with, and then you can go on with the rest of the bill.”
Attacks on SNAP could rebound against the farm program, cautioned Peterson, who said SNAP was more popular among lawmakers than farm subsidies in an increasingly urban country.