If they want to prevent cuts in the food-stamp program in the 2018 farm bill, nutrition and consumer groups need to know the language of crop subsidies, says Kathleen Merrigan, former deputy agriculture secretary. “Start educating yourselves about some other parts of the farm bill,” she said, lamenting, “we don’t really talk about a lot of these things that the people who really want to go after [food stamps] care about.”
“So I want people to say ‘payment limitations.’ I want people to say ‘actively engaged,'” Merrigan said during a Food Tank Summit last week, referring to attempts to control the amount of money a farmer can collect in crop subsidies. “In order to have political leverage, you need to become an expert in the entire farm bill.”
During debate on the 2014 farm law, conservative Republicans proposed the largest cuts in a generation. Congress settled on a much smaller cut, $8 billion, but the dispute resulted in the first House defeat of a farm bill amid calls to split the bill in two — one section devoted to public nutrition and the to agriculture. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank, proposed last summer to transfer food stamps to the Department of Health and Human Services, a step that could destroy the traditional approach of including farm supports and nutrition programs in a panoramic farm bill.
The so-called farm bill coalition that encourages lawmakers to pass the periodic overhauls of the farm law is an amalgam of farm groups, conservationists and environmentalists, and anti-hunger organizations. The groups settle their differences while the House and Senate Agriculture committees draft a bill and work together for its passage. Farm groups often hold a preeminent position because the Agriculture committees, particularly in the House, draw their members from rural areas.
Merrigan said attacks on the food-stamp program are certain as the 2018 farm bill is assembled. “They are going to try to cut it. They are going to try to put different restrictions on it,” she said.
While Merrigan, now a professor and executive director of sustainability at George Washington University, called for a more assertive role for anti-hunger groups, former USDA official Matt Herrick said farm and nutrition groups have begun conversations on elements of the new farm bill. Food stamps — the biggest line item in the USDA budget — are “the heart and soul of the coalition,” said Herrick.
“That coalition is important to us,” said Indiana farmer Kip Tom, who said he keeps hearing proposals to split the farm bill in two. “That’s probably going to happen coming out of the House.”