The nation’s largest farm group wants public nutrition programs to be part of the upcoming farm bill, as they have been for decades. “It should be called the food and farm bill,” president Zippy Duvall of the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) told FERN’s Ag Insider in an interview Tuesday.
But the so-called hunger community will have to battle on its own for money for SNAP and a handful of related programs.
Farm groups, including the AFBF, have a tradition of keeping their hands out of nutrition programs and anti-hunger groups are equally silent about farm subsidies during the drafting of farm bills, although they are allies in soliciting votes for the resulting legislation. Conservation and environmental groups also are important partners for a successful vote.
Proponents often say the panoramic farm bills, ranging from rural economic development and ag research to export promotion and land stewardship programs, are carried to passage by an urban-rural coalition. Public nutrition and commodity supports are being highlighted in the run-up to farm bill deliberations this year. Parts of the 2018 farm policy law expire at the end of this fiscal year, so Sept. 30 is the target date for the new farm bill.
“It will be important and necessary for us to continue to link the nutrition aspect of the farm bill and other aspects of the farm bill together in order to ensure the best chance of getting a farm bill in 2023,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in a speech to the AFBF convention on Monday. A day earlier, Duvall said, “When ag and hunger advocates lock arms, we have our best chance of success, which we must never take for granted.”
Republican conservatives tried to slash SNAP funding and eligibility in the 2014 and 2018 farm bills and there are indications they will try again this time. Republicans hold a 222-212 majority over Democrats in the politically polarized House. Democrats control the Senate, 51-49.
When asked about potential attacks on SNAP, which accounts for three-fourths of farm bill spending, Duvall said it was not AFBF’s role “to help legislators decide how to handle” nutrition programs. He continued, “We will be hand in hand with them to see this farm bill gets passed.”
In discussing the atmosphere in the House, Duvall said “we always work toward having a bipartisan farm bill” and said he expected the rancor over election of Californian Rep Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker would dissipate and not be a factor. The narrow division of power in the House would force a bipartisan mold onto the farm bill, precluding major changes to nutrition programs, said Politico early this week.
Farm-state lawmakers often say the Senate and House Agriculture committees are the least partisan panels in Congress, perhaps because most farm disputes are regional in nature, rather than political. Party divisions are widening, however.
The Republican chairman of House Agriculture Committee, acting on his own, proposed an expansion of SNAP work requirements in 2018 over uniform Democratic opposition. The Republican-controlled House approved the proposal for “work-capable” adults ages 18 to 59 to work at least 20 hours a week or spend equivalent time in job training or workfare to qualify for food stamps. At present, so-called ABAWDs, able-bodied adults without dependents ages 18-49, are limited to three months of SNAP benefits in three years unless they work at least 20 hours a week or are part of job training or workfare.
The Republican momentum failed when Democrats won a House majority in the 2018 mid-term elections and a solid block of senators from both parties opposed the House-passed bill. For the 2018 bill, bipartisanship meant lawmakers from both parties in the House voted for the final version of the farm bill.
Delegates at the AFBF convention, held in Puerto Rico, voted on Tuesday to “modernize” the farm bill by expanding the funding baseline, introducing more flexibility into disaster relief programs and expanding federally subsidized crop insurance to more specialty crops.
“The cost of production took a tremendous jump,” said Duvall. Rising input costs have “overcome the ability of (farmers) to make a living,” notwithstanding USDA data showing two years in a row of high profitability. Farm supports should reflect “modern-day pricing,” he said. A higher baseline “could be spending more money.”
A two-page Congressional Research Service description of public nutrition programs in the 2018 farm bill is available here.