2018 farm bill

The Republican-sponsored House farm bill unveiled on Thursday would expand the land-idling Conservation Reserve by one-fifth and eliminate the green-payment Conservation Stewardship Program.

Michael Conaway, the Republican chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, proposed a dramatic change in SNAP today that would significantly tighten eligibility rules for the program.

As many as 5 million people will have to work longer hours each week to avoid a 90-day limit on food stamp benefits under revisions proposed by the Republican chairman of the House Agriculture Committee but uniformly opposed by its Democratic members.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue drew a familiar picture of a fragile farm economy recently for lawmakers pondering the 2018 farm bill: income at half its 2013 level, high production costs, debt on the rise, and low commodity prices in the year ahead.

At an impasse with Democrats over his plans for large cuts in the food stamp program, House Agriculture Committee chairman Michael Conaway says he will write — and pass — a farm bill without them.

The leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee have ruled out major changes in the food stamp program, effectively rejecting big cuts to the program before House Agriculture chairman Michael Conaway can write them into his committee’s version of the farm bill. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>

The cost of the largest U.S. antihunger program, food stamps, doubled during the slow recovery from the 2008-09 recession, a factor in the first-ever House defeat of a farm bill in 2013. Costs have fallen for four years in a row and are expected to fall again but SNAP, as the food stamp program is known, again is the divisive factor in writing an omnibus farm bill.

President Trump called for elimination of the USDA’s green-payment program for working lands conservation in his budget. Now four members of the Senate Agriculture Committee are taking the opposite approach.

Defending the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program was the top priority of attendees at a convening yesterday of 63 sustainable agriculture and food access organizations in Washington, D.C. The meeting was to prepare members of the Good Food for All coalition to lobby Congress on the 2018 farm bill.

House Agriculture chairman Michael Conaway has shelved plans for committee approval of the new farm bill next week in the face of Democratic opposition to his proposed cuts in the $70-billion-a-year food stamp program.

As congressional debate on the next farm bill gathers steam, farmers in Minnesota are calling for changes to the crop insurance program. A new report from the Land Stewardship Project argues that the current version of the program favors bigger farms and places an undue burden on taxpayers.

Along with the much-criticized Harvest Box of nonperishable food for low-income Americans, President Trump proposed in his budget more stringent limits on food stamps for people who work less than 20 hours a week. House Agriculture chairman Michael Conaway may go beyond Trump in his proposals to restrict eligibility and to channel millions of food-stamp recipients into workfare and job-training programs.

The farm bill was central to several discussions at the Food Tank Summit yesterday in Washington, D.C. The theme of the summit, which draws hundreds of food system advocates from around the country, was how to cultivate the next generation of food leaders. (No paywall)