One of the main issues Congress has debated when trying to agree on a Farm Bill is the food-stamp budget, now at about $80 billion per year. The parties are widely divided on the issue, but the consequences of not passing a Farm Bill include the quadrupling of the price the government pays for dairy products. This Wednesday House and Senate conference-committee members will start negotiations.
The food-stamp program is officially named the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The House has proposed that $4 billion be cut every year from SNAP, and wants to change eligibility and work requirements. The Senate is pushing for a cut of about a tenth of that amount. "Republicans say [SNAP] should be more focused on the neediest people," Mary Clare Jalonick notes for The Associated Press. "Democrats say it is working as it should, providing food to those in need when times are tough." Roger Johnson, president of the National Farmers Union, told Jalonick, "I think there are very different world views clashing on food stamps, and those are always more difficult to resolve."
Jalonick writes, "One of the reasons the bill's progress has moved slowly is that most of farm country is enjoying a good agricultural economy, and farmers have no clamored for changes in policy. However, more and more farmers are beginning to wait on news from Congress before making planting decisions," and the proposed savings in food stamps and farm-subsidy programs "has become more key as we go into budget negotiations," Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar told Jalonick.
Since 1949, each Farm Bill has temporarily replaced that year's legislation. If no bill passes by Dec. 31, dairy supports would revert to the 1939 and 1949 laws, and that could quadruple the price the government pays for dairy products, encouraging processors to sell to the government rather than commercial markets. This change would make items in grocery stores more expensive for consumers, Jalonick reports.
The House version of the bill would decouple nutrition and agriculture programs by putting them on different renewal schedules, a move that Senate Democrats say would be the beginning of the end for farm subsidies because urban lawmakers have been happy to vote for a Farm Bill that included nutrition programs -- which are now the main cost of the bill.
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| Stacks of paperwork awaited the House Agriculture Committee in May as it prepared to mark up its version of the bill. (AP photo) |
Jalonick writes, "One of the reasons the bill's progress has moved slowly is that most of farm country is enjoying a good agricultural economy, and farmers have no clamored for changes in policy. However, more and more farmers are beginning to wait on news from Congress before making planting decisions," and the proposed savings in food stamps and farm-subsidy programs "has become more key as we go into budget negotiations," Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar told Jalonick.
Since 1949, each Farm Bill has temporarily replaced that year's legislation. If no bill passes by Dec. 31, dairy supports would revert to the 1939 and 1949 laws, and that could quadruple the price the government pays for dairy products, encouraging processors to sell to the government rather than commercial markets. This change would make items in grocery stores more expensive for consumers, Jalonick reports.
The House version of the bill would decouple nutrition and agriculture programs by putting them on different renewal schedules, a move that Senate Democrats say would be the beginning of the end for farm subsidies because urban lawmakers have been happy to vote for a Farm Bill that included nutrition programs -- which are now the main cost of the bill.
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