It will take more than a weekend to figure out what is actually in this 641-page monster.
Its table of contents alone is 13 pages.
The House produced a section-by-section summary
It also produced a quick overview of the top-ten highlights.
This draft calls for an expenditure of about $865 billion over 10 years.
Lots of groups have lots to say about this bill.
My favorite quote comes from Mike Conaway, chair of the House Agriculture Committee:
Except for the SNAP portion, this is a bipartisan bill.
Some exception.
The farm bill always presents a forest vs. trees problem. It is an enormous collection of trees.
I found this one especially interesting: Sec. 4003. Gus Schumacher food insecurity nutrition incentive program.
If I understand it correctly, this is to fund pilot projects to promote fruit and vegetable consumption in low-income communities. If it survives, it might be a fitting tribute to Gus, who died in 2017 after a long career promoting agriculture as a means to improve public health.
Happy reading. No telling what will happen to this, but it will be interesting to watch. Stay tuned.
I am honored (hugely) to be the recipient of the 2023 Edinburgh Medal, at which I give a speech as part of the Edinburgh Science Festival. My talk, “Food Politics: Why it Matters Now” is at 7:00 p.m. Information about the Science Festival is here. A Tweet announcing my award is here.