I’m speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival: Health. I’ll be interviewed by Helena Bottemiller Evich of FoodFix from 9:00 to 9:50 a.m.. Topic: “Making sense of nutrition science.”
Because our dysfunctional Congress did not pass the farm bill by midnight on Sunday, the 2014 bill has expired.
What does this mean? Basically, the USDA hasn’t decided anything yet but a lot depends on the authorization status of each program (recall: the farm bill covers hundreds of programs).
The Congressional Research Service has a quick summary of the implications of the non-passage of the farm bill.
As for why Congress couldn’t get this bill passed, the big barriers are SNAP and conservation.
Recall that SNAP, formerly food stamps, is in the farm bill as a result of classic logrolling in the Johnson era. Johnson got legislators from farm states to vote for food stamps in return for votes from urban legislators for farm supports. At the time, the food stamp program was piloted in 40 counties and 3 cities with a total of under 400,000 participants. Its cost was a fraction of the total farm bill cost.
In 2017, SNAP had more than 42 million participants at a total cost in benefits and administration of $68 billion—nearly 80% of the total cost of the bill.
SNAP looks like a honey pot to legislators looking for funds to make up for the tax cuts. They have proposed additional work requirements.
These are sure to reduce enrollments. Mathematica Policy Research says the House farm bill (HR 2 (115)) would cause 2 million households to lose SNAP eligibility.
Conservation is another issue. Senators write that they cannot support a farm bill that does not promote conservation.
New to the farm bill? Want to find out more?