New Farm Bill Draft
For over a year now, we, and all our ELCA Advocacy partners around the country have been working hard to advocate for an equitable Farm Bill package. The Farm Bill is a large package of legislation that covers a wide range of policies relating to agriculture, food production, nutritional assistance programs, and climate regulations. This package has the ability to greatly influence food insecurity and the assistance programs that operate around the country.
Last month, the House and the Senate both released summaries of proposed Farm Bill drafts after several months of inaction! The House draft, released by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glen Thompson (PA), has some good things and some bad things in it, which is a great place to begin negotiations. We are now much closer to a finished Farm Bill than we have been for most of the last year!
Recently, the ELCA Advocacy Office in Washington, DC has been working to celebrate the positive provisions in the draft and negotiate amendments to include the things that are missing. Today, we wanted to offer you a quick rundown on this newest draft. ELCA Advocacy has also put together a webpage full of real-time updates on the Farm Bill; it can be found here.
You can find the proposed bill text here.
One of the marker bills we have supported since last fall is the RESTORE Act. This policy repeals the ban on SNAP benefits for individuals who have been incarcerated for non-violent drug-related felonies. We have been working on a similar version of this policy in Arizona for several years, to no avail. The RESTORE Act would extend SNAP access to these individuals across the country. Allowing folks transitioning out of prison SNAP assistance is shown to decrease recidivism rates, stabilize families, and treat childhood hunger. We are excited to see this policy included in the bill!
This draft also includes substantial investments into conservation programs; however, it repeals many of the climate-focused requirements for farms and ranches. Much of the money allocated to conservation programs originally came from the Inflation Reduction Act and were originally set aside specifically for “climate-smart” agriculture. Since agriculture is a huge part of our economy and has a large impact on the climate, we hope to see incentives and assistance for growers to adopt climate-friendly practices. Find our action alert on this here.
Our most significant concern has to do with the Thrifty Food Plan. This draft does make sure to provide SNAP with funding, but it limits the Thrift Food Plan’s ability to update SNAP requirements. The Thrifty Food Plan is cost of groceries needed to provide a healthy, budget conscious diet for a family of four. This is calculated based on the price of groceries in a given area, nutrition science, and other factors. The Thrifty Food Plan is periodically adjusted to reflect new nutritional information, inflation, and all kinds of other information that informs our understanding of a healthy diet. Whatever cost is calculated is then used as the baseline to figure out how much assistance a given family in a given area needs from the SNAP program. This, in turn, helps determine how much funding the program as a whole will need.
As it is written, this draft would limit what factors can be used to adjust the plan; the Thrifty Food Plan can only raise the base cost of a meal to keep up with inflation, and not for any other reason. This poses a significant issue, as studies have recently found that SNAP benefits already don’t currently cover the full price of a meal in approximately 98% of counties. The authors of this change estimate that it will save about $30 billion over the next 10 years, but we are concerned that a $30 billion cut to the program will leave millions of hungry people without assistance.
If you feel strongly about this, we encourage you to reach out to your House member about your concerns around the Thrifty Food Plan. Otherwise, stay tuned for action alerts from our DC Office.
Our first priority is to see the provisions around the Thrifty Food Plan loosened so that SNAP benefits can meet the needs of recipients. We also hope to see more climate-focused guidelines reintroduced to this package. The federal Advocacy Office is working to meet with congress members through the summer to raise our concerns and priorities. Join us in our advocacy by watching for action alerts, contacting your congressman, and staying tuned for updates!
