While the world wasn’t looking, the U.S. Senate passed what CNN called “the most overlooked mega-bill of the past 12 months”: a $1 trillion spending measure that sets five years of eating and farming policy in the United States. It’s been commonly labelled a “farm bill,” but CNN claimed it will be much, much more.
“While it’s called the farm bill, in truth, it’s more of a food bill,” wrote Lisa Desjardins, a reporter for CNN. “Whatever you think of Congress, this is a bill that deserves some attention.”
Two years of gridlock have prevented the bill from passing, but yesterday, bipartisan support propelled the legislation to President Obama’s desk. He’s expected to sign it into law. The biggest points of the bill, according to The New York Times, are cuts to food stamps, expansion of the crop insurance program and the elimination of direct payments to farmers in the form of crop subsidies.
This is important, folks: This bill not only affects the economy, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — food stamps — and the farming industry, but it also directly affects the food on your plate.
Among the measures, Desjardins wrote, are plans to require pork, chicken and beef suppliers to provide more information for consumers on where and how the animal was born, slaughtered and processed.
The bill will change crop subsidy policies — which have remained the same for the past 82 years — and end government funding that farmers receive regardless of their harvest quality or crop prices. However, the federal government won’t be leaving rural farmers out in the cold: The U.S. plans to subsidize cheaper crop insurance, which would cause the government to absorb any financial hits that farmers might face during low-yield seasons.
The most controversial change, however, are the cuts to SNAP. Over the next 10 years, the government plans to cut $8 billion from the program, according to the Times, which will affect an estimated 1.7 million people whose benefits will be cut by about $90 per month. Proponents of the bill argue it closes a loophole that has allowed states to exploit the program by helping recipients get more benefits than they’re qualified for. At the same time, the bill will add $205 million to food banks.
That the bill passed with such strong bipartisan support — 68 to 32 — speaks to both parties’ faith in the program.
“Given all the complexity and competing interests, I think they did an adequate job,” said Dan Glickman, a former agriculture secretary and member of Congress, according to the Times.
The farm industry has been at a stalemate for so long with policies such as the existing crop-insurance program dating back to the Dust Bowl. As food becomes increasingly more political with issues ranging from food deserts in places like New Mexico to the crooked practices of fast food companies, it’s encouraging that our famously unproductive Senate is doing work and passing legislation on an issue that affects all Americans.
[A version of this editorial ran on page 6 on 2/5/2014 under the headline "Ol’ MacDonald had a subsidy: Senate passes farm bill"]
