The Braiser

Yesterday, the House Committee on Agriculture released a first draft of the Farm Bill, a bill renewed every five years encompassing all food policy in the US. But though the 557-page bill, according to the Congressional Budget Office, cuts $35.1 billion from the federal agriculture budget, it does so by cutting food stamp programs while increasing subsidies for large agricultural producers.

A majority of the House’s proposed savings from the Farm Bill come from proposed restrictions and retooled income and assets qualifications in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), cutting $16 billion from the federal budget over the next five years — nearly triple the amount proposed by the Senate’s version of the Farm Bill last month. With these tests, hundreds of thousands of families currently receiving SNAP benefits could be disqualified.

But although the Senate version of the Farm Bill called for cuts to certain agricultural subsidy programs, the House draft calls for an 40% increase in crop prices that would trigger automatic government assistance to production agriculture farmers, a provision friendly to Southern growers in particular. Rice and peanut growers in the South command higher prices than wheat and corn producers in the Midwest, and POLITICO suggested that Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, a Republican from Oklahoma, threw $24.5 billion into farm subsidies as a concession to Southern growers.

In addition, the differences between the House and Senate versions of the Farm Bill are likely due to the makeup of the GOP House members: Lucas, balancing the interests of Big Ag and the limited-government Tea Party conservatives, “must contend with tepid support from the top GOP brass and a fractious class of Republican freshmen who have never been through a farm bill debate before.

Draft coauthor Collin Peterson (D-MN) was not happy about the proposed cuts made to the bill, but Congress must pass the Farm Bill before the beginning of the three-month August recess, since the current Farm Act expires on September 30th. “Congress needs to complete work on the 2012 Farm Bill before the current bill expires, otherwise we jeopardize one of the economic bright spots of our nation’s fragile economy,” said Peterson in a statement. “While I would have found other ways to accomplish the bill’s nutrition savings, the bottom line is that, working together, we need to keep this farm bill moving forward.”

The House Agriculture Committee will debate and vote on the bill next Wednesday, and should it pass from the chamber, will be put to the House Floor for a vote. Afterwards, their bill needs to be reconciled with the Senate’s version of the Farm Bill, and then they have to bring it to the President to sign it into law. Given that the Senate and House versions of the Farm Bill are so vastly different, Reuters noted that “analysts see low odds for enactment of a new law on time.” Did we expect any less from our beloved Congress?

[POLITICO, Reuters]

2 thoughts on “House Draft Of Farm Bill Proposes Food Stamp Cuts, Increases In Farm Subsidies”

1. Nice step in the wrong direction, folks.

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2. It’s a joke on farmers and consumers alike to call any of these “pork” bills a “Farm” Bill. Collin Peterson is no friend of dairy “farmers.” The real agenda of modern “Farm” Bills is masked behind the PR image of “helping” bib
   overalled “farmers” stay “down on the farm” while the real goal is to make it possible for the “corporate” processing and food “industries” to procure raw farm products way below what it costs farmers to produce the farm product, with hapless, suckered TAXPAYERS financing the various devious schemes Congress designs to make up the difference. In dairy, Collin Peterson has authored an abstruse dairy “provision” that will have TAXPAYERS subsidizing “margin” insurance policies that will pad the pockets of insurance agencies at the same time letting fat-cat dairy processors, like Peterson’s friends at Land o’ Lakes, get farmers’ raw milk way below the dairy farmers’ cost to produce it. Dairy farmers can’t pay bills with these schemes controlling their milk price so they go out of business with consolidation of the remaining herds leading to larger and larger herds in the hands of fewer and fewer “owners.” 90% of US dairy farmers have gone out of business under these various federal policies to corporatize, “industrialize,” and globalize our food supply. Peterson’s comment about “economic bright spots” is a cruel lie for dairy farmers whose milk checks are insufficient because of federal milk pricing policies and wiped out by the effect of the feds’ ethanol schemes on purchased feed grain prices. The real reason Peterson wants the 2012 “Farm” Bill passed before Sept. 30th is because, at that time, the current, irrational farm milk pricing formula will revert to the former policy that, until 1981, factored the farmers’ basic business costs into the milk pay price, and Congressmen like Peterson wouldn’t want to have their Big Biz cronies to have to pay a fair but higher milk price directly to the farmers. TAXPAYERS should be furious that Congress continues this scam, and both the Dems and the Repubs are guilty of supporting this because both parties are lobbied by the same dairy “industry” interests! Congress has a rotten “approval” rating, and, yet, it is these people who control our farm and food policies! Go figure! Consumers should be worried! As for the SNAP part of the “debate, ” food stamps should be administered by a different agency, say like HHS, not USDA. SNAP is more a benefit to the businesses that market food under the retail label rather than US dirt farmers because the program guarantees that a significant portion of consumers will be eating the finished products of corporate “industry” food processors and retailers, whether or not the raw farm ingredients source from the US or from “global” farms. Hungry people needing help is not the issue, but “food” scams executed by the feds is definitely a HUGE issue that more Americans need to be informed about.

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