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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Friday, April 19, 2024
Congressional approval of the debt ceiling agreement between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has triggered a new debate about the impact of the changes made to SNAP work requirements, with Republicans insisting they take another crack at the issue during the upcoming farm bill.
The GOP-controlled House overwhelmingly passed bipartisan legislation Wednesday evening to avert a first-ever government default, impose caps on federal spending and make the first major changes to SNAP work requirements in decades.
Leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture committees say the debt limit agreement should remove SNAP work requirements as a potential sticking point in the upcoming farm bill debate, but also said the deal takes away some potential funding.
The House Agriculture Committee is considering raising reference prices based on a commodity’s relative input costs, an approach that could benefit some southern crops over commodities such as soybeans and corn.
House Republicans who have been struggling unsuccessfully for years to tighten work rules for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program scored a win in the debt limit negotiations that would expand the requirements to people in their early 50s, but President Joe Biden also won key new exemptions for veterans and people who are homeless.
In this opinion piece, Josh Hinerfeld expresses the challenges around organic farming and why support in Washington is needed to ensure the industry’s growth.
When it comes to Title III of the farm bill, lawmakers need to prioritize strengthening USDA’s Market Access Program (MAP) and Foreign Market Development (FMD) Program, witnesses told lawmakers at a hearing hosted Thursday by the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Nutrition, Foreign Agriculture, and Horticulture.
Congressional Republicans who opposed the Inflation Reduction Act, the main funding mechanism for President Joe Biden's climate policy, would like to move the IRA's funding for climate-related farming practices into the farm bill, which could permanently boost funding for conservation programs.
Crop insurance companies and their agents have spent years fighting off cuts in Congress or at USDA. Now, they're arguing limits imposed more than a decade ago are unfairly shrinking returns for specialty crop policies, a priority sector for policymakers, and appealing for an increase in federal reimbursement.
