Last week, the House Agriculture Committee passed a pock-marked, micro-legislated Farm Bill along strict party lines. It’s a shameful goody bag of legislative delights for a few that comes at the expense of the majority of the American people. Some lowlights: The bill holds our hungriest Americans hostage by conditioning SNAP benefits (food stamps) on job training (what kind of…
House Farm Bill Moves Out of Committee On Wednesday, House Republicans moved the first draft farm bill out of the House Agriculture Committee on a party-line vote. H.R. 2, or the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018, will likely be considered by the full House within the next month. On the whole, H.R. 2 is an ominous cloud that portends…
One marker bill currently before the House Agriculture Committee, the Crop Insurance Modernization Act, proposes some of the same reforms to crop insurance as FBLE’s report on Productivity and Risk Management. One of its proposals involves strengthening incentives in crop insurance contracts for farmers to integrate better conservation practices into their regular operations. The bill, also known as H.R. 4865,…
Earlier today, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway (R-TX) released the text of the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018. In the coming days and weeks, FBLE will provide analysis of how the draft bill stacks up against the recommendations of our recent reports. In the meantime, you can read the Chairman’s highlights and critiques from leading sustainable agriculture, anti-poverty, and anti-hunger…
This is the final installment of a three-part series devoted to conservation compliance under the farm bill. The first post explained what “conservation compliance” is and why it matters, and the second post highlighted how lack of enforcement undercuts effective protection for soil and water resources. Rounding out the series, this post explains why maintaining the link (or “coupling”) between…
Three reports out today from the Farm Bill Law Enterprise (FBLE) apply a justice lens to the farm bill debate underway on Capitol Hill. FBLE’s reports coincide with the imminent release of draft farm bills in the House and Senate, which Congressional observers anticipate next month. The reports are the product of a novel partnership between eight law school programs:…
When the Trump administration released its FY2019 budget, which included a plan to overhaul the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), outrage ensued. The proposal would replace half of SNAP recipients’ EBT benefits with cheap, non-perishable commodity provisions. Neither Democrats nor Republicans in Congress expressed support for America’s Harvest Box. Critics attacked the proposal as mean-spirited, infeasible, unhealthy, and bad for…
This is the second in a three-part series devoted to conservation compliance. The first post introduced the conservation compliance sections of the farm bill and explained why they are critical to soil and water quality. This post explains how USDA’s implementation of conservation compliance lacks effective enforcement and transparency. Conservation Requirements Under conservation compliance farmers whose land includes highly erodible…
This is the first of a three-part series devoted to farm bill conservation compliance, the foundation of soil and water protection on the majority of land in the United States. Annually, soil erosion caused by agricultural practices costs the United States approximately $44 billion and a loss of 1% of our topsoil. Agricultural nonpoint source pollution (e.g. fertilizer runoff) is…
SNAP is already the nation’s “most effective” economic stimulus program. The political battle over the 2018 Farm Bill is already well underway and—if rhetoric from the Trump Administration is any indication—it won’t be an easy fight. Threatening to gut $192 billion from SNAP over the next decade, the White House is proposing an unrecognizable overhaul of a program that services…