Andrew Zhang is a third year law student at Harvard Law School and a guest contributor to this blog. Earlier this November, with the passage of a continuing resolution that ended the longest government shutdown in United States history, Congress extended the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 (the 2018 Farm Bill—the nation’s current and most recent Farm Bill) for one more year. This extension—the third of its kind since the 2018 Farm Bill first expired…
Rachael Lange is a second year student at Harvard Law School and a guest contributor to this blog. In the midst of a tumultuous legislative session, the critical question for agriculture policy stakeholders and observers is: when will we get a new farm bill and what will it look like? Fallout from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), entrenched…
Matt Suzor is a third-year law student at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law and a guest contributor to this blog. Update: Since this blog post was written, the 2025 budget reconciliation bill passed. The impacts of the budget bill on the Thrifty Food Plan, effective immediately, call for cost neutrality every five years. This could prevent benefits…
Grace Huddleston is a law student in the HLS Food Law & Policy Clinic and a guest contributor to this blog. The SNAP proposal in H.R. 8467, Section 4129, the most recent House version of the 2024 Farm Bill, would implement research-oriented programs to commence over the next several years with the goal of gathering data to better understand the efficiency…
Isabel Yin is a law student in the HLS Food Law & Policy Clinic and a guest contributor to this blog. To the dismay of many lawmakers, farmers, and advocacy groups alike, the September 30 expiration of the 2018 Farm Bill extension came and went with no passage of a farm bill. When Congress returns to a lame-duck session after this…
Orly Levy is a law student in the HLS Food Law & Policy Clinic and a guest contributor to this blog. Food Insecurity in Higher Education The next farm bill provides a legislative opportunity to tackle food insecurity amongst college students through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). While the exact numbers are unclear, many low-income college students don’t have enough…
Marisa Koontz is a law student at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. She is a guest contributor to this blog. On June 3, President Biden signed the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, H.R. 3746 (also known as the debt ceiling deal), into law after weeks of negotiations. These negotiations took place under a pressure cooker…
Kipper Berven is a law student in the HLS Food Law & Policy Clinic and a guest contributor to this blog. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is a Farm Bill provision that profoundly impacts the health and wellness of millions of Americans. Today roughly 34 million Americans live in food-insecure households, and a recent survey by the U.S. Department of…
Emily Hatch is a law student in the HLS Food Law & Policy Clinic and a guest contributor to this blog. On February 15, 2023, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its most recent budget baseline for “USDA Farm Programs,” which projects a ten-year baseline cost for the relevant farm bill programs of over $1.4 trillion (about $140 billion each fiscal…
Alyssa Huang is a law student in the HLS Food Law & Policy Clinic and a guest contributor to this blog. On February 16, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry held a hearing to talk about Nutrition Programs in the Farm Bill. The committee invited two witnesses—Stacy Dean, the Deputy Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services at…