Codi Coulter is a law student at Maryland Carey School of Law and guest contributor on this blog. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, 13.5 million U.S. households faced food insecurity at some point in 2021. Households with children, single households, people of color, and low-income households, as well as households in cities, experienced higher rates of food…
The 2023 Farm Bill presents an opportunity for the Biden Administration to address some of the key restrictions on the Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program (“SNAP”) that prevent those most in need of assistance from accessing the program. SNAP represents one of the most successful and essential parts of federal food assistance. USDA research indicates that SNAP reduces food insecurity among…
On a recent Saturday, my co-worker and I spent an unsuccessful five minutes trying to get a Healthy Incentives Program (HIP, a nutrition incentive program in Massachusetts) transaction to go through. We both work at a farmers market selling fruits and vegetables from a farm in upstate Massachusetts. The customer knew that she had $40 in HIP left (the full…
Oscar Heanue is a law student in the Food Law & Policy Clinic of Harvard Law School and guest contributor on this blog. Thanks to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Online Purchasing Pilot, participants in the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) are now able to use their benefits online for the first time in the program’s history. However, although…
Hannah Yang is a law student at NYU School of Law and guest contributor on this blog. The USDA Food and Nutrition Service’s mission is “to increase food security and reduce hunger.” As part of its mission, it oversees the National School Lunch Program, which provides free or reduced lunch for eligible students while school is in session. The Summer…
The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a number of new and difficult challenges for families, farmers and other small business owners, and food producers across the country. While closures of schools, restaurants, and hotels help slow the rapid spread of infection, they have also resulted in surges in unemployment and food insecurity. Moreover, these closures cut farmers off from key markets…
While it’s currently a challenge not to keep up with the latest developments on COVID-19, you might not know that states have been tirelessly submitting requests to the federal government for major disaster declarations. At the time of this writing, New York, California, Washington, Louisiana, Iowa, New Jersey, Georgia, Oregon, Connecticut, Kentucky, South Carolina, Missouri, Maryland, Illinois, Florida, Texas, Colorado,…
Today is the last day to submit comments to USDA for its proposed changes to utilities calculations for SNAP benefits. The below student post describes the changes contemplated by USDA. Following the Senate’s rejection of the House’s proposed restrictions on enrollment to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Services (FNS),…
The Senate released its draft of the 2018 Farm Bill on Friday, June 8th. This post analyzes how the Senate Farm Bill addresses FBLE’s goals and recommendations from its report, Food Access, Nutrition, and Public Health. The Senate Agriculture Committee moved the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (S. 3042) out of committee on June 13th. The Senate is voting on…
Senate Joins Farm Bill Fray Last Friday the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry released its draft farm bill, kicking off the Senate’s effort to pass new omnibus legislation before some provisions of the current law expire in September. The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (“AIA”), which arrives on the heels of the House’s failure to pass its own…