Last week 25 FBLE faculty, students, and staff descended on Capitol Hill to share our research and help Congress write a farm bill that creates opportunity for all farmers, provides a reliable safety net against hunger, and conserves the health of our shared natural resources. FBLE timed the trip to coincide with debate over the House farm bill, H.R. 2, which…
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…
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…
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…
Months after Hurricane Irma, thousands of people are lining up in Miami to sign up for Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, or D-SNAP. More than 30,000 people registered for D-SNAP in Florida after just a few days of program registration opening, making modernization efforts more timely than ever. D-SNAP provides food assistance to low-income households with food loss or…
Oklahoman Bryan Parker is one of the 42 million Americans served by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or “SNAP.” He is also a perfect example of why Congress should renew and expand their investment in Employment and Training (“E&T”) programs as part of the coming farm bill reauthorization. Parker is a 51-year-old veteran and has always been a hard worker….