Every five years or so, Congress reauthorizes a comprehensive, multibillion-dollar law that has a major impact not only on farmers and ranchers—who make up less than 2 percent of the US population—but also on the environment, public health, and the economy. Generically called the “farm” bill, it is actually a farm and food bill that supports a wide range of programs, including ones that cover crop insurance, financial credit, and export subsidies for farmers, as well as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. SNAP, which eats up 80 percent of the bills’ total budget, currently serves 41 million low-income Americans.
The first farm bills, a product of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, were enacted in the 1930s in response to the Great Depression and drought-driven Dust Bowl catastrophe. Unfortunately, the…
Read the full article originally published at blog.ucsusa.org.