The Anti-Hunger Bill – Christine Meléndez Ashley
When one hears about the farm bill, images of idyllic farm land, tractors, red barns, and silos likely come to mind. In reality, the policy embodied in the farm bill reaches far beyond the farm. This vital piece of legislation affects our entire food system, from what is grown in fields to whether or not families are able to put food on the table. Just as apt a title for the bill would be the “anti-hunger bill”.
The largest part of the farm bill is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps), which provides low-income households monthly benefits that allow them to buy groceries at authorized retail stores. The program was designed to expand and contract according to need— it has grown as a response to increased poverty and has helped keep the number of families at risk of hunger from increasing since 2008. However, as Congress considers the farm bill this year, debate in Washington continues around the budget and how to extract savings from every federal program. SNAP is projected to make up nearly 80 percent of farm bill program spending over the next ten years, making it a target for cuts in both the farm bill and budget negotiations.
Proposals to drastically cut SNAP are nothing new. The last three House budget proposals have recommended billions in cuts to the program. But when the House failed to pass a comprehensive farm bill this summer, in part because some Representatives felt the bill did not include enough SNAP cuts, House leadership proceeded to “split” the farm bill. In July, the House passed a farm bill that only addressed farm programs and excluded SNAP.
Many people of faith strongly opposed a split farm bill because it leaves SNAP vulnerable to cuts as deep as those proposed in the last three years. Those concerns were realized in August when House leadership announced a proposal to cut SNAP by $40 billion over ten years —twice the cuts proposed in the original House farm bill. If enacted, these cuts could remove 4 to 6 million people from the program. The House is expected to vote on this bill the week of Sept. 9.
Deep cuts and harmful policy changes to nutrition programs such as SNAP will create a great burden for churches and charities who are already struggling to keep up with increased need for services. Feeding America, a nationwide network of more than 200 food banks and food rescue organizations, has reported that demand at food banks has increased nearly 50 percent since 2006. Despite calls from members of Congress that churches and charity should do more, a Bread for the World analysis of the amount of food assistance provided by private charity versus federal nutrition programs shows how misguided this suggestion is. The analysis shows that federal nutrition programs, the largest of which is SNAP, provide 23 times more food assistance than churches and private charity. If Congress cuts SNAP by $40 billion, churches and charities would have to nearly double the amount of food assistance they provide.
The farm bill is an anti-hunger bill not because it oversees policies affecting food production but because it helps ensure all Americans are able to access that food. Good nutrition policy and good farm policy go hand in hand. A faithful anti-hunger bill is one that protects and strengthens SNAP.
Christine Meléndez Ashley is a domestic policy analyst at Bread for the World, a collective Christian voice urging our nation’s decision makers to end hunger at home and abroad. Christine Meléndez Ashley joined Bread for the World in July 2009 and provides organizational leadership on nutrition assistance and child nutrition issues affecting hungry and poor people in the United States by developing and implementing policy and legislative strategy. She previously worked on Capitol Hill as a legislative staff assistant and systems administrator for Rep. J. Randy Forbes. She received a B.A. in political science from Wheaton College.