Page 34 2023 Fall Farm Outlook Lincoln Daily News Oct 2023 The farm bill is a piece of legislature that governs food and agriculture policies in the United States. It connects the food on our plates, the farmers and ranchers who produce it, and the natural resources that make growth possible. Every five years the farm bill expires and a new one is drafted. It goes through an extensive process where it is proposed, drafted, debated, and passed by Congress before it is signed into law by the President. The first farm bill was passed in 1933 and was 24 pages in length. The 2018 farm bill had 529 pages. Each farm bill has a name, the current farm bill is titled the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018. The bill’s chapters are called titles. The 2018 farm bill has twelve titles: Commodities, Conservation, Trade, Nutrition, Credit, Rural Development, Research, Forestry, Energy, Horticulture, Crop Insurance, and Miscellaneous. Projected funding for the farm bill is in the billions with nutrition taking the largest piece of the pie at 81 percent. The nutrition title covers food subsidy programs; Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) formerly referred to as Food Stamps as well as several other small nutrition programs for Will the 2023 Farm Bill support agricultural stability? lower income families. Because of the large portion appropriated for SNAP, it is the hottest topic for debate on the House and Senate floors. The largest point of contention when it comes to SNAP benefits seems to be work requirements. Currently, there are only about thirteen percent of SNAP recipients that have work requirements, and many Republicans would like to see that number increase. Participants that can work and don’t have a dependent are required to work 80 hours a month. According to farmdoc Daily, research has found little to no evidence that work requirements achieve their intended goal of promoting employment and self-sufficiency. At present, unemployment rates are at an all-time low while SNAP participation remains elevated. Questions arise given low unemployment and high poverty levels. Some argue that tightening work restrictions will reduce the amount of SNAP funding while others say that SNAP participation does not seem to impact employment and does not make recipients not want to work. The last two farm bills have all but been derailed over this topic and the 2023 farm bill is expected to be no different. The FRA (Fiscal Responsibility Act) arose during debt ceiling negotiations. The FRA gave way to a few points of key reform to SNAP: the age Continued --
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