36 March 27, 2014 2014 LOGAN COUNTY FARM OUTLOOK MAGAZINE LINCOLN DAILY NEWS.com
we don’t have to worry about where our food comes
from. Indirectly, the products of their livelihoods
— our food, fiber and forest products — ensure a
brighter, more stable future for all of us.”
During the two-year stall in the passage of the
farm bill, one bone of contention between House
Republicans and the Democratic Senate was the
proposed cuts to the food stamp program. Republicans
maintained that the $80 billion-a-year food stamp
program had spiraled out of control. They pointed at
states that were using the Low Income Home Energy
Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP, as a catalyst
for issuing food stamps too generously. In their
examples, the legislators discussed how anyone who
qualifies for LIHEAP is automatically eligible for food
stamps. In many cases, even if the LIHEAP award was
as small as $1, the client still received a full benefit of
food stamps.
In the end, what the Republicans got out of this may
have been somewhat of a compromise. The new
farm bill still allows for automatic eligibility for food
stamps based on LIHEAP, but it adds a minimum
benefit requirement. With the bill, today’s LIHEAP
recipients will only be enrolled automatically in the
food stamp program if their LIHEAP benefit is no less
than $20.
The total farm bill calls for a budget of $956 billion.
Eighty percent of that goes to food and nutrition
programs, with only 20 percent going to support of
farms and farmers. The change in the relationship
between food stamps and LIHEAP helped to cut only
$8 billion from the bulky budget — not nearly enough
in the opinion of some legislators.
So is the ag industry happy with the farm bill? Did
farmers get what they needed? It really depends on
where you are, what you grow and whom you ask.
John Block, a journalist for AgWeb, noted that the
meat industry is perhaps more unhappy than most.
Block said: “The meat industry is very unhappy that
country of origin labeling (COOL) was not fixed.
Farmers and meat processors face the costly and
inefficient possibility that the labeling of meat will
become almost impossible to accomplish — trying to
separate animals depending on where they were born,
raised and fattened for market is crazy. Canada and
Mexico are ready to take this issue to the World Trade
Organization. We haven’t heard the last of this mess.”
‘Fincher appears to be sitting on the fence, saying at
some points that the bill is no good, then later saying
that it has its benefits, but at the same time it is not a
bill for the American producer.
“There’s not any room for error anymore,” Fincher
said. “When you’re dealing with Mother Nature, and
outside, and all of the things we deal with, and farmers
deal with, that’s hard. It’s not like making one thing on
the assembly line. The bottom line to this is a safe and
sustainable food supply for the country. … This is not
about farmers. It’s about products for the consumer.”
And what about Frank Lucas? After the passing of the
bill, he wrote in his blog: “As our federal government
continues to face high deficits, it is crucial that we
find ways to cut spending in a responsible way. While
this bill contains comprehensive reforms and saves
taxpayers $23 billion, it was particularly challenging
to pass in the current political environment. In
the past, the farm bill has been an across-the-aisle
consensus-builder — throughout the process, this
proved to be an immense challenge. Ultimately, we
were able to accomplish our goals of reform and
produce a bill that provides certainty for every region
of the country.”
By Nila Smith
[Bibliography can be found on page 45]
