The 2018 Farm Bill

A new five-year farm bill that enhances existing programs while offering new assistance to less traditional forms of agriculture and legalizing industrial hemp easily won final congressional approval from the House on Wednesday, sending the measure to President Donald Trump for his signature. The whopping margin on the final vote, 369-47, mirrored a similarly large vote in the Senate on Tuesday, 87-13. On final passage, 182 Republicans and 187 Democrats voted in favor. Forty-four Republicans, many of whom are members of the Freedom Caucus, and three Democrats voted against it.The outcome in the House marked a sharp contrast to the last time a version of the bill was before the House. No Democrats voted for that bill, which would have tightened work requirements in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. AGweekCBPP today released the following statement from Robert Greenstein, president, on the farm bill released by the House-Senate Conference Committee:The nutrition provisions of the farm bill that the Conference Committee released last night ensure that millions of struggling families and individuals will continue to be able to count on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to help put food on the tableBetween 800,000 and 1.1 million households receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits in 2017 would experience a $50 to $75 cut in their monthly benefit under certain provisions of the House farm bill (H.R.2, The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018), according to a microsimulation conducted by Mathematica Policy Research. Although the provisions would reduce benefits substantially for 3 to 5 percent of SNAP households, the provisions would increase benefits by a modest amount—an average of $10—for about 20 percent of SNAP households, or about four million households.