Farm Bill Deadline Approaches

As the year draws to a close, Congress has many must-pass items left on its plate.  Perhaps most pressing are the budget and the Farm Bill.  The House is scheduled to adjourn for the year next Friday, Dec. 13, but the Senate does not even return from Thanksgiving recess until next Monday, Dec. 6.  This leaves one week for them to wrap up the first session of the 113^th Congress. 

Of course, that it not to say that conversations are not ongoing.  Indeed, bicameral conference committees on both issues are in the midst of delicate and intense negotiations.  Leaving aside the question of the budget for now, for after all, Congress does have a few weeks into the New Year to come to agreement before the next manufactured fiscal crisis, the focus of the faith community has been on the Farm Bill.

Our nation’s food and farm policies, as embodied in the Farm Bill, impact people and communities from rural America to big cities to developing countries. In the Farm bill are provisions that authorize SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly Food Stamps), international food aid, conservation programs, initiatives that support new and minority farmers and ranchers, rural development programs, sustainable energy research, farm subsidies, crop insurance, just to name the most famous.  In all, the Farm Bill is a mixed bag of policies, some of which promote a more just food system and some that trap us in a vicious cycle of subsidized commodities and under-nutrition.  Nevertheless, the Farm Bill is must-pass, if for no other reason than that it authorizes SNAP and promotes environmentally sustainable practices on working farmlands.  

Write to your Members of Congress to urge a just and comprehensive Farm Bill this year.

In the current budget climate, which incorrectly functions from an assumption of scarcity, the Farm Bill’s limited resources must be effectively targeted where need is greatest. And people are hungry -- the U.S. and around the world. Programs and policies that curb hunger and malnutrition, support vibrant agricultural economies in rural communities, and promote the sustainable use of natural resources must be prioritized.  At the same time, we should be shifting away from investment in programs that subsidize factory farms and promote major commodities as the most viable crops for food and fuel.

Earlier in the year, serious threats were made to the funding of SNAP and on Nov. 1st, SNAP benefits were cut as a 2009 funding increase ran out.  Far from there being room to cut SNAP, most SNAP beneficiaries find that their benefits run out by the third or fourth week of the month and turn to private charity to fill gap.  If anything, we need to invest more in Food Stamp benefits.  SNAP is designed as a counter-cyclical program that expands to meet needs when the economy is bad and people lose income and become eligible.  When the jobs outlook and economy improve, it contracts as participants cycle off the program. 

So, Congress must reauthorize the SNAP program without the proposed cuts.  There is simply no way to achieve significant cuts without affecting benefits and nutrition education programs.  Write today to your members of Congress.

During the week before Thanksgiving, hundreds of Presbyterians, including our leaders Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons, Moderator Neal Presa, and Executive Director Linda Valentine, are taking the Food Stamp/SNAP Challenge.  The Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons reflects on his trip to the grocery store in this article and Linda Valentine allowed the News Service to publish her journal from that week here.  Days after their SNAP Challenge concluded, they sent this letter to Congress.

With the PC(USA)’s long-held convictions about food justice and fair food and farm policy, our interests in the Farm Bill, while very concerned with the nutrition programs, are also much broader that.  In a joint statement with interfaith partners, the PC(USA) called on Congress to pass a Farm Bill that:

• Protects and strengthens programs that reduce hunger and improve nutrition in the United States.
• Promotes investments and policies that strengthen rural communities and combat rural poverty.
• Provides a fair and effective farmer safety net that allows farmers in the U.S. and around the world to earn economically sustainable livelihoods.
• Strengthens policies and programs that promote conservation and protect creation from environmental degradation.
• Protects the dignity, health, and safety, of those responsible for working the land.
• Promotes research related to alternative, clean, and renewable forms of energy that do not negatively impact food prices or the environment.
• Safeguards and improves international food aid in ways that encourage local food security and improve the nutritional quality of food aid.

Write to your Members of Congress here.

To read more about the PC(USA) Office of Public Witness’ advocacy around the Farm Bill and SNAP, visit our farm bill blog.

Food Stamp Challenge Letter to Congress

As the festival of Thanksgiving approached, hundreds of Presbyterians, including our denominational leaders Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons, Moderator Neal Presa, and Executive Director Linda Valentine, were just concluding a week of doing the  SNAP/Food Stamp Challenge.  While living on a food stamp budget for just a week cannot come close to the struggles encountered by low-income families week after week and month after month, it does offer those who take the Challenge with a new perspective and greater understanding, especially in the the context of a national holiday devoted to thankfulness.


As part of the Food Stamp Challenge, Presbyterians engaged in all sorts of activities, from the Challenge itself, to anti-hunger education in church, to contacting their Members of Congress.

As part of their challenge, our leaders send the following letter to Congress.  In it, they urge Congress to refrain from cutting SNAP/Food Stamp benefits, which are already too low for many families, and instead to invest in a “comprehensive Farm Bill that ensures access to food for hungry people, provides an ample safety net targeted to those small and mid-sized farmers who most need it, builds up rural communities and their economies, and protects the integrity of God’s creation through robust conservation programs and sustainable agriculture.”

They conclude their letter:  "Our nation’s food and farm policies, as embodied in the Farm Bill, impact people and communities from rural America to big cities to developing countries. In the current budget climate, the Farm Bill’s limited resources must be effectively targeted where need is the greatest. And people are hungry."

The Congressional Conference Committee that is negotiating a final Farm Bill is still meeting this week!  Contact your Members of Congress to weigh in for a more just food system.

###

November 26, 2013

United States Congress

Washington, D.C.

Dear Members of Congress:

We write as the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) concludes a week-long SNAP / Food Stamp Challenge in which we, the church’s national leaders, as well as hundreds of Presbyterians, chose to live on an average SNAP benefit, which nationally is about $30 per person per week. This practice is intended to raise awareness within our community about the dire food insecurity of many of our neighbors.  We realize, of course, that our engaging in this Challenge is a symbolic gesture, but we also believe that it has meaning and capacity for building awareness of the very real need in our communities.  We further recognize that our own reactions to living on SNAP benefit levels for a week – both psychological and physiological – cannot begin to approach the experience of a family that is relying for sustenance on these inadequate, and yet essential benefits.

Even as we learned this lesson, we acknowledge what privilege we have in bringing it to an end, in seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, in returning to our usual diets.  So as we enter this festival of Thanksgiving, we give thanks for food and for all the ways that healthy food is available to each of us.  And we give thanks for SNAP, which prevents so many Americans from falling into severe food insecurity. It is our prayer that we will change our food system so that no one in this wealthy nation will suffer hunger and that each and every person will have enough, not too little and not too much.

Through this SNAP Challenge, we learned in practice what we only previously knew intellectually – that far from needing to be cut, Food Stamp benefits are too low and need to be increased, especially in light of the recent Nov. 1^st benefit cliff. So, we urge you to refrain from cutting SNAP, and instead to invest in this program that provides only the most basic assistance to struggling people in some of their darkest hours. 

We further understand from partners in ministry that we, the churches that engage in ministries of charity and mercy cannot alone meet the overwhelming need created by cuts to federal safety net programs. Private charity needs public partnership in order to answer our call to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and visit those in prison. As earnestly as we try to fill gaps in services left by government spending cuts, we simply do not have the resources or capacity to respond to the growing and monumental need caused by a severe recession, anemic recovery, and systemic inequity.

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) further has a long history of commitment to food justice and food system advocacy.  In a letter sent earlier this year, we called for a “comprehensive Farm Bill that ensures access to food for hungry people, provides an ample safety net targeted to those small and mid-sized farmers who most need it, builds up rural communities and their economies, and protects the integrity of God’s creation through robust conservation programs and sustainable agriculture.”

Our nation’s food and farm policies, as embodied in the Farm Bill, impact people and communities from rural America to big cities to developing countries. In the current budget climate, the Farm Bill’s limited resources must be effectively targeted where need is the greatest. And people are hungry. In particular, we urge you to protect SNAP from cuts that will only make it harder for people to make ends meet, that will increase food insecurity, that will leave children hungry.

And as we observe the national festival devoted to giving thanks, we are thankful for functioning government, for leaders who devote their lives to public service, and for your own service to our nation. 

Should you have any questions or wish to hear more about our reflections and learnings during the SNAP / Food Stamp Challenge, please contact our Office of Public Witness, Leslie Woods, Representative for Domestic Poverty and Environmental Issues, (202) 543-1126, leslie.woods@pcusa.org.

Sincerely,

Reverend Gradye Parsons

Stated Clerk of the General Assembly

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Reverend Dr. Neal Presa

Moderator of the 220^th General Assembly

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Linda Valentine

Executive Director, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)


For the Presbyterian News Service publication of this letter.

House Proposes Devastating Cuts to SNAP, Nutrition programs

On August 1st, despite your protests to keep Nutrition in the Farm Bill and to protect SNAP from cuts, and after failing to pass a bill that cut $20 billion from SNAP, the House of Representatives doubled the malice by introducing a SNAP bill with $40 billion in cuts to the most effective anti-hunger program at the federal level (SNAP = Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program). With these $40 billion in cuts, the PC(USA) Office of Public Witness strongly opposed this legislation.  This will leave many people hungry, with nowhere left to turn but to already overstressed food pantries and soup kitchens. This legislation is expected to come up for a vote in early September when the House returns to Washington from its August recess.  Join us in resolutely opposing these cuts to nutrition programs.

According to Bread for the World, “the previous proposal of cutting $20 billion from SNAP is equivalent to eliminating half of all the charitable food distribution by churches and food banks over a 10-year period. The legislation that is currently under discussion would double that, substantially increasing the suffering of 47 million Americans who depend on SNAP to keep hunger at bay.” The earlier proposed $20 billion SNAP cut would drop at least 2 million people from the program, reduce benefits for more than800,000 families, and leave 210,000 children without access to free schoolmeals. Cuts to food aid programs not only cost lives and health but they also hinder our collective and common strength to reach millions of people in need. These cuts must not pass the House of Representatives.

As the Farm Bill continues through the conference committee process, where Senate and House members will come together to hammer out a compromise bill, it is extremely important that they continue to hear from you, their constituents, urging them to support a better Farm Bill.  As Presbyterians, we support amendments that will increase access to healthy food for all people, focus on proper stewardship of the environment, build up and support rural communities, and limit crop subsidies to agribusiness.

Click here to send a message to your your Representative and ask him/her to support a faithful Farm Bill

 Keep Advocating!

Thanks for your continuing advocacy for a better Farm Bill, and to prevent cuts to SNAP.  As this bill advances, it will probably go to a conference committee with the Senate, where disagreements, in theory, will be reconciled.  The House and Senate differences over SNAP funding will be a key part of the discussion.  The conference committee will then report out the compromise bill and send it back to both House and Senate for another vote. The future of the Farm Bill in the House of Representatives is unclear. However, what is clear is that we must continue to push for a Farm Bill ensures access to food for hungry people, provides an ample safety net targeted to those small and mid-sized farmers who most need it, builds up rural communities and their economies, and protects the integrity of God’s creation through robust conservation programs and sustainable agriculture. 

For more information on the Farm Bill and PC(USA) advocacy, please visit our Farm Bill blog posts.