Senate Ag Committee Passes Bipartisan Farm Bill
| CommentsWe join a broad coalition of food, farm, and anti-hunger advocates to applaud the Senate Agriculture Committee’s bipartisan passage of The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (S.3042). This legislation presents a forward-looking vision to fight hunger, improve health and strengthen our rural communities.
Unlike the House version, the Senate Farm Bill makes responsible, common-sense investments in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), our nation’s signature anti-hunger program to improve SNAP’s integrity, accountability and workforce development features without risking access to basic nutrition assistance for vulnerable Americans.
While the Senate Farm Bill does a great job in protecting SNAP, it misses an opportunity to fully invest in The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), which provides high-quality food products for food banks and food pantries to distribute to Americans at-risk of hunger. TEFAP is a significant source fruits, vegetables, protein and dairy purchased from U.S. growers and producers. Over one-third of food insecure Wisconsinites earn too much to be eligible for SNAP. For many of them, they rely on the Wisconsin’s food banks and food pantries for help.
We remain hopeful that there will be opportunities to increase investment in TEFAP as the bill moves to the Senate floor. We are also very excited about the proposed pilot projects that would help connect low-income Americans at-risk of diet-related diseases to healthy food. Most importantly, we grateful that the Senate Farm Bill protects SNAP.
You can take action by clicking here to urge Senators Baldwin and Johnson to continue working in a bipartisan manner to protect SNAP as the Farm Bill moves toward a full vote and urge your Representative to follow the Senate’s lead when it revisits HR 2.