The House passed its version of the Farm Bill yesterday by a razor-thin margin of 213-211, weeks after the last version failed to pass because of Republican in-fighting over immigration issues.
"The farm bill got its votes, all Republican, after House leadership agreed to hold votes on immigration bills championed by conservatives. The initial immigration bill that GOP members wanted still failed earlier in the day," Chris Clayton reports for DTN/The Progressive Farmer. "Democrats remained unified against the House version of the farm bill because of changes in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that will make it more difficult for people without children to continue receiving assistance unless they are working or going through job training. The bill also makes it harder on states to raise income caps for people to remain on SNAP assistance."
The Senate version of the Farm Bill advanced out of committee last week and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has promised it will get a vote by July 4. Once the Senate version is passed, the House and Senate agriculture committees will have July and August to iron out the differences in the two bills and negotiate a final bill. The major difference between the two bills is that the Senate version does not include work requirements for SNAP recipients. The House bill also changes the way the Agricultural Risk Coverage program uses crop-insurance data to calculate yields, and eliminates individual farm coverage under ARC.
"The House bill would eliminate new signups under USDA's largest conservation program, Conservation Stewardship Program. The contracts for the current 72 million acres in CSP would continue until they expire, but no new enrollment would be allowed. Instead, the bill would investment more in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program," Clayton reports. "The Conservation Reserve Program would increase by 5 million acres, to 29 million acres, but would reduce rental rates to 80% of the current average county rental rate for ground. USDA would require more frequently updated rental rates under CRP as well. The Senate version of the bill would go to 25 million acres and lower rental rates to 88.5% of the county rental rate."
from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2tl6IGu House passes Farm Bill, includes SNAP work requirements - Entrepreneur Generations
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