Farm Bill Passes Without Nutrition Title

The SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as “food stamps”) is our nation’s most important anti-hunger program.  SNAP provides nutrition assistance to 47 million low-income Americans, helping them to avoid extreme poverty and to afford nutritious food.  For several decades, the Farm Bill, the legislation that authorizes the SNAP program, has been that rare piece of federal  legislation lucky enough to receive bipartisan support.  The bill, which is reauthorized once every five years, contains provisions that set agricultural policy as well as nutrition policy.  In June, the U.S. House of Representatives was unable to pass their version of the Farm Bill, which contained $20 billion in cuts to SNAP. In the beginning of July, they tried again.  The version of the Farm Bill that they passed has no funding for SNAP: it contains agriculture-related provisions only.   This move puts the SNAP program in a tenuous position, as the current authorization for the program expires on September 30, 2013.

In our Dining Room, we see that there is more than one face to hunger.  Some  of the 2,600 meals that the St. Anthony’s Dining Room serves each day feed people who are ineligible for SNAP, either because their incomes are too high, because they are seniors or people with disabilities who receive Supplemental Security Income benefits, or because they don’t qualify because of past drug-related convictions or because of their immigration status.  It’s important to remember that St. Anthony’s also feeds people who do receive SNAP.  With an average benefit level of $4.50 per person per day, SNAP benefits are an important nutrition support, but will not cover all of a person’s nutritional needs.  When their SNAP benefits run out, many San Francisco SNAP recipients come to food programs like ours to make sure that they can get enough to eat. 

If SNAP benefits were to be reduced or if current beneficiaries were to be made ineligible, we would see more people in our community struggling with hunger.  St. Anthony’s works to reduce hunger by feeding people through our Dining Room and by advocating for sound nutrition policy.  We have been advocating  for a Farm Bill that protects funding for SNAP and that doesn’t reduce eligibility or benefit levels.   St. Anthony’s has joined with anti-hunger organizations from around California to ask Congress to support SNAP, protect the program from cuts, and protect SNAP recipients from benefit reductions.   If you’d like to join us, visit Feeding America, where you can send a customizable letter to your Congressional representatives.