Congress’ failure to pass the farm bill reflects a long history of hunger as a political tool

Every five years, a sprawling piece of legislation quietly shapes America’s food and agricultural policy. The farm bill, which covers crop prices, agricultural loans, forest conservation, and food assistance programs, is set to expire by Sept. 30. But this deadline is already one year delayed, and although funding won’t quite run out until December, key lawmakers doubt a full farm bill will pass by then either.

What makes this expansive, must-pass bill so controversial?

The primary issue is food stamps, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which accounts for over three-fourths of farm bill spending. SNAP has long been subject to political jockeying, especially with the addition of new work requirements last June and the end of expanded COVID-19 benefits, which had kept 4.2 million Americans out of poverty in 2021. The failure to pass the farm bill is the most recent example of hunger being used as a political tool, bluntly wielded against Americans facing poverty.

Much of modern welfare policy can be traced back to the English Poor Laws of the 1600s, which established tax-supported relief for low-income people. Despite this relatively progressive program, these laws delivered benefits at bare minimum levels, with policymakers wanting to stave off social unrest but also worried about fostering dependence. While the poor laws were ostensibly meant to reduce hunger, they were inherently political, seeking to control the poor and maintain order.

The farm bill didn’t start out as an anti-hunger program. Under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Congress passed the first farm bill in 1933 to stabilize agricultural prices, which had plummeted in the 1920s during the Great Depression.

Food stamps emerged in 1939 as a separate but parallel drive to purchase farmers’ excess crops and reduce hunger. This was the pinnacle of the New Deal imagination, with the government distributing booklets of orange and blue stamps that could be exchanged for food, recasting welfare as consumer stimulus. This idealism lasted four years, as World War II turned surpluses into rations and killed the program, despite persistent poverty and hunger.

Twenty years later, food stamps restarted nationally when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Food Stamps Act of 1964, stringing together a coalition of urban and rural lawmakers by tying food stamps to a cotton-wheat subsidy bill. Food stamps were officially swallowed into the farm bill in 1973; any notion of a “War on Hunger” was never popular enough to be passed on its own.

As SNAP funding increased, so did familiar fears of dependence, leading the federal government to tighten its purse strings and introduce strict work requirements. For example, in 1996, under President Bill Clinton, Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which was meant to “reduce illegitimacy, require work, and save taxpayer money,” according to Newt Gingrich’s House of Representatives. The law curtailed food stamps and set time limits, aimed at forcing beneficiaries to choose between work and death, according to Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.). Importantly, much evidence shows that work requirements do not boost employment and instead are inordinately expensive to administer.

Fast forward to today, where House Republicans and Senate Democrats have released competing bills for SNAP’s future. The House passed the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024 out of committee, which now awaits a floor vote, while Senate Democrats have released a framework for the Rural Prosperity and Food Security Act. 

Both bills increase minimum prices and subsidies for farmers for 14 commodity crops. Marion Nestle, New York University emeritus professor of nutrition, food studies and public health, describes this as “welfare for the richest possible farmers — it’s basically money for Big Agriculture.” But, Republicans are also attempting to cut $30 billion over the next decade by preventing SNAP benefits from adjusting to cost of living increases, including the cost of a healthy diet. These would be the “largest cuts to SNAP benefits since the 1996 welfare law almost 30 years ago,” per the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

“What fascinates me about the English Poor Laws is that they sound just like Republicans today,” shared Nestle, via interview. “The arguments are exactly the same—that the poor are responsible for being poor; that if only they would work, they would take care of their poverty; that they’re lazy.”

The failure to pass the farm bill emphasizes the persistently political nature of welfare, lifting impoverished Americans up by just enough to stop overt starvation or protests. Indeed, in 2023, SNAP provided eligible Americans with $2 per meal, and anyone above 130 percent of the federal poverty line (about $32,000 for a family of three) was deemed ineligible. 

But therein lies a potential path forward: to mobilize SNAP recipients and reject the status quo. One in eight Americans are on food stamps, consistent with rates of poverty, and their voices and votes hold power. Organizing this constituency will undoubtedly be difficult: “If you’re downtrodden, you don’t feel like you have much political agency. What poor person is going to have the resources — education, time — to lobby Congress?” says Nestle. 

However, if civil society organizations took charge and food banks turned into organizing hubs, perhaps the people most impacted by hunger and most in need of effective food policy would finally be heard — amidst the partisan gridlock and Washington lobbyists.

We know food stamps are worth it: despite the meager benefit, SNAP has lifted millions of Americans out of poverty and stimulated the economy by generating $1.79 for every dollar invested. And we know, from the experience of the pandemic and the expanded SNAP benefits, that poverty is not inevitable. The American notion of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps has replaced reality with dogma, and that’s what makes the people’s voice all the more important.

Simar Bajaj is a Marshall Scholar at the University of Oxford and award-winning science writer covering stigmatized diseases and health policy. Hussain Lalani, MD MPH MSc, is a primary care physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.