Could SNAP Be Removed From Farm Bill?

Perhaps the most divisive issues to hammer out between the house and senate versions of the Farm Bill will likely be SNAP.  That takes us back to July 2013 when farm bill debate in the house got so rancorous, lawmakers voted to strip the nutrition title from its farm bill for the first time since at least 1974.  The legislation was passed it that way, splitting off the anti-hunger coalition that had helped get farm bills through in the past.

Nutrition was put back in later, but now, five years down the road, there's at least some talk of taking SNAP out of the Farm Bill again.  Ohio State University analyst Carl Zulauf said if that happened, it would change the dynamics of the farm bill process.

"You would certainly open up the possibility that the farm bill would have a difficult time passing, as many of the titles go to the lesser populated parts of the country, and building coalitions for political passage of the bill could get harder.”

Zulauf thinks to get more support for a Farm Bill, it's crafters might have to shift focus to more of an environmental conservation bill.