A federal law known as the “farm bill” expires this year. It aims to help ensure we have enough food, feed, fuel and fiber and touches rural, suburban and urban Illinois every day in many different ways. What’s it all about?
General Overview of the Farm Bill
- 1930s: Congress passed and President Franklin Roosevelt signed the first farm bill during the Great Depression of the 1930s, in part, to help struggling farmers.
- The U.S. Department of Agriculture primarily oversees what has become a multi-year law.
- The farm bill strives to provide support, stability and certainty to food-insecure consumers, to farmers and even to forest managers through support programs.
- Most farm bill spending pays for federal nutrition programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, once known as food stamps. Other farm bill programs fund emergency feeding programs, food programs for low-income seniors and rescuing food that might have otherwise gone to waste.
- Farm bill provisions to support farmers help manage risk and promote soil and water conservation.
