The press is reporting this week on a couple of items that likely mean new headaches for USDA. The first is a report that the agency “omitted” from a regulatory impact analysis its own estimate that the new SNAP regulations would result in the loss of access by some 500,000 low-income children to free school meals – a figure Bloomberg said that House Education and Labor Committee aides were given on a call with USDA on July 22.
Although the recent rule change proposed for nutrition programs would affect the voluntary standard that states can use to automatically qualify recipients of non-cash welfare for food aid, neither the official posting nor the regulatory impact analysis included its impacts on the meal program or their participants.
As a result, the House Education and Labor Committee chair, Bobby Scott, D-Va., wrote to USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue recently asking that USDA “revise the analysis to include expected impacts and confirm that information provided to the committee is accurate.”
USDA responded negatively, arguing that it cannot provide additional information during the public comment period – but did acknowledge that the rule “could” affect the use of direct certification of SNAP participants for free school meals.
“The effect on school meal eligibility represents an important technical finding that must be made public so that stakeholders have the opportunity to comment on all aspects of the rule’s impact,” Scott said.
Observers say the USDA’s omission of a likely significant impact can be expected to be a factor in the debate over the Department’s proposal – and it almost certainly will make life more difficult for USDA officials in coming budget hearings.
That isn’t the only new hot potato USDA can look forward to dealing with during the late summer and fall – Bloomberg also is reporting that a new study by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) says that “most” of the trade aid benefits offered under USDA’s first Market Facilitation Program (MFP) aid programs go to a very small share of affected producers. The organization regularly analyzes and publishes detailed databases on federal farm subsidy payments, often highlighting disparities in aid.
The administration is beginning its second MFP program, an additional $16 billion round of aid as the trade dispute with China continues.
While the initial payments were based on crops produced, this time they are to be tied to the acreage planted.
USDA said that the program “is designed to provide a level of support that’s proportionate to a farm’s size and success … to our knowledge, USDA’s payments have all been made in accordance with our published regulations and existing procedures,” the department said.
Eighty-two farming operations received more than $500,000 each in payments through April under the MFP, the EWG said. It noted that it analyzed payment records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act covering $8.4 billion in payments.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, a Republican who has long favored payment limits on farm subsidies, said the findings show the need for “hard payment caps” on the assistance.
Trade aid and other farm subsidies are “meant to help people over humps beyond their own control,” Grassley told reporters. “Some large farmers do have the benefit of having resources to get over those humps without government help.”
The EWG, which published a searchable database of trade aid recipients on its website and said the top 1% of farmers were paid an average $188,000 while the bottom 80% averaged less than $5,000.
Trade aid payments are capped at $125,000 per person in each of three categories of commodities: one for soybeans and other row crops; one for pork and dairy; and one for cherries and almonds.
Still, some farms set up as corporations or partnerships can exceed those limits. Relatives and partners who don’t live or work on a farm can collect payments as long as they help make management decisions such as what to plant, said Scott Faber, senior vice president for government affairs for the group said. EWG also found that thousands of trade aid recipients live in the nation’s largest cities.
The analysis and searchable database covers payments to more than 563,000 participants in 2018 through April 2019, EWG says.
The database only covers payments made directly to farmers. Last year’s $12 billion farm trade assistance package also included other programs, including commodity purchases and export promotion assistance, Bloomberg noted.
Although the EWG’s reports tend to be controversial, they have been a well-known feature of ag policy debates for many years. They are widely reported and frequently discussed as indicators of the amount and distribution of USDA program benefits which many producers believe are inadequate compensation for ag’s frontline position in the global tariff wars, Washington Insider believes.
Welcome
