Pax Christi Metro DC-Baltimore

Visit the CRS Action Center to contact your Senators. While the Farm Bill deals with many issues, the concerns outlined below need particular attention as the Senate moves forward in writing the next Farm Bill.

Urge your Senators to write a farm bill that promotes development at home and abroad. Tell them that limited public resources should be targeted to those who need it most. The next farm bill should redirect funds away from those large agro-enterprises that need the least support. The U.S. Farm Bill is the principle means of feeding the hungry at home and abroad, promoting rural development, and caring for the land. As the Senate Committee on Agriculture meets to write a new Farm Bill, tell every Senator that people of faith expect fairness.

To make the Farm Bill fairer, ask your Senators to:

• Support the Dorgan Grassley Amendment that establishes strong and meaningful payment limits in order to target farm supports to struggling family farmers (particularly beginning and limited-resource farmers who often lack access to these programs);
• Make Title I of the Farm Bill more equitable and just, by offering support where and when it is needed regardless of crop grown. Tell your Senator that a real farm safety net should tie support to farmer’s income rather than crop prices. This approach would reduce trade distortions, better prepare U.S. farmers to compete fairly in a global marketplace, and reduce undue harm to the most vulnerable farmers around the world.

To make the Farm Bill more generous to the hungry at home, ask your Senators to:

• Increase the minimum monthly benefit of $10 and increase standard deductions to make the program more accessible to the working poor;
• Restore food stamp eligibility to such vulnerable groups as adult legal immigrants and parents with a past drug conviction. These provisions unfairly penalize the children in these low-income households.
• Allow poor families and seniors to access food stamps during times of hardship and crisis, regardless of modest savings that should serve as a safety net during difficult times
• To do this, urge Senators to revise the restrictive resource limits of $3,000 for households with seniors or persons with disabilities, and $2,000 for all other households so that families suffering from unemployment, lack of full-time employment, illnesses, or other financial emergencies may access food stamp benefits without exhausting critical resources; and

To make the Farm Bill more generous to the hungry overseas, ask your Senators to:

• Establish a $600-million “safebox,” containing food aid that is dedicated exclusively to address chronic hunger and longer term food security;
• Allow the use of cash to purchase food locally when appropriate to address food insecurity
• Provide greater flexibility in the use of monetary funds under Sec. 202(e) of Title III of the Farm Bill; and increased resources for Title II and McGovern-Dole education-nutrition programs.

Read CRS President Ken Hackett’s letter to the Senate Agriculture Committee. (PDF 31K)