A Bill Divided: The Economic Fallout of Decoupling Nutrition from Farming
In July of 2025, Congress passed the “One Big Beautiful Bill”. This bill not only ripped apart that architecture for future farm bills but also stripped nearly $200 billion from the nation’s largest anti-hunger program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). These changes made work requirements stricter and passed on a lot of the cost of the program to states leaving state governments scrambling to find money. Similarly to the Department of Education, SNAP guaranteed access to food for every eligible American regardless of their state’s population or wealth, by removing much of the federal obligation to supply funding, states without the means to cover these costs will likely see less of the program within their borders. Roughly 11% of Americans live in poverty, but for Americans in rural America, that number is above 15%. Similarly for food insecurity, about 12% of the population is food insecure, compared to 15.4% of people in rural America.
One in seven rural households rely on SNAP.
This week the House Committee on Agriculture took to the committee room to review Chairman GT Thompson’s farm bill text. The draft as introduced was eerily empty of changes to the nutrition title and included no provisions to slow down the roll out the changes or mitigate a need for states to increase their contribution through the program. When the committee opened the Nutrition title for amendments, the Democrats offered amendment after amendment with no success of adopting provisions to change the course of the One Big Beautiful Bill. In fact the only amendments it seems were accepted was one on The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) and another on low added sugar yogurts.
Why should the agricultural community pay attention to this debate? Because increased spending on SNAP benefits boosts income for the agricultural industry.
According to a study released by the Economic Research Service (ERS), an additional $1 billion in SNAP benefits distributed would generate an estimated $32 million in income for agricultural industries and create roughly 480 full-time jobs in agriculture and related fields.
https://onecountryproject.substack.com/p/a-bill-divided-the-economic-fallout