How much funding do you think the Farm Bill designated for farms? 75 percent? 60 percent? At least 50 percent? That is why it is called a “Farm Bill,” right?

These numbers would be a gross overestimation. Only 23% of funding goes to farm programs including commodity payments, conservation, and crop insurance. The bulk of the funding, 76.5%, goes to nutrition funding through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Six other titles receive less than one percent of the funding including research, trade, credit, rural development, forestry, energy, horticulture, and a miscellaneous category.

With $867 billion in funding going to SNAP and $199 billion going to farmers, the bill should be called the Food Bill. Why are these two very different programs tied together in a large omnibus spending bill? The answer is politics.

From a policy perspective, tying these programs together is unhealthy and bad policy.

To achieve effective reform for either of these programs they must be voted on separately. The current combination discourages legislators from seeking reforms because they will stay quiet on one part of the bill to protect their interests in other parts.

The excuse is that the two programs need each other to pass both chambers. However, if neither program is good enough on its own two feet, they should be reformed.

The argument to divide the Farm Bill is not new. In 2014, the federal Farm Bill experienced delays because of controversy about tying these two aspects together. In July of 2013, the House actually passed a version of the Farm Bill which did not include nutrition programs on a 216-to-208 vote.

House Democrats adamantly opposed the reform accusing House Republicans of acting in favor of special interest groups by cutting food programs but did not reform the farm programs.

Even a few House conservatives voted in opposition because of budgetary concerns. The final version of the 2014 Farm Bill recombined the programs.

Now, in 2018, discussion about dividing the bill is being avoided for fear of delaying or failing to pass any form of SNAP or farm programs. They need each other is what supporters claim, but others see this relationship dissolving. Former USDA Chief Economist Joe Glauber said, “Farm program proponents may need urban/suburban votes to get a farm bill passed but I don’t think the same is true for SNAP [supporters] since their programs don’t sunset after five years. Particularly, there is little in it for urban/suburban voters if the bill contains poison pills.”

The position is weakened even further as farmers deprioritize the farm bill in their list of concerns. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue identified multiple other concerns for the farm sector including “low commodity prices, the slump in farm income, attacks on corn ethanol, and, most of all, anxiety about a possible trade war are the top concerns in farm country. These things have overshadowed, in a farm bill year, discussion of the farm bill.”

This trend is true for Washington state.

I recently attended a Farm Bill listening session in Washington state with Representative Dan Newhouse. Topics like trade, research, specialty crops, the need for the Snake River Dams, and regulatory pressure were mentioned more frequently than the major farm programs like commodity payments and crop insurance. The need for conservation programs was mentioned frequently.

Politics is a compromise and there are always elements of legislation supporters might do differently given the chance. Combining food programs and farm support prevents an honest assessment of the merits of each program. Famers who support the protections in the farm bill will find themselves also supporting food programs that desperately need reform to help the poor and reduce wasteful spending. Good reforms to farm funding will be lost in the rush to get funding for food programs. Bad policy is adopted in exchange for bad policy.

Politicians are used to these kinds of exchanges, but this process is often a shortcut that prevents necessary reforms in both parts of the bill.