Ag Policy Leaders Discuss GOP SNAP Cut Proposals and Farm Bill Spending

Republicans on the House Ag Committee are trying to reach agreement on cuts to nutrition assistance and increases in farm bill spending.

On this episode of Agri-Pulse Newsmakers, Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, said Democrats will be largely opposed to SNAP cuts to fund a boost to commodity programs. “We can’t rob Peter to pay Paul,” she said.

Then, Tom Sell with Combest, Sell & Associates and Gina Plata-Nino with the Food Research and Action Center discussed the political hurdles ahead with proposed cuts to the SNAP program.

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Please note: This transcript has not been edited.

Andrew Huneke: Welcome to “AgriPulse Newsmakers,” where we aim to take you to the heart of Ag policy. I’m your host, Andrew Huneke. This week’s guest is Maine Democratic Congresswoman and House Ag Committee member, Chellie Pingree. She joins us to share her thoughts on cuts to the SNAP program, the president’s tariffs, and downsizing at USDA.

But first, here’s this week’s headlines. The Environmental Protection Agency has approved the use of E15 Fuel this summer. EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, said the decision was, quote, “Consistent with President Trump’s executive order declaring a national energy emergency, which directed EPA to issue emergency waivers allowing for year-round E15 sales.” Legislation has been introduced in the House and Senate to allow gas blended with E15 to be used year round. 39 members support the House bill, while 17 backed the Senate bill.

President Trump’s nominee for USDA Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Affairs spoke to the Senate Agriculture Committee about the need for new trade deals. Luke Lindberg stressed during his hearing that those trade deals will reduce the country’s ag trade deficit and allow for more ag exports in line with President Trump’s America first agenda. Lindberg says, if confirmed, he plans to write the projected AG trade deficit on a whiteboard and invite commodity groups from around the country to talk about ways to eliminate it. Lindberg says the top priority markets for new deals are India and the European Union.

And finally, House Ag Committee Republicans have been negotiating a package of spending cuts to include in the sweeping budget reconciliation bill that President Trump wants Congress to pass. The cuts will come from nutrition assistance, and they could help pay for some top priorities for farmers, like increased spending on commodity programs and crop insurance. But the committee doesn’t have an easy task. The GOP budget Committee required the committee to cut a net $230 billion in spending over 10 years.

Congresswoman Chellie Pingree is a member of the House Ag Committee. We asked her why cutting SNAP benefits to help reach the $230 billion goal would be a bad idea.

Chellie Pingree: You know, we always have a big fight about SNAP benefits and the farm bill, we were going back and forth around it at the time that we were working on the farm bill, and now if that funding gets shifted to reconciliation, I mean, one big issue is, it makes a big mess of the farm bill, and everyone wants us to finish with that, but as to SNAP benefits themselves, we have a tremendous number of people in our state, senior citizens, kids, veterans who depend on those SNAP benefits. It’s only $6 a day. It really doesn’t do that much, but it’s a huge supplement for a lot of people who are struggling to make ends meet. So any cut to SNAP benefits will be a real problem for us. I don’t think they’ll get democratic support from virtually anybody. One of the plans that they’ve been floating in reconciliation is maybe making the states pay a bigger share, but so many states, like mine back home, are worrying about losing some of the post-pandemic money, what’s happening with the economy right now, what are the tariffs with Canada gonna do to a state like Maine? They would be beside themselves if they feel like they have to pay a huge share of that. So not a good idea.

Andrew Huneke: I’d like to kind of piggyback off that specifically, just the thoughts in farm country right now. We know a lot of farmers are hurting, and republicans want to use savings from cutting those SNAP benefits to increase spending for commodity programs and crop insurance at the same time. What are your thoughts on that?

Chellie Pingree: Look, I understand that those farmers have been anxious for us to make up those numbers, get the farm bill done, deal with the commodity programs and the crop insurance. That’s real, but we can’t rob Peter to pay Paul. The farm bill has always been an amalgamation of our nutrition programs coming together with our agricultural programs, and let’s not forget, many of the farmers are actually earning some of their dollars from supplying the SNAP benefit program. So this hurts our rural economies in so many ways, small grocery stores. It’s just a bad idea, it’s no way to go about doing this.

Andrew Huneke: I’d like to get your thoughts on the Farm Bill in relation to that, specifically. If Republicans carry through with this plan, do you think Democrats will support passing a new farm bill? If not, what are some of the democratic priorities and Farm Bill improvements that you’d like to see passed as well?

Chellie Pingree: Well, I could go on all day about that, but one of the big ones for us has been moving those IRA conservation funds into the baseline. We have had so many farmers who have signed up for programs like EQIP and REAP, and really seen the benefit on their farm, and now some of that funding has been blocked. Hopefully it’s coming back. But making that consistent over the long term would be great for us. My state’s really worried about PFAS. We’ve had a lot of farmers impacted by PFAS in their soil from sewage sludge being spread years ago. I’m always big on the local food programs. We have a lot of small farmers who have CSAs or who sell at local farmers markets. That’s an important thing for us. I’m interested in specialty crops, organics. I’ve been interested in more infrastructure around meat and poultry. We also have the aquaculture side, which a lot of people don’t think about, but has a huge impact in Maine. So everything we can do to make farmers more viable economically, to help them address the extreme weather, and make sure we keep our farms in business, that’s critically important.

Andrew Huneke: There’s a lot of uncertainty in farm country over President Trump’s choices when it comes to tariffs. We ask Congresswoman Chellie Pingree what she’s hearing from producers in her state, and if these tariffs could end up leading to trade deals that would lower the country’s ag deficit like the President is proposing.

Chellie Pingree: Well, we haven’t seen positive signs about that. You know, I think the tariffs are just causing worry. You know, I’m open-minded if something good can come out of it, but right now, we’re already seeing issues related to aluminum and steel. We have a lot of growers who use hoop houses, or are growing in those situations, so that’s raised some of their costs. Machinery costs are going up. We’ve heard a lot of concerns from farmers about cost of fuel, being a Canadian border state. We get some of our, in Northern Maine, we get some of our fuel from Canada, and some of our energy costs are impacted by this. And I think some of them are already seeing some issues about purchases that they make from China. So one of the things I hear most about is they’re not sure what’s gonna happen with sales of farm produce, but they’re already seeing increased costs on inputs. So as you know, every increase in an input cost really hurts their bottom line.

Andrew Huneke: I’d like to move on now to the federal downsizing that’s happening, specifically at USDA, the Trump administration saying it’s getting rid of a lot of duplication and waste. How do you think USDA services will be affected by that?

Chellie Pingree: Well, as you know, there’s no transparency right now in what’s going on with the DOGE, and what’s going on with the cuts. I’m a member of the Ag Appropriations Committee. Normally, we would be able to see much more information about the layoffs, about the staff cuts. I know in my home state, these field offices have been devastated. We had one that had six people in it, is down to one. We lost four engineers in the program. They’re hard to get. And you know, this is one of the things on both sides of the aisle, people have been saying, we need boots on the ground to help our farmers. And these are taking away the very people that help them apply for those grants, get the support they need, help with their loans, come out to their farms and advise them as engineers. So we’ve only seen devastation. None of this was waste, fraud, and abuse. I don’t know what they’re talking about, to tell you the truth, but I’m looking forward to learning more. I’m hoping as a member of the Appropriations Committee, that eventually we are given some information. That’s our job. That’s why we consider these cuts illegal, ’cause it’s not respecting the separation of powers. This is the role of Congress. We have the power of the purse. So, right now it’s all been bad.

Andrew Huneke: Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins has been on the job now for a couple of months. What are your thoughts on her performance so far?

Chellie Pingree: Well, I think we’re gonna have her in front of the Ag Appropriations Committee next week. So it’ll be my first chance to really talk to her firsthand, tell her what I’m hearing from the farmers, ask her about the programs that have been cut that have hurt many of our farmers who don’t get reimbursements for the money they’ve already spent, hitting our school lunch programs, our food banks. So I got a long list of questions. I’m willing to work together with anybody in the Trump administration if I feel like we share a lot of goals. I’m hoping that she can administer this program. So far, it’s all been the DOGE and from the outside, and as I said, very little transparency. So, I think the jury is still out. You know, I hope she’s there for American farmers. I hope that she can stand up to some of the cuts that should be reinstated, but I’ll find out soon.

Andrew Huneke: Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, thank you for making time for us this morning. Appreciate you.

Chellie Pingree: Anytime. Really enjoy talking to you.

Andrew Huneke: We’ll be right back with our panel discussion, but first, Lydia Johnson takes a look at annual food price increases in this week’s Ag by the Numbers.

Lydia Johnson: USDA has raised its forecast for grocery prices this year. The department’s economists are now projecting that the cost of eating at home will increase by 3.2% in 2025, a rate that’s higher than average for the last 20 years. As you can see on this chart, average year over year food price changes are shown since 2020. The average annual increase is 2.6%. The largest spike came in 2022. Grocery prices increased that year by 11%, the biggest increase since 1979. A highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak spiked the price of eggs by 32% alone, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine pressured the economy with inflation and higher energy costs. Food prices increased by a lower than average 1.2% in 2024 due to reduced labor pressures, lower energy prices, and changes in consumer demand. Looking at this year, the 3.2% food price increase is due in part to an expected 6% increase in beef prices, and a 54% increase in egg prices. For Agri-Pulse, I’m Lydia Johnson.

Andrew Huneke: Welcome back to “Agri-Pulse Newsmakers,” where this week’s panel is going to focus on what’s going to happen with the reconciliation bill if there end up being cuts to the SNAP program, we’ll also take a look at what’s going on with trade, tariffs and the farm bill. Joined this week by Tom Sell with Combest, Sell & Associates and Gina Plata-Nino with the Food Research and Action Center, thank you so much for joining us today, guys, and Gina, I’d like to start with you first, ma’am, the House Agriculture Committee must find 230 billion dollars in net spending cuts over the next 10 years. How do you expect this to affect the SNAP program and the people who rely on it?

Gina Plata-Nino: Thank you, and thank you for having us. It will have a devastated impact on the SNAP program and the millions of people who rely on it. We just finished a segment when we interview cities, farmers, business individuals across the country to talk about what the impacts were, and what we found across is cities are already stretched thin financially, they depend on federal support like SNAP to provide essential services and help families facing food insecurity, without that funding, cities have told us that they increase demand for social services, but they will lack the resources to meet it. When you think about SNAP, you also have to think about the economy because it’s a major economic driver. Looking at just the independent grocery, it creates over 200,000 jobs as well as thousands in related industries. If this were to close, we’re looking at our mom-and-pop stores closing, which leads to layoffs, reduced hours, further destabilizing vulnerable communities, and beyond the economy, we had experts in the health field talk to us, and they have said time and time again that SNAP plays a critical role in child health and development, reducing risks like obesity, amenia and developmental delays, and were SNAP… Were to be cut, more families will face housing insecurity, health insecurity, and it will reduce economic instability… It will increase economic instability across the country.

Andrew Huneke: And one thing Republicans can agree… Or seem to agree on right now, Gina, is expanding work requirements to older Americans and parents of school-aged children. Work requirements usually poll pretty well with the public, why not do that instead?

Gina Plata-Nino: So let’s call it what it is, it’s time limits, SNAP program has always had work requirements individuals work, but since 1996, they put time limits on how often people can receive benefits, so individuals within a certain age group can only receive SNAP benefits for three months within a three-year period, and what the Republicans and individuals who are proponents of this fail to address is the underlying issues in the labor market. Majority of individuals work part-time jobs, but they can’t show enough hours, you have to show, at minimum, 20 hours a week, and with our gig economy, the lack of sufficient full-time, well-paying jobs, individuals in the gig economy have a really hard time. It doesn’t take into account commuting costs, this policy has disproportionately punished individuals who are actively seeking work or working part-time jobs, they just don’t have enough wages or enough hours to provide this. What we are concerned about, what you talked about children, is that expanding work… These time limits for older Americans or parents of school-aged children is that it ignores the economic realities. It doesn’t show the difficulty that people have in finding enough childcare, it doesn’t show the low wage or unstable jobs, or the impact that this will have on marginalized groups.

Andrew Huneke: Tom, I’d like to bring you into discussion now, sir, you know, Republicans wanna use those savings from SNAP to pay for increasing commodity programs and crop insurance, do you think they can get that done without cutting SNAP benefits?

Tom Sell: I wouldn’t phrase it that way. I mean, we’re talking in the context of one big, beautiful bill, or a reconciliation process, and look, reconciliation is a tool used by congresses when they’re trying to identify critical needs, and this is an enormous bill, so, you know, what might be done on the farm safety net, and what might be done with respect to the SNAP program or food stamps is one very small part. We also have to define kinda, what is success? I mean, in the SNAP program, we’ve… You know, USDA by their own audits have identified more than a 10% error rate for years. Now, in ag policy, you know, we’ve come off… We’ve spent, over the last 25 years, since I’ve been… Since I was part of the crew that did the 2000 farm bill, we were spending about 30 billion dollars a year, our baseline going forward is less than $18,000,000,000, that’s a 77% reduction, so if we’re defining success as a growing baseline forever, then I’d be the worst lobbyist in town and the ag committees wouldn’t have done their job, but success, in my mind, is having a good workable policy that supports the infrastructure and creates good incentives for a productive America. With respect to the food stamp program, you know, it’s a challenge, that 10% error rate is real, heck, that alone, if you could eliminate that, would pay for… In one… You know, one year of reducing those error rates, or eliminating those, which should be the goal, would pay for Title I, but I don’t think that’s… That’s not the trade-off and we’re talking a much bigger deal, is it good for the food stamp program, which I have defended for years and promoted? I think it’s an important part of our, you know, kinda compassionate… The American ethos, but do we want it to be accountable and tight, and for the benefits to goes…? To go to those that they were intended for? Absolutely.

Andrew Huneke: Many Democrats say that cutting SNAP benefits to pay for farm programs in the budget bill will make it impossible to pass a farm bill later. We asked Tom Sell if he was concerned about that.

Tom Sell: I think that’s a false framing. Again, this is an enormous bill. Obviously many of the Democrats chose last year, not all to say that some accountability measures that were put in GT Thompson’s bill that he passed outta the House Ag Committee, were just gonna do terrible things and they opposed improvements to the farm safety net because of that. And I think if they had to do that over again, they’d say, man, we probably went too far. We need, obviously the fact that Congress passed an end of year ad hoc disaster bill at the end of last year is evidence that there are real needs in farm country and we’ve gotta do a better job of creating more stable policy to address those, to get away from this ad hoc assistance kind of train that is never as efficient as it should be. It’s better to have policy that farmers can plan and bank around and build and invest around. And that is more reliable for taxpayers. That’s the real goal of the farm policy measure. Let’s get away from ad hoc spending and let’s build that into a farm bill that’s reliable and will create the right incentives for a growing agricultural and more dynamic agricultural industry in America. So that’s the real test. They should be kind of considered on their own. Can we do a better job with SNAP benefits and food stamps? I think we can, can we do a better job with farm policy? Absolutely, can both of those be wrapped into one big beautiful bill reconciliation package? I think so.

Andrew Huneke: Gina, I’d like to bring you back into the discussion now, ma’am, what do you think will be the impact on the farm bill of cutting SNAP benefits to pay for commodity programs?

Gina Plata-Nino: I’m gonna defer to what my friend who just went forward said, we don’t have to choose one over the other. Both programs work alongside our farmers are the one who are growing the food. Our people benefit from it and both programs have of work in sync. And what we care about is ensuring that millions Americans who are going hungry have the resources to be able to have the food that they need and in terms support their local economies so that they can keep on thriving.

Andrew Huneke: Tom, I’d like to wrap with you, sir. I’d like your thoughts on tariffs if we could before we end the discussion. China still under that 125% tariff from President Trump. It’s been one of the largest markets for farm commodities here in the US. How do you see this whole situation playing out?

Tom Sell: We’re looking at a fundamental change in our industrial policy. In the US, very pro agricultural policy is what certainly President Trump is after. But whenever you make significant changes like that, there’s gonna be some pain and challenges. The other big question is who really needs… Who’s in a more vulnerable position? And I think China is in a more vulnerable position. They need the US market and I think it’s wise to embrace policy that is gonna bring them to the table for more fair and free and open trade and transparent. They manipulate a lot of things against the US producer and if we can get to a better place, I think that’s a goal that’s worthy of pursuit.

Andrew Huneke: Certainly a lot to be paying attention to here as we move forward when it comes to reconciliation, trade tariffs and the farm Bill. Tom, Gina, thank you so much for joining us this morning. We’ll be back with more AgriPulse Newsmakers, but first, Lydia Johnson looks at Europe’s foot and mouth disease outbreaks in this week’s Map It Out.

Lydia Johnson: Foot and Mouth Disease in Europe has the US pork and beef sectors on edge. Any US cases could then exports batter farm revenue and create trade barriers in international markets. The contagious highly transmissible virus affects cloven hoof animals with a fever and blisters on the mouth and feet. The virus doesn’t usually kill animals or spread to humans, but it reduces milk and meat production. Animals are usually cold, which can create large economic losses for producers. As you can see on this chart, three European countries have seen infections this year. Hungary confirmed its fifth FMD outbreak recently at a cattle farm to the Slovakian border. Four other farms have confirmed cases leading to the coaling of 4,000 animals. Hungary’s outbreak is the latest in a series of detections on the continent this year. Slovakia has had six since March. Germany had its first case in January since 1988, but has since regained FMD free status. The last time Europe had a major foot and mouth outbreak in 2001, the United Kingdom had to slaughter six million animals to contain it. UK agricultural loan lost an estimated 20% in revenue. The US hasn’t had a documented case since 1929. Experts say the recent cases are particularly concerning because the affected countries have been FMD free for decades and the cause of reintroduction is not clear. For AgriPulses, I’m Lydia Johnson.

Andrew Huneke: Thanks for joining us for another episode of “Agri-Pulse Newsmakers.” Here’s what’s on the horizon for next week. The House Ag Committee will hold a hearing Tuesday on American Innovation and the Future of Digital Assets. USDA’s monthly crop production report comes out Thursday, and you can now sign up for this year’s Agri-Pulse Food and Ag Issues Summit in Sacramento, California on June 10th. The event will offer a full day of speeches and panel discussions. Early bird rates are available through May 10th. And to sign up, visit the events tab on our website, www.agripulse.com. For “Agri-Pulse,” I’m Andrew Huneke. Thanks for watching.

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