Why Feeding America Supports a Strong 2023 Farm Bill

Aug 07, 2023

By Paul Morello

From helping connect food banks with produce, grains and protein, to ensuring millions of our neighbors are able to afford groceries every month, there is one piece of federal legislation that is critical to addressing hunger in America: the Farm Bill. Every five years, Congress has an opportunity to pass a Farm Bill that strengthens our nation’s commitment to hunger relief. As grocery prices remain high and supply chain disruptions continue – the time is now to support a strong Farm Bill.

Why is the Farm Bill important in addressing food insecurity?

With passage of the 2023 Farm Bill sometime this year, our country has a viable pathway to help the nearly 34 million people facing hunger in the U.S. to put food on the table because it determines policy for two federal programs that are important to ending hunger in America.

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP): Commonly called ‘EBT,’ this program is the cornerstone of our nation’s response to hunger. Using a card pre-loaded with funds, SNAP users can purchase food at their local grocery store. For every meal the Feeding America network provides, SNAP provides nine. Every month, 40 million individuals and families across the country receive SNAP benefits to purchase food.
The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP): Connects farms to food banks and helps those food banks transport and store U.S.-grown fruits and vegetables, as well as dairy and protein, so it can be quickly distributed in the community. TEFAP provided 1.24 billion pounds of food to the Feeding America food bank network between July 2021 and June 2022 which helped us provide over 1 billion meals. But the amount of food the network received decreased which is why we’re advocating for increased TEFAP funding to not only help those facing hunger, but also to support the American agricultural economy.

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Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.