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Senate bill introduced to transfer 32 million acres to black farmers.

As all eyes are on the House impeachment inquiry, elsewhere an agricultural bill that could provide a path to legal status for millions of illegal immigrants is rumbling through the chamber — leading immigration hawks to accuse lawmakers of trying to sneak in an amnesty while the nation is distracted. The Farm Workforce Modernization Act, passed in the House Judiciary Committee last month, is scheduled for a vote on the House floor Wednesday. The bill provides a process for undocumented farmworkers to seek a temporary five-and-a-half-year “Certified Agricultural Worker” status if they have worked for approximately six months in the...

The House on Wednesday passed a contentious agricultural bill that would likely put more than a million illegal immigrants on a pathway to legal status as part of what supporters say is a vital modernization of the industry’s workforce -- but that immigration hawks blasted as a “large-scale amnesty.” The Farm Workforce Modernization Act passed 260-165, with support from both Democrats and Republicans. The bill provides a process for undocumented farmworkers to seek a temporary five-and-a-half-year “Certified Agricultural Worker” status if they have worked for approximately six months in the industry in the last two years. That status can either...

Puerto Rico's government Thursday filed an amicus brief in a lawsuit to overturn a federal ban on cockfighting in territories. Puerto Rico Chief of staff Ricardo Llerandi said in a statement the territorial government had joined the lawsuit filed by the Club Gallístico de Puerto Rico against the federal government in a San Juan federal court. "We have made the determination to sign on as friends of the court in this suit. We do not favor this prohibition that would affect families who live on the economy surrounding this sector in Puerto Rico. We have been and we will be...

The end of 2018 seemed to signal good things to come for America’s farmers. Fresh off the passage of the farm bill, which reauthorized agriculture, conservation and safety net programs, the Agriculture Department last week announced a second round of direct payments to growers hardest hit by President Donald Trump’s trade war with China. Then parts of the government shut down. The USDA in a statement issued last week assured farmers that checks would continue to go out during the first week of the shutdown. But direct payments for farmers who haven’t certified production, as well as farm loans and...

Farm Bill signing in 15 minutes! #Emmys #TBT

President Donald Trump has an opportunity to do what Congress should be doing, but isn’t: Help Americans who are on food stamps transition to work.The farm bill—which reauthorizes the foods stamp program for five years—would have been a prime opportunity for Congress to enhance work requirements. Under current law, certain work-capable adults must work 20 or more hours per week, participate in a supervised job search or training, or volunteer in their communities in order to receive food stamps.Most food stamp recipients are exempt from these requirements. These include people over 50 years old, the disabled, and minor children and...

Lame-duck Speaker Paul Ryan managed to shepherd through a motion protecting President Barack Obama’s illegal war in Yemen, thanks to five Democrats who joined the Republican majority to pass the measure. Speaker Paul Ryan attached a rule on Tuesday night to the Conference Report for the 2018 Farm bill which would block a potential War Powers resolution vote on America’s involvement in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. The rule passed through the House 206-203, featuring strong Republican support for the rule, along with five Democrats who voted for the measure. Eighteen Republicans and 185 Democrats against the measure. Ryan’s actions...

The Senate passed the updated 2018 Farm Bill on Tuesday, which legalized hemp and did away with implementing work requirements to receive food stamps through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The Senate voted 87-13 to pass the legislation, which lawmakers unveiled Monday evening after months of back-and-forth negotiations and debate over whether work requirements should be included in the 2018 Farm Bill. Every single Senate Democrat voted for the revised bill, and eight Republicans opposed it.....“The 2018 Farm Bill is our opportunity to make the American food and agriculture systems work more efficiently. I’m pleased to say we...

The Senate passed the bill Tuesday on an 87-13 vote, although Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy was a no, criticizing the "missed opportunity to reform" the food stamp program. Congress has reached a compromise deal on a new Farm Bill to set agriculture policy for five years, but it won't expand work requirements for food stamps, which had been a priority of U.S. Rep. Ralph Abraham of Louisiana and President Donald Trump. The Senate passed the bill Tuesday on an 87-13 vote, although Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy was a no, criticizing the "missed opportunity to reform" the food stamp...

Lawmakers say they have reached a deal on the massive farm bill, which has been hung up for weeks over demands by President Trump and House Republicans for new work requirements for food stamp recipients. Negotiators have agreed to jettison those requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which were included in the House version of the bill but not the Senate version. However, the White House has not yet signed off on the agreement and House conservatives may not support a bill that lacks work requirements.

Food banks around the country said they may not be prepared to execute the Trump administration’s plan to get additional billions in food to hungry Americans...Last month, the administration set in motion a $1.2 billion program to send food to the nation’s food banks as part of its wider effort to bail out farmers hurt by the president’s trade war. Local food bank officials said they are thrilled by the opportunity to feed more Americans who need help, but worry they will not be able to process all of the newly available agricultural products that could double or triple the...

Senator Debbie Stabenow and the Democrats are totally against approving the Farm Bill. They are fighting tooth and nail to not allow our Great Farmers to get what they so richly deserve. Work requirements are imperative and the Dems are a NO. Not good! 1:56 PM - 13 Sep 2018

The Trump administration said Monday that it will dole out around $6 billion in aid to farmers, as part of up to $12 billion in funds planned for those in the agricultural sector suffering from global tariffs. Last month, the Trump administration had promised up to $12 billion in emergency aid to the agriculture industry to calm rising concerns about a trade war sparked by the government's global tariffs. The US Department of Agriculture said Monday that it would dole out around $6 billion, including about $4.7 billion to producers of corn, cotton, dairy, hog, sorghum, soybean, and wheat. The...

The Senate today easily passed its version of the farm bill by a vote of 86-11,paving the way for a conference committee to reconcile differences with the House's version of the sweeping agriculture and nutrition legislation. The Senate farm bill attracted bipartisan support, as expected, but key differences with the House's partisan version, which passed last week, set up potentially contentious negotiations between the lawmakers who will be tasked with melding the two measures into one. The main differences relate to proposals for the food stamp program, farm subsidy caps and conservation initiatives. Congress has until Sept. 30 to get...

GOP seeks farm bill support amid immigration debate House Freedom Caucus members are trying to flex some muscle on immigration in exchange for support on the farm bill; A sprawling and subsidy-packed farm bill that also would have tightened food stamp rules failed in the House on Friday, in a dramatic defeat for GOP leaders who faced an uprising from conservatives over inaction on immigration. The farm bill, which was voted down 213-198, had been hanging in the balance as the conservative House Freedom Caucus threatened to withhold support without an agreement on an immigration bill vote. The GOP leadership,...

In a major blow to Republican leaders and after a week full of drama and last-minute vote wrangling, the House failed to pass a farm bill Friday, with several Freedom Caucus members voting no in protest to a lack of immediate action on immigration. The bill failed 198-213. House GOP leaders had been touting the bill as a fulfillment of their campaign promise to overhaul welfare programs. The vote also brings the GOP’s intraparty fissures further into public view. Thirty Republicans joined all Democrats in voting it down.

Lawmakers are poised this month to wage a major battle over the House version of the Farm Bill, which will call for work requirements in the federal food stamp program that serves the poor. ( the vast majority of Farm Bill funds spending is on food stamps) Democrats are staunchly opposed to Conaway’s plan to add a 20-hour work or job training requirement for some able-bodied recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the formal name for the food stamp program............In the 2014 legislation, SNAP’s 10-year cost was $756 billion, or 80% of the entire $956 billion bill. The federal...

As the U.S. House of Representatives prepared to consider the fiscal year 2015 agricultural appropriations bill, the White House threatened to veto the legislation due to opposition related to funding provisions related to school nutrition programs, potatoes in the Women, Infants and Children program and other policy issues.This is the first veto threat from the White House for fiscal year 2015 spending bills.“The bill undermines key investments in financial oversight, injects political decision-making into science-based nutrition standards, and includes objectionable language riders,” said the official Statement of Administration Policy. “If the President were presented with H.R. 4800, his senior advisors...

It´s a quiet crisis. In a city of plenty, a staggering number of people are struggling to feed themselves and their families. Nearly one in five New Yorkers, 1.4 million people, now rely on a patchwork network of 1,000 food pantries and soup kitchens across the city to eat. That represents an increase of 200,000 people in five years — straining the charities that are trying to help. The two biggest, City Harvest and the Food Bank for New York City, now provide nearly 110 million pounds of food to soup kitchens and food pantries a year. Yet those working