Washington, D.C. — Today, the U.S. Senate released its version of the Farm Bill, following passage of the House’s disastrous version. 

While the Senate heeded the growing calls from public health and environmental advocates and abandoned the politically toxic Cancer Gag provisions and the SOBA (Save Our Bacon Act) [formerly known as the EATS Act], which would have stripped state and local governments of the ability to pass pre-production livestock policies within their borders, this Farm Bill still fails to address the root causes of today’s food and agriculture crises. Instead of serving everyday people, this bill is poised to funnel more taxpayer dollars to corporate factory farm expansion, maintain devastating nutrition assistance cuts, and weaken fundamental conservation investments. The bill: 

• Fails to address the devastating impacts of the H.R. 1 cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), leaving millions of people vulnerable to food insecurity and hunger. 
• Expands support for dirty factory farm gas projects and factory farm infrastructure through the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) despite documented project failures and loan defaults.
• Guts the budget authority for the Environmental Quality Incentive Program, one of the nation’s most oversubscribed conservation programs, stripping critical funding without ensuring sustainable farmers will have access to replacement conservation support. 

In response, Food & Water Watch Food Policy Director Rebecca Wolf issued the following statement:

“The Senate is right to listen to the American people and abandon the politically toxic Cancer Gag provisions and the Save Our Bacon Act, but a Farm Bill that fails to protect farmers from corporate consolidation, invest in real climate solutions and ensure healthy, affordable food for all is not a solution – it’s just more of the same. 

“After years of skyrocketing food prices, family farm decimation and worsening climate impacts, Congress should use the Farm Bill to build a resilient food system – not double-down on the same corporate model that created these problems in the first place. We need a fair Farm Bill, not one that continues to prioritize agribusiness profits over farmers, workers, consumers and the planet.”