Farm bill passes now – and is at the top of the docket.

Stakeholders continue to provide testimony on the $1.2 trillion Farm Bill being considered by the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture on a daily basis. The ultimate goal is releasing the bill to the full House for a vote in mid-September, said Committee Chair Glenn Thompson, R-15, Bellefonte. Thompson is the first chairman of the Agriculture Committee from Pennsylvania in nearly 170 years. He said he wants the Farm Bill to be bipartisan, bicameral and highly effective. The Farm Bill touches the lives of every American family, multiple times a day, and provides resources and safety-net programs for farm families “that are in Congressional District 15, which has 18 counties, including Union and Snyder. And throughout Pennsylvania,” Thompson said. “The programs we have are not handouts. The modern Farm Bill is based on public-private partnerships,” he said. The bill is important for farmers because it includes things like crop insurance and conservation programs. But overall it addresses issues common in rural America. The bill has 12 Titles, some miscellaneous, or categories, that include everything from rural broadband and rural utilities to helping municipalities with water and sewage projects. Other Titles address workforce development, and access to food through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, as well as funding food banks and food pantries. Title four of the Farm Bill is nutrition. Forty-two million people in America are eligible for SNAP, Thompson said. The Central Pennsylvania Food Bank CEO and Executive Director Joe Arthur said he has been “keeping close watch on this year’s funding of title four.” “Where we are now is that we are having hearings and roundtables every day in Washington,” Thompson said. “And we will continue to do that right up until we pass this bill out of committee. I am shooting for having this done by mid-September, before the deadline, and having it on the House floor. That’s my goal and I am sticking to it.” Thompson is now meeting with the freshmen members of Congress and has formed groups with expertise in different areas such as content, and Farm Bill processes.