House Passes Farm Bill with Huge SNAP Cuts

It took five long years to finally arrive at a new Farm Bill and the end results are not pretty. The House voted?217 to 210?to cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (better known as food stamps) by $39 billion over the next decade.? The bill includes a prominent proposal to prohibit states from waiving work requirements for certain adults receiving food stamp benefits even in areas of high unemployment and inadequate job creation. Also new in the bill is a provision to permanently remove nutrition programs, including SNAP, from the farm bill.? That provision would make it so that nutrition programs must be approved by Congress every three years, while the rest of the farm bill would remain on a five-year schedule.? If this provision were to become law, it would place future passage of farm bills in serious doubt.?According to the Congressional Budget Office, the bill would remove 3.8 million Americans from the food stamp program in 2014 and an average of 2.8 million people over the course of the next decade.? In addition, nearly a million people would see their benefit levels reduced.?No Democrats voted for the bill, and 15 Republicans also voted no. With hunger issues plaguing our nation, the passage of this bill and the huge cuts to the SNAP program will be detrimental to families across the nation.

CDC Report Links Antibiotics in Agriculture to Rise of Superbugs

A Centers for Disease Control (CDC)?report?released Monday highlights a growing public health crisis. Superbugs or antibiotic resistant bacteria are increasingly a problem as people face infections that are more and more difficult to treat. These infections can include urinary tract infections, skin infections and soft tissue infections that require longer treatment or become more serious after the first round of antibiotics fail.?These infections, according to the CDC, occur most often outside of hospitals. Thus, the CDC report calls for responsible use of antibiotics and draws attention to the multiple reasons for the rise of superbugs that are leading to complicated and deadly infections. The report issued adds to the extensive literature documenting the link between?agriculture and antibiotic resistant bacteria. It also specifically identifies several resistant bacteria as posing a serious threat, which have been associated with antibiotic use in agriculture. Animals raised in proper living conditions do not need the use of antibiotics. Unfortunately, the majority of livestock raised for slaughter in this country, and many others, are forced to live in unhealthy and unsanitary conditions, hence the over usage of antibiotics.