The Farm Bill: Crossing the Rural-Urban Divide

This week, the World Urban Forum offers an opportunity to look at the ways in which challenges and opportunities in cities are linked to those in rural areas. National policy can address (or exacerbate) challenges across the rural-urban continuum. Today, I want to take a look at a piece of policy in America that has a big impact on rural and urban America—the Farm Bill. The 2014 Farm Bill is the primary piece of food and agricultural policy in the United States, and it is estimated that it will make up two percent of all federal spending over the coming decade. Let’s look at how this bill links rural and urban residents, affecting their ecosystems, economies, and food access.

The Farm Bill is often portrayed as a careful alliance between urban consumers receiving food stamps and rural producers receiving subsidies. In reality, it is more complicated. Seventy-nine percent of the farm bill goes toward nutrition, and the biggest chunk of that spending is on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps. Since the 1990s, participation in SNAP by eligible rural Americans has increased, so that 86 percent of rural eligibles now receive food stamps, versus 73 percent of urban eligibles. Although only one in five Americans live in rural areas, they actually made up 31 percent of food stamp beneficiaries in 2005. In fact, eight percent of rural Americans used food stamps, versus five percent of urban residents. Food stamps are clearly just as important a safety net for rural consumers as for urban consumers.

The benefits of the nutrition title are also not limited to consumers. Through smaller and less known programs like The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) for the poor and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) for seniors, the government purchases food directly from producers and works through a network of nonprofit food banks to give it away. Advocates of local food economies also hope a new program in the bill called the Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive will double the value of SNAP benefits spent on fruit and vegetables at farmer’s markets. Loosely based on pilot projects in 25 states, the program could reward participants who purchase $5 worth of produce with a voucher for $5 more, increasing sales for fruit and vegetable farmers. Or the program could be watered down to give 30 cents to participants who buy fruit cocktail drinks at Target—depending on how the rulemaking process unfolds.

The conservation title, which makes up six percent of farm bill spending, also links rural and urban folks. When we think of conservation, we often picture rural areas, but we might as well picture urban water users. Fertilizer runoff, pesticides, sediment and manure from concentrated animal feeding operations can pollute and contaminate the metropolitan water supply. The Farm Bill contains a number of programs that incentivize property owners to implement conservation practices that can reduce water pollution for all users. In City Regions as Landscapes for People, Food and Nature, Thomas Forster and Arthur Getz-Escudero discuss how New York City’s Watershed Agriculture Council supports farming practices that protect water quality using funds from Farm Bill programs as well as other sources.

As you can see, the Farm Bill connects Americans across the rural-urban continuum in a variety of ways. If this piece of policy is going to positively impact the natural resources and economies of cities, peri-urban areas, and rural areas, policymakers must be cognizant of city region connections.