For the 20th time since 1933, Congress is writing a multiyear farm bill that will shape what kind of food U.S. farmers grow, how they raise it and how it gets to consumers. These measures are large, complex and expensive: The next farm bill is projected to cost taxpayers US$1.5 trillion over 10 years.
Modern farm bills address many things besides food, from rural broadband access to biofuels and even help for small towns to buy police cars. These measures bring out a dizzying range of interest groups with diverse agendas.
As a former Senate aide and senior official at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, I’ve seen this intricate process from all sides. In my view, with the challenges in this round so complex and with critical 2024 elections looming, it could take Congress until 2025 to craft and enact a bill. Here are four key issues shaping the next farm bill, and through it, the future of the U.S. food system.
These measures follow unprecedented spending for farm support during the Trump administration. Now legislators are jockeying over raising the debt ceiling, which limits how much the federal government can borrow to pay its bills.
Agriculture Committee leaders and farm groups argue that more money is necessary to strengthen the food and farm sector. If they have their way, the price tag for the next farm bill would increase significantly from current projections.
On the other side, reformers argue for capping payments to farmers, which The Washington Post recently described as an “expensive agricultural safety net,” and restricting payment eligibility. In their view, too much money goes to very large farms that produce commodity crops like wheat, corn, soybeans and rice, while small and medium-size producers receive far less support.
Food aid is the key fight
Many people are surprised to learn that nutrition assistance – mainly through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps – is where most farm bill money is spent. Back in the 1970s, Congress began including nutrition assistance in the farm bill to secure votes from an increasingly urban nation.
Today, over 42 million Americans depend on SNAP, including nearly 1 in every 4 children. Along with a few smaller programs, SNAP will likely consume 80% of the money in the new farm bill, up from 76% in 2018.
Why have SNAP costs grown? During the pandemic, SNAP benefits were increased on an emergency basis, but that temporary arrangement expired in March 2023. Also, in response to a directive included in the 2018 farm bill, the Department of Agriculture recalculated what it takes to afford a healthy diet, known as the Thrifty Food Plan, and determined that it required an additional $12-$16 per month per recipient, or 40 cents per meal.
Because it’s such a large target, SNAP is where much of the budget battle will play out. Most Republicans typically seek to rein in SNAP; most Democrats usually support expanding it.
Anti-hunger advocates are lobbying to make the increased pandemic benefits permanent and defend the revised Thrifty Food Plan. In contrast, Republicans are calling for SNAP reductions, and are particularly focused on expanding work requirements for recipients.
Debating climate solutions
The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act provided $19.5 billion to the Department of Agriculture for programs that address climate change. Environmentalists and farmers alike applauded this investment, which is intended to help the agriculture sector embrace climate-smart farming practices and move toward markets that reward carbon sequestration and other ecosystem services.
This big pot of money has become a prime target for members of Congress who are looking for more farm bill funding. On the other side, conservation advocates, sustainable farmers and progressive businesses oppose diverting climate funds for other purposes.
But without more research and standards, observers worry that investments in climate-smart agriculture will support greenwashing – misleading claims about environmental benefits – rather than a fundamentally different system of production. Mixed research results have raised questions as to whether establishing carbon markets based on such practices is premature.
A complex bill and inexperienced legislators
Understanding farm bills requires highly specialized knowledge about issues ranging from crop insurance to nutrition to forestry. Nearly one-third of current members of Congress were first elected after the 2018 farm bill was enacted, so this is their first farm bill cycle.
I expect that, as often occurs in Congress, new members will follow more senior legislators’ cues and go along with traditional decision making. This will make it easier for entrenched interests, like the American Farm Bureau Federation and major commodity groups, to maintain support for Title I programs, which provide revenue support for major commodity crops like corn, wheat and soybeans. These programs are complex, cost billions of dollars and go mainly to large-scale operations.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s current stump speech spotlights the fact that 89% of U.S. farmers failed to make a livable profit in 2022, even though total farm income set a record at $162 billion. Vilsack asserts that less-profitable operations should be the focus of this farm bill – but when pressed, he appears unwilling to concede that support for large-scale operations should be changed in any way.
When I served as deputy secretary of agriculture from 2009 to 2011, I oversaw the department’s budget process and learned that investing in one thing often requires defunding another. My dream farm bill would invest in three priorities: organic agriculture as a climate solution; infrastructure to support vibrant local and regional markets and shift away from an agricultural economy dependent on exporting low-value crops; and agricultural science and technology research aimed at reducing labor and chemical inputs and providing new solutions for sustainable livestock production.
In my view, it is time for tough policy choices, and it won’t be possible to fund everything. Congress’ response will show whether it supports business as usual in agriculture, or a more diverse and sustainable U.S. farm system.
Kathleen Merrigan is a former Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Agriculture
On April 22, 2024, the Supreme Court will hear a case that could radically change how cities respond to the growing problem of homelessness. It also could significantly worsen the nation’s racial justice gap.
City of Grants Pass v. Johnson began when a small city in Oregon with just one homeless shelter began enforcing a local anti-camping law against people sleeping in public using a blanket or any other rudimentary protection against the elements – even if they had nowhere else to go. The court must now decide whether it is unconstitutional to punish homeless people for doing in public things that are necessary to survive, such as sleeping, when there is no option to do these acts in private.
The case raises important questions about the scope of the Constitution’s cruel and unusual punishment clause and the limits of cities’ power to punish involuntary conduct. As a specialist in poverty law, civil rights and access to justice who has litigated many cases in this area, I know that homelessness in the U.S. is a function of poverty, not criminality, and is strongly correlated with racial inequality. In my view, if cities get a green light to continue criminalizing inevitable behaviors, these disparities can only increase.
A national crisis
Homelessness in the United States is a massive problem. The number of people without homes held steady during the COVID-19 pandemic largely because of eviction moratoriums and the temporary availability of expanded public benefits, but it has risen sharply since 2022.
The latest data from the federal government’s annual “Point-in-Time” homeless count found 653,000 people homeless across the U.S. on a single night in 2023 – a 12% increase from 2022 and the highest number reported since the counts began in 2007. Of the people counted, nearly 300,000 were living on the street or in parks, rather than indoors in temporary shelters or safe havens.
The survey also shows that all homelessness is not the same. About 22% of homeless people are deemed chronically homeless, meaning they are without shelter for a year or more, while most experience a temporary or episodic lack of shelter. A 2021 study found that 53% of homeless shelter residents and nearly half of unsheltered people were employed.
Scholars and policymakers have spent many years analyzing the causes of homelessness. They include wage stagnation, shrinking public benefits, inadequate treatment for mental illness and addiction, and the politics of siting affordable housing. There is little disagreement, however, that the simple mismatch between the vast need for affordable housing and the limited supply is a central cause.
Homelessness and race
Like poverty, homelessness in the U.S. is not race-neutral. Black Americans represent 13% of the population but comprise 21% of people living in poverty and 37% of people experiencing homelessness.
The largest percentage increase in homelessness for any racial group in 2023 was 40% among Asians and Asian-Americans. The largest numerical increase was among people identifying as what the Department of Housing and Urban Development calls “Latin(a)(o)(x),” with nearly 40,000 more homeless in 2023 than in 2022.
This disproportionality means that criminalizing homelessness likewise has a disparate racial effect. A 2020 study in Austin, Texas, showed that Black homeless people were 10 times more likely than white homeless people to be cited by police for camping on public property.
Increasing homelessness, especially its visible manifestations such as tent encampments, has frustrated city residents, businesses and policymakers across the U.S. and led to an increase in crackdowns against homeless people. Reports from the National Homelessness Law Center in 2019and 2021 have tallied hundreds of laws restricting camping, sleeping, sitting, lying down, panhandling and loitering in public.
Just since 2022, Texas, Tennessee and Missouri have passed statewide bans on camping on public property, with Texas making it a felony.
Under presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the federal government has asserted that criminal sanctions are rarely useful. Instead it has emphasized alternatives, such as supportive services, specialty courts and coordinated systems of care, along with increased housing supply.
Some cities have had striking success with these measures. But not all communities are on board.
The Grants Pass case
Grants Pass v. Johnson culminates years of struggle over how far cities can go to discourage homeless people from residing within their borders, and whether or when criminal sanctions for actions such as sleeping in public are permissible.
In a 2019 case, Martin v. City of Boise, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Eighth Amendment’s cruel and unusual punishment clause forbids criminalizing sleeping in public when a person has no private place to sleep. The decision was based on a 1962 Supreme Court case, Robinson v. California, which held that it is unconstitutional to criminalize being a drug addict. Robinson and a subsequent case, Powell v. Texas, have come to stand for distinguishing between status, which cannot constitutionally be punished, and conduct, which can.
In the Grants Pass ruling, the 9th Circuit went one step further than it had in the Boise case and held that the Constitution also banned criminalizing the act of public sleeping with rudimentary protection from the elements. The decision was contentious: Judges disagreed over whether the anti-camping ban regulated conduct or the status of being homeless, which inevitably leads to sleeping outside when there is no alternative.
Grants Pass is urging the Supreme Court to abandon the Robinson precedent and its progeny as “moribund and misguided.” It argues that the Eighth Amendment forbids only certain cruel methods of punishment, which do not include fines and jail terms.
The homeless plaintiffs argue that they do not challenge reasonable regulation of the time and place of outdoor sleeping, the city’s ability to limit the size or location of homeless groups or encampments, or the legitimacy of punishing those who insist on remaining in public when shelter is available. But they argue that broad anti-camping laws inflict overly harsh punishments for “wholly innocent, universally unavoidable behavior” and that punishing people for “simply existing outside without access to shelter” will not reduce this activity.
They contend that criminalizing sleeping in public when there is no alternative violates the Eighth Amendment in three ways: by criminalizing the “status” of homelessness, by imposing disproportionate punishment on innocent and unavoidable acts, and by imposing punishment without a legitimate deterrent or rehabilitative goal.
The case has attracted dozens of amicus briefs, including from numerous cities and counties that support Grants Pass. They assert that the 9th Circuit’s recent decisions have worsened homelessness, stymied law enforcement and left jurisdictions without clear guidelines for preserving public order and safety.
On the other hand, the states of Maryland, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and Vermont filed a brief urging the Court to uphold the 9th Circuit’s ruling, arguing that local governments retain ample tools to address homelessness and that criminalizing tends to worsen rather than alleviate the problem.
A brief from 165 former local elected officials agrees. Service providers, social scientists and professional organizations such as the American Psychiatric Association filed briefs noting that criminalization increases barriers to education, employment and eventual recovery; erodes community trust; and can force people back into abusive situations. They also highlight research showing the effectiveness of a nonpunitive “housing first” model.
A race to the bottom?
The current Supreme Court is generally extremely sympathetic to law enforcement, but even its conservative members may balk at allowing a city to criminalize inevitable acts by homeless people. Doing so could spark competition among cities to create the most punitive regime in hopes of effectively banishing homeless residents.
Still, at least some justices may sympathize with the city’s argument that upholding the 9th Circuit’s ruling “logically would immunize numerous other purportedly involuntary acts from prosecution, such as drug use by addicts, public intoxication by alcoholics, and possession of child pornography by pedophiles.” However the court rules, this case will likely affect the health and welfare of thousands of people experiencing homelessness in cities across the U.S.
Clare Pastore is a former Senior Counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which is one of the ACLU offices included in the organization’s amicus brief in the case supporting the homeless litigants in city of Grants Pass v. Johnson. Her employment with the ACLU ended in 2007, years before this case was filed.
The United States was forced to stop its military operations in March 2024 in Niger – a landlocked, western African country in the Sahara desert. Niger may not immediately seem like a key ally for the U.S., but it served as a crucial staging ground for the U.S. military to carry out work and respond to terrorism in the region.
U.S. representatives are currently trying to negotiate a deal to maintain some sort of military presence in Niger. But, for now, Niger’s new ruling junta has declared that the U.S. military presence is a violation of Niger’s constitution. The fate of the U.S.‘ presence, including two military drone bases, remains uncertain.
In July 2023, Niger’s military successfully conducted a coup d’état and overthrew the democratically elected government. Military leaders arrested President Mohamed Bazoum and announced an end to the constitution and the government. The coup plotters set up their own government, a military junta called the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland, to run the country – even as the president still refuses to resign.
Niger is a former French colony and up until recently was home to 1,500 French troops, who mostly all left by December 2023. When the military junta expelled the French troops, it initially allowed the U.S. to continue to operate the base. Yet in March 2024, it ordered the U.S. to leave.
Though approximately 1,000 U.S. troops remain in Niger, the prospects for the U.S. maintaining its current presence and reactivating the drone bases do not look promising. Aside from the military junta, thousands of Nigeriens have participated in large-scale protests calling for the U.S. military to leave.
As a further complication, Russian military personnel arrived in Niger in April 2024 to train Nigerien forces. They delivered military equipment and stated that they planned to build an air defense system in Niger. This deployment is part of the increased military cooperation with Russia that Niger is pursuing.
Since Niger’s military coup, the country has become increasingly isolated from others. The French and U.S. governments have reduced aid to Niger, and the European Union and Nigeria have all instituted economic sanctions.
If U.S. forces are removed from Niger entirely, this may also provide opportunities for China to increase its influence there. In recent years, China has been one of Niger’s top trading partners. In 2022, China took in approximately 9% of Niger’s exports and accounted for 22% of Niger’s imports.
The U.S., China and Russia have all created a growing military footprint in Africa over the past two decades.
Before 2001, U.S. aid to Africa was focused on goals such as eradicating HIV/AIDS and creating more educational opportunities for children.
Following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S. and the subsequent war on terrorism, the U.S. continued to carry out health and other work in Africa but also increased its military footprint there. President George W. Bush’s administration tried to eradicate al-Qaida affiliates and other extremist movements in Africa and elsewhere. African countries that were the targets of al-Qaida terrorism also saw an increase in the proportion of U.S. military aid they received.
In 2007, the U.S. Department of Defense unified its work in Africa by creating a new command called Africa Command, or AFRICOM. Under AFRICOM, the U.S. military has trained, advised and assisted the militaries of other African countries and has also tried to combat militant groups such as Boko Haram.
China established its first permanent foreign military base in Djibouti in 2017. It is now reportedly trying to get another in Equatorial Guinea. Beyond military bases, China has poured billions of dollars into economic development across Africa through its Belt and Road Initiative, which aims to develop new trade routes for China.
Russia, meanwhile, had used the Wagner Group, a state-funded private military organization, to provide military assistance and negotiate new economic deals with African leaders. After a failed Wagner Group mutiny and the death of its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner Group in Africa was rebranded as Africa Corps and continues much of this work in Africa.
These countries’ interest in building new military bases in Africa is rooted in their desire to promote their interests and secure access to commercial and security resources.
In addition, as U.S. rivals such as China and Russia gain influence in the region, it may become more expensive for the U.S. to set up new military bases in Africa. Research shows that when host states can choose between major powers to cooperate with, it requires more economic incentives to gain their favor. This means that it is not clear to what extent the U.S. can maintain a presence in western and central Africa.
Michael A. Allen has previously received funding from the Department of Defense’s Minerva Initiative.
Carla Martinez Machain has previously received funding from the Department of Defense’s Minerva Initiative.
Michael E. Flynn has previously received funding from the Minerva Research Initiative, the Department of Defense, and the Army Research Office. The views expressed here are the authors’ only and do not represent the views of any outside funder.
When former President Donald Trump soon returns to court in New York City, there are likely to be few visual surprises. Trump’s hush-money trial before New York Judge Juan Merchan is scheduled to start with jury selection on April 15, 2024.
Monday’s scene will likely echo the one from 2023, when Trump walked past cameras into a courthouse in order to appear for his arrest on 34 felony charges for allegedly committing business fraud and paying porn star Stormy Daniels money to remain quiet about her claims of their sexual encounter. As historic as the moment was, the visuals were rather bland.
Still photos from inside the courtroom will capture the scene silently, so even if the former president speaks out of turn, as he occasionally does in court, outside viewers will not hear the audio. New York courts allow cameras into criminal proceedings, but journalists must get permission to be there, and judges will impose different rules on a case-by-case basis.
Dozens of news photographers will be posted inside and outside the courthouse, working within strict guidelines about where they can stand and when. Yet the courtroom scene is not likely to be the sort of media free-for-all shown in movies and TV shows. Judges and news organizations may work for weeks or months to ensure that court operations run smoothly during spectacular cases.
I have studied the way visual journalists cover criminal justice for 20 years. All this preplanning tends to yield pretty matter-of-fact imagery, but three things will be worth looking for in the visual coverage of Trump’s appearance: surprises, body language and symbolic juxtapositions.
The unexpected
Surprises will be hard to come by. True, the former president likes to play to the cameras when he can, but he faces legal challenges on multiple fronts, and so far, he has been compelled to maintain a civil demeanor when being photographed in court.
Even in the most camera-friendly jurisdictions, such as New York and Florida, photojournalists are subject to strict rules about placement and procedure. My research for my 2021 book, “Seeing Justice,” found that media and the court system often work together to balance the public’s interest in a case with a need to maintain order.
In fact, arrangements for major cases can mimic the plans for major league sporting events. During the 2013 George Zimmerman trial for the murder of Black teenager Trayvon Martin in central Florida, for example, court representatives met with local TV engineers to determine where news vans could park. Cameras were set up inside the courtroom, and an overflow room was arranged so the journalists who didn’t have access to the courtroom could still watch the proceedings.
Body language
During Trump’s upcoming trial, viewers will be watching for cues from his body language, particularly his facial expressions. Often visual coverage for a criminal court case lets the audience know what the accused looks like, but most viewers are well-acquainted with the former president’s appearance. Instead, people will be watching for clues about his mood.
Will the former president look angry, as he has during previous court appearances? Will he look solemn? Nervous?
Visual coverage can often expose so much more than words about a person’s mood. Human beings instinctively read faces as part of social interaction. Infants track faces before other visual information.
Some experts estimate that a majority of the information people take in from a conversation can be nonverbal, though exactly how much they rely on this kind of information is subject to debate. What is clearly established in the research is that, whether in-person or through media, we are drawn to faces. We notice them, read them and respond emotionally to them. Mirror neurons, a type of brain cell, are activated when we read the faces of others, prompting our own emotions to flicker in reaction to others’ apparent feelings..
Coverage from Trump’s appearance before Merchan on April 4, 2023, for instance, included observations about his body language, how he walked into the building, how he quietly interacted with his lawyers, and so on. He waited to be among supporters in Florida that day before more forcefully expressing his anger and frustration.
Visual irony
Finally, those of us who are deeply interested in visual communication will be watching for symbolic juxtapositions. A still photo from the pool camera in April 2023, for example, included a bulletin board in the background in which a small American flag had been inserted.
Who put it there, and why? This tiny American flag, displayed next to what looks like a photocopied map of the state of New York and other nondescript notices, added a touch of the mundane to the historic moment.
The courtroom where Trump sat was just one of many of its kind across the country. The plain bulletin board with its little flag robbed the scene of grandiosity normally associated with the presidency.
The photojournalists stationed in and outside of the courthouse will be very busy and likely tense as they prepare to capture photos and video of the former president. But this chaotic scene will be largely hidden from the audience.
Photojournalists will likely work from cordoned-off pens in the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, and if their scrums are anything like the others I’ve studied over time, they’ll gather very early, stake claim to key spots and spend far more time waiting than recording video.
Visual journalists from competing organizations will greet one another as professionals do at a convention, with handshakes and catch-up conversations. After all, many of these photojournalists will spend more time in these groupings than they will with members of their own news organizations. The friendly mood will stop cold, though, once the action starts.
Even though everyone knows what Trump looks like, and even though his walk through the hallway may take only a matter of seconds, it will be essential to capture that moment, for their own job, their professional reputation and, of course, to satisfy the public’s curiosity.
Mary Angela Bock has received funding from the Association for Education for Journalism and Mass Communication. Since October 2023, Bock has contributed $150 to ActBlue, a political action committee that fundraises for Democratic nonprofits and politicians.