Jimmy Panetta

I appreciate you leaning into this issue, and I also appreciate the fact that you understand the emergency aspect of this issue.

I hope to use next year, especially with the 2023 Farm Bill and securing our Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

I will take a perspective from our rural areas.

Current SNAP guidelines often disqualify them from accessing this Federal lifeline.

I am obviously proud of what we did at the Federal level to increase SNAP assistance, but as you know and as you said today, that is temporary.

I look forward to working with you on that and many other issues as we approach the 2023 Farm Bill as well.

Please don't respond that way to my local mayors.

I have been working to get military hunger prevention legislation across the goal line.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate this hearing, which I am sure there will be many hearings in which we are going to talk about this very, very important subject of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, especially as we…

access to reliable broadband internet is an absolute necessity for our students, for our farmworkers, for our patients, for our businesses

I appreciate this opportunity to have this type of discussion with these experts to talk about many of our Federal conservation programs.

However, as you know, many families, many farmworkers still greatly rely on SNAP, especially over the last few years with the pandemic, which has definitely led to higher food insecurity in many parts of my district.

Obviously, we have had a lot of hearings on the farm bill, and this type of discussion on how the USDA and its agencies execute Congressional policies and interact with our consumers, with our farmers, with our ranchers, and our partners…

I would say that is one of the primary things that we see, just an additional investment and a need for technology support in our rural communities.

I appreciate your comments regarding building on the proven success of flexibilities during COVID-19.

We have to remember that the people who we are talking about on SNAP are usually low-wage workers.

If this provision becomes law, it will provide a bridge to the next farm bill.

I do hope to be a part of this Committee in which I can continue to ensure that obviously SNAP not just plays a majority role in the farm bill, but that it grows and expands.

One of the other aspects of the work that we do that really isn't tailored to fit specialty or organic crops is our farm loan programs, and we are working very diligently with those groups to try to find a way to craft those tools to…

Are you willing to work on some sort of compromise when it comes to dealing with DHS on that type of mandate?

Please know that myself and Rodney Davis were the ones who worked hard to get that language into the 2018 Farm Bill

Thank you very much for being here today. I truly appreciate you showing up to Capitol Hill.

Is the USDA engaging with the DOL to make the only game in town, the H-2A process, actually work for our producers?

One of the issues I am hearing about is the lack of staffing.

My producers are running into a couple of difficulties... there are some difficulties with it.