A 'Farm Bill' for New Mexico?

On Aug. 23, Rep. Melanie Stansbury coordinated a meeting of more than two dozen anti-hunger advocates at Roadrunner Food Bank, including three of us from the Interfaith Hunger Coalition. The three of us are also part of the newly formed Hunger Council.

Meals on Wheels, Roadrunner Food Bank, the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, the Agri-Cultura Network (representing farmers in South Valley of Albuquerque), the Food Depot in Santa Fe, and the New Mexico Food and Agriculture Policy Council were also represented.

Collari Communications, which spearheaded a proposal to create a nutrition council in New Mexico last year, was also there, along with allies in the state's nutrition community. 

Representatives from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's office, including the director of the Children's Cabinet, another member of the State House (Rep. Karen Bash),  and two foundations (Thornburg and New Mexico First) also joined in the dialogue.

The presence of all the expertise resulted in some very rich conversations. We were divided into three groups in the room.  While part of the conversation involved identification of barriers and challenges to address hunger in New Mexico, some compelling plans were put forth. One especially interesting proposal, which came before the room was divided into groups, was presented by Rep. Stansbury: the possibility that hunger legislation would be considered in the context via omnibus legislation like the federal farm bill.

Here is one definition of the omnibus legislation from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

The farm bill is a package of legislation passed roughly once every five years, which has a tremendous impact on farming livelihoods, how food is grown, and what kinds of foods are grown. Covering programs ranging from crop insurance for farmers to healthy food access for low-income families, from beginning farmer training to support for sustainable farming practices, the farm bill sets the stage for our food and farm systems. As a leading advocate for family farmers and sustainable agriculture, it’s our job to make sure that this important bill is good for farmers, good for consumers, and good for the natural environment. 

Feeding America, the national entity that works with our nation's food banks, has published a general report on how the Farm Bill helps reduce hunger in the U.S. The organization then examined the anti-hunger initiatives  in the latest (2018) Farm Bill. The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) also put together its own analysis.

Omnibus Legislation
So how would something like this work in New Mexico? Given the limited time in which our "citizen legislature" meets, this could be a good approach to address a myriad of issues, including our farm-to-table initiatives, strengthening our senior and children's nutrition programs, including school lunches), setting policy on access to commodities, leveraging federal assistance programs (like SNAP), and other issues.

The New Mexico "farm bill" plan is only a broad proposal at this time and there are many issues to discuss, including what initiatives would be addressed, which committees would have jurisdiction, how to set the framework for debate and deliberation before and during one of our 60-day sessions and much more.

Fortunately, the administrative infrastructure to help the process along is under development. For one, our proposed legislative Hunger Caucus is close to becoming a reality thanks to the leadership of Rep. Joanne Ferrary (with support from Rep. Rebecca Dow, Sen. Michael Padilla and Sen. Liz Stefanics).

At the executive level, Gov. Lujan Grisham has developed a Children's Cabinet (in part to deal with , child hunger) and created a new position for a person designated specifically to address hunger issues in our state.

After years of spinning our wheels, we now have a path forward to make some strides in eliminating hunger in New Mexico.