Image Credit: Cynthia Nelson
The House and Senate have passed their respective Farm Bills and the members of the conference committees have been chosen. As we await the first conference committee meetings in early September, the UMD Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics will be posting guides to help readers understand proposed changes to the Farm Bill, differences between the House and Senate versions and how these changes or differences can practically impact you and/or the population you serve. Current guides cover topics in the Commodities and Nutrition titles of the Farm Bill including Dairy, other commodities programs, SNAP work requirements, SNAP-Ed, EFNEP, Emergency food Assistance, the use of EBT for online purchases, and programs that promote healthy eating and combat food insecurity.
2018 Farm Bill Guides can be found here: http://www.arec.umd.edu/extension/2018-farm-bill-guides
Check back to that page regularly as we update this site throughout the month and also for new developments from the conference committee.
Dr. Mary Zaki joined the University of Maryland in 2014. Her research focuses on household finance and household consumption issues especially among low income populations. She currently is studying household spending patterns between paycheck receipts, the effects of high cost credit on food consumption among military families, the influence of food acquisition costs on food stamp month spending, historical consumer credit costs and the effect of school breakfast program expansions on health outcomes and test scores.
Dr. Howard Leathers is the director of the undergraduate program for the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, as well as an advisor and a mentor to many graduate students. He regularly publishes on the economics of food crises and is the author of “The World Food Problem”, the fifth edition of which was published in 2017. In addition to teaching and writing, Dr. Leathers travels extensively to lead workshops regarding topics such as crop insurance, commodities, and the dairy industry.
