Hunger, green groups ask $15 bln farm law boost

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Antihunger and environmental groups have asked the U.S. Congress to guarantee them $15 billion in additional spending, some of it at the expense of traditional U.S. crop subsidies.

Environmentalists on Monday raised a direct challenge to farm subsidies, asking House and Senate leaders to increase land stewardship spending by $10 billion over five years, nearly a 40 percent increase from current levels.

"In particular, we urge you to finance new investments in conservation through reforms to farm bill policies and through new funding and offsets from sources outside the farm bill," two dozen environmental groups said in a letter.

Antihunger groups want $5 billion in new funding for public nutrition programs like food stamps and school lunch. Anti-poverty advocates have complained that the average food stamp recipient gets $1 per meal -- too skimpy for a healthy diet.

House Agriculture Committee chairman Collin Peterson, Minnesota Democrat, says grain, cotton and soybean subsidy money should not be siphoned for other programs. Crop subsidy outlays are forecast to fall sharply through 2012 while land stewardship and public nutrition funding would go up because of rising caseloads.

Food assistance programs account for 60 percent of Agriculture Department spending.

Ferd Hoefner of the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition said green groups, while suggesting crop subsidy reforms, also believe "some (funding) needs to come from outside" of agriculture programs. "It needs to be both" sources, he said.

Pivotal sessions are approaching for nutrition and crop subsidy programs. A House Agriculture subcommittee is scheduled to vote on public nutrition programs on Thursday. Another subcommittee will meet next Tuesday to outline crop supports through 2012.

Their first-round work may set the tone for the farm law being written this year to succeed the expiring 2002 law.

"It's time to fix the farm bill in a broad way," said David Beckmann, head of Bread for the World, a "faith-based" movement against hunger. Beckmann said his group believes "one way to get additional money for nutrition assistance is to take it out of the commodity title."

A poll of 1,000 likely voters commissioned by the group found two-thirds of Americans believe the government is not doing enough to reduce hunger. A plurality, 37 percent, said food assistance should be the top priority of the farm bill.

Other antihunger groups call for more money but do not suggest a funding source. "We're of the mind Congress ... can find the money. It's a big budget," said Ellen Vollinger of the Food Research and Action Center.

Environmental Defense, one of the green groups signing the letter to congressional leaders, says 211 U.S. representatives, or nearly half of the House, are sponsors of various bills to boost land, water and wildlife stewardship or to spend more on public nutrition.

Peterson says House Democratic leaders have assured him the cost of larger spending to develop biofuels will be offset by savings generated by repeal of tax breaks for oil companies. Other offsets have yet to be identified.