Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/congress-passes-290b-farm-bill-despite-white-house-opposition Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Amid global concerns over food prices, the Senate approved a $290 billion dollar farm bill Thursday with enough support to overcome a threatened presidential veto. A reporter outlines facets of the bill and its implications for U.S. food and agriculture policy. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JUDY WOODRUFF: Now, the new farm bill expected to become law. The legislation shapes much of the country's agricultural and food policies. But with a five-year price tag of $290 billion, the bill has much more in it.More than 65 percent of the money — about $200 billion — goes for food stamps and emergency food aid. Less than 1 percent goes toward foreign food aid.But the money it provides for farmers and agribusiness remain the subject of debate. More than $40 billion goes toward crop subsidies, such as rice, cotton, corn, soybeans and wheat.And it provides direct payments to farmers. Currently, there are no real income limits on those payments. The legislation would change that.Individuals making more than $750,000 in farm income could not receive payments, and anyone earning more than $500,000 in non-farm income could not collect subsidies.To help us understand more, we turn to Catharine Richert. She's covering the story for Congressional Quarterly.It's good to have you with us. Catharine, why do they call it a farm bill, though? Is this a misnomer, when most the money, two-thirds of the money, goes for nutrition, food aid, food stamps? CATHARINE RICHERT, Congressional Quarterly: Well, it's a very good question. When the bill was initially written back in the Depression era, in 1933, it really was a farm bill. It was full of subsidies basically to boost our small farmers in America and keep the food supply going.Over the years, lawmakers have seen it as a vehicle to include all kinds of new programs, food stamps being one of them. Now we see land conservation and definitely alternative energy incentives in the bill, as well.Today, they're calling it the Food, and Conservation, Nutrition Act, so it has a much broader title today.