The farm bill includes a vital crop insurance program for farmers that provides financial protection against crop destruction. The crop insurance program is the second largest program in the bill and made up 8 percent of the last farm bill. The insurance has become an increasingly important lifeline for Texas farmers, many of whom are struggling due to drought in west Texas or flood damage closer to Houston, said Laramie Adams, national legislative director of the Texas Farm Bureau, a group that advocates on behalf of Texas farmers and ranchers.

“They have no safety net, no way of surviving if you don’t have crop insurance in place in order to pick them up and allow them to be able to invest in the next growing season,” said Adams.

Additionally, the 2014 farm bill was passed when commodity prices were at a record high. Since then, the agricultural industry faced an economic downturn as commodity prices plummeted, resulting in a 50 percent drop in net farm incomes across the U.S. since the last farm bill, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

But the legislation, which must be renewed every five years, is partly hamstrung in Congress on an issue that has little to do with Texas farmers: whether to install new work requirements for recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps.

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The House included a provision in its version of the farm bill that mandated that nonexempt able-bodied adults aged 18 to 59 work or participate in job training programs for 20 hours per week, a more stringent requirement than the current requirements under SNAP. It also removes the exemption for adults with children age six or older and provides federal funds for employment and training programs the House bill requires states to offer. A Congressional Budget Office analysis of the House bill found that 1.2 million would lose benefits by 2028 under the House bill. Democrats in both chambers strongly oppose increased work requirements and it is unlikely a bill with work requirements could pass the Senate.

More than 3.7 million Texans benefit from the SNAP program, according to the Texas Department of Health and Human Services.