The number of Nebraska households using food stamps was down only 3 percent this April compared with three years ago, versus an 8.4 percent decline nationwide over the same time period, according to analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

While use is subsiding, the national program is still a huge cost: Last year more than 46 million Americans got a total of $70 billion in benefits; SNAP and other smaller nutrition programs make up 80 percent of the Farm Bill, the spending package that also includes crop insurance, land conservation programs and rural development.

The need for food was on view last week at the Heartland Hope Mission at 20th and U Streets in Omaha, where people one evening filled all 64 chairs while they listened to a preacher and waited their turn to push a cart down an aisle stocked with corn, peanut butter, oatmeal, garden vegetables, milk and meat.

Many of the pantry recipients also receive government-funded food stamps, but with the month half over, some said the money was gone or nearly so, and they needed more to eat.

At the end of the food aisle was client and food stamp recipient Paul Philamalee, who worked as a volunteer, passing out unsold deli sandwiches, whole Tyson chickens and stacks of ConAgra frozen dinners to the line of seniors, men and women, teens and toddlers.