The writing’s on the wall for the next farm bill: increasing program competition for evermore-limited dollars. One U.S. Senator sees some pretty stark choices. The central farm bill question will again boil down to nutrition versus farm program spending. Longtime Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley sees just two areas to rein in SNAP or food stamp spending.

Grassley says such moves spell out a “middle ground,” more likely to get sixty Senate votes than more severe cuts. House appropriators propose in fiscal 2018 to pare 5-billion in SNAP spending to meet slackening program demand, twice what President Trump proposes. Grassley says similar efforts to prioritize and pare spending are needed for farm safety net programs.

A USDA official told the Senate Agriculture Committee last week that popular USDA conservation programs from EQIP and CRP to CSP and the Regional Conservation Partnership are underfunded and oversubscribed by several times. The last farm bill cut conservation spending by 6-billion dollars over 10-years.