The case for nutrition dollars

The Washington Post covers the public plea from environmental and anti-hunger groups for $15 billion in additional funding from the farm bill.

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.
Antihunger groups want $5 billion in new funding for public nutrition programs like food stamps and school lunch.

Later in the story:

"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."

TK: The $20 billion reserve fund for the farm bill is being spent several times over. This bold call for farm program reform contrasts - at least so far - with the produce industry's wait and see approach to the farm bill markup process. Is this nutrition/environmental attempt to reshuffle funding priorities an ill-fated gambit or a master stroke? Whatever the outcome, there appears to be little to lose in the trying.