President Barack Obama signed Friday (Saturday, CNMI time) a nearly $1 trillion agricultural spending bill containing a $32.5-million pilot food stamp program for the CNMI, even as the new law cuts national food stamps by $8 billion over the next decade that sparked a two-year battle in Congress over the legislation.<\/p>\n
U.S. Public Law 113-79, signed by Obama in Michigan, sets aside $2 million for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to study whether the CNMI can administer the national Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP.<\/p>\n
Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) said that beginning October 2015, $30.5 million will be available to raise benefits for families in need in the CNMI\u2014whether or not the islands are part of SNAP.<\/p>\n
Sablan said he is grateful to everyone in Congress who helped him reach the \u201cimportant milestone in my effort to fight hunger in the Northern Marianas.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGetting families in the Northern Mariana Islands the same level of food assistance as other Americans has been my goal since I got to Congress. The signing of Public Law 113-79\u2026is a huge step toward that goal,\u201d Sablan told Saipan Tribune yesterday.<\/p>\n
The delegate has been pointing out that he does not want food stamps to be a way of life in the CNMI, but only as a safety net for people until they can help themselves by getting jobs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe law also allows using some of the funds for career work training for program beneficiaries so they can transition from food stamps to jobs,\u201d said Sablan, who became a member of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee in 2011.<\/p>\n
\u2018Leftover funds\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n In the meantime, while the CNMI awaits the results of the study, there is a way to increase food stamp benefits, Sablan said.<\/p>\n He said as he understands it, the CNMI presently has at least $2 million of food stamp grant money \u201cleft over from prior years that could be used to increase benefits, and $12 million for this year.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI certainly hope the governor will use as much of that $14 million as soon as possible to increase benefits now\u2014especially for Rota and Tinian,\u201d the delegate added.<\/p>\n Press secretary Angel Demapan, when sought for comment, said the administration welcomes the enactment of the finally agreed upon farm bill.<\/p>\n He said with the inclusion of funding for the SNAP study, \u201cthis is an opportunity for the Commonwealth to have a true gauge on the feasibility of SNAP in the CNMI.\u201d<\/p>\n From paper stamp to card<\/strong><\/p>\n Sablan said the most visible change will be the electronic benefit, or EBT, system. Instead of paper food stamps, people will have plastic debit cards that they can swipe when they buy food. The system is expected to help the CNMI reduce the reselling of paper stamps and other kinds of fraud that give the program a bad name.<\/p>\n \u201cThis will be less costly to administer and it can also reduce the misuse of the benefit,\u201d the delegate added.<\/p>\n Sablan said he would like to get the SNAP study \u201cas soon as possible.\u201d He is already scheduling a meeting with Audrey Rowe, who heads Agriculture\u2019s Food and Nutrition Service, and with the department\u2019s technical staff, who will be in charge of the study.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are a number of things I want the study to consider: most importantly, I want to be sure that we do something about getting higher benefits for Rota and Tinian, where food costs are higher. The guiding principle is to make sure that all Americans have the same level of support. That doesn\u2019t mean everyone gets the same dollar value of support. It means everyone should be able to obtain the same amount of food. So where costs are higher, benefits need to be higher,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Sen. Paul Manglona (Ind-Rota) separately said yesterday that the newly signed U.S. law will be a big help \u201cto people in the CNMI who are in dire need of assistance.\u201d Manglona has long-supported efforts to put the CNMI in the national food stamp program.<\/p>\n \u201cWe congratulate Congressman Kilili for successfully inserting a special provision in the national farm bill for the CNMI. I continue to ask our food stamp office to provide an adjustment for Rota and Tinian because the prices of commodities there are much higher than those on Saipan. A study has been completed confirming this but we haven\u2019t seen any adjustments yet,\u201d Manglona told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n Sablan said he also would like to see Agriculture employ local talent in the study.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, the department will be working with Community and Cultural Affairs, which runs the food stamp program now and will keep running it, I assume. But if there are surveys or data collection needed, maybe we can involve [Northern Marianas College] students in some way. I\u2019d like to see students earn some money while they are in school. We\u2019ll see,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Local produce<\/strong><\/p>\n The delegate said he also wants to encourage USDA to look at the local produce issue.<\/p>\n The new farm law has another pilot program that would double the value of food stamps for people who use them at farmers markets, buying locally produced foods.<\/p>\n \u201cThat would be great to put into practice in the NMI. It would mean more sales for farmers and more food for families. It may also help with local produce sales at the Garapan Farmers Market presently under renovation using money I earmarked in 2009. Talk about win-win,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The agriculture spending law will spread benefits to farmers in every region of the United States. It expands federal crop insurance but ends the government\u2019s direct payments that go to farmers whether they produce anything or not.<\/p>\n The CNMI currently receives a block grant from the federal government for its local food stamp program. The block grant does not change when the number of families getting benefits goes up. Each family just gets less assistance.<\/p>\n In nearby Guam, which is under the national program, benefits are double what they are in the CNMI. When the number of beneficiaries increases, federal funding also goes up.<\/p>\n For example, a family of four in the CNMI gets $444 a month. But a family of four in Guam gets $931.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President Barack Obama signed Friday (Saturday, CNMI time) a nearly $1 trillion agricultural spending bill…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,665],"tags":[26,42,67,44],"class_list":["post-27083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-must-clicks","tag-cnmi","tag-food","tag-people","tag-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27083\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}