supplement agricultural farm bill. so the chairman mike conaway has proposed imposing strict work requirements of over 5 million people who are able-bodied people who participate in the work program. and the other 80% are commodity insurance for farmers and their premiums are subsidized and that's where the government comes in and that pays out when there's a disaster like a natural disaster or the wildfire that we saw last year. of course there's also information implementing land conservation practices. >> and you mentioned snap of course, the food stamps program

and the fact that the farm bill usually gets quite a bit of bipart san support. >> the people on the program, so about between 5 and 7 million people would be subject to strib stricter work requirements, they would have to work at least 20 hours a week or be enrolled in a job training brahm. that's very expensive. they would save probably $9 billion over 10 years on slashing food benefits. that's pretty controversial

because i can see that there's a lack of kind of data on the success of these state work programs and the cbo actually estimates that it would take upwards of a decade to be able to offer all of the work slots for all of the new people who are eligible. so democrats have pretty much rejected this proposal and during this committee, they didn't slovote for it at all. and usually in a farm bill, it passes in the middle, well, democrats and republicans and urban law makes who don't really have farm in their. >> and let's just take a quick look at your article, here's the headline, conaway races to nail down farm bill votes before the house floor debate and as you

mepsz mentioned, you're going to need mo more. >> it's not as though it's falling on deaf ears, but it's quaking quite a bit of persuasion to get the gop on board. on thursday i talked to the chairman, mark meadows and he said there are concerns about the work environments in snap and he actually has concerns about the agricultural component of it. he actually had some dairy producers in his district. they want to be able to offer

their amendment to the bill. they want to be able to offer their amendment in favor of the bill. it's possible that rural democrats can peel off. but that's hard to gauge at this point. and then there are people who are members of the public committee. >> and president trump hosted a meeting at the white house recently with both the house and the senate ingagriculture commie chairs. also ag secretary sonny perdue, what do you think will change in this bill because of the white house meeting? >> i think that the white house meeting between chairman conaway, and chairman pat roberts and secretary perdue, they were talking farm bill

specifics and conaway said that president trump didn't really talk about the reported veto threat that was in news reports earlier this week, which was actually walked back by the white house bureau of legislative affairs, mark short. and he said that there was a strong requirement of the work programs that they're proposing in snap. and i think that that maybe is a little bit of pressure on some of the gop and the house, like oerk oerksz oh, the white house is on board with this. and so it will be interesting to see if that version can get back to the house because the senate -- the agriculture chairman pat roberts has said that he doesn't want to do an overall snap because he thinks he would need 60 votes to get something like that. so if conaway is having a hard

time getting this, which doesn't have as much support, can he get that through congress? and conconaway's relationships throughout the ag committee has been soured in this process. >> chairman conaway has asked trump to tweet in support of the bill so i think we're all keeping an eye on whether there will be a presidential detail on the farm bill. >> and your website, politico pro.com. thanks so much. >> now the house agriculture committee meets to work on the 2018 farm bill, this portion includes opening statements by members, followed by votes on amendments dealing with nutrition programs and provisions for work requirements for the supplemental nutrition program also known as food