Despite having the world’s safest, most abundant and affordable food supply in the world — in large part due to a strong farm safety net — many hardworking families across the nation are finding it increasingly difficult to put food on the table each night. The housing downturn, rising unemployment and a slowdown in the economy combined with higher energy costs, which are translating into higher food costs, mean that more Americans are having to make tough choices between feeding their families and paying other basic expenses. For our low-income families, the toll this takes each time they go to the grocery store is extremely difficult — and frightening.

Those of us in Congress have a responsibility to protect the most vulnerable among us from food insecurity. Both the House and Senate have passed farm bill reauthorizations that will provide much-needed policy changes and funding increases for the nation’s strained nutrition programs. Though negotiations between the House and Senate to forge a final farm bill have been lengthy, it is imperative that we give these talks a chance to succeed — a long-term extension of current policy is no substitute for a new farm bill. Great gains were made in the House and Senate bills to improve the nutrition safety net, and in this time of need we must not allow those reforms to fall by the wayside.

Last year, the Senate Agriculture Committee, of which I am the ranking member on the nutrition subcommittee, saw the need to improve our nutrition programs, and I am proud to say the committee worked in a bipartisan manner to make great gains for those struggling to get by. During the markup of the farm bill in the committee there were many open, heartfelt discussions about preventing Americans from going hungry. By the time the bill reached the Senate floor, it contained over $5.4 billion in additional funding for nutrition — which includes food stamps, The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, Community Food Projects, the Seniors Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program, the fresh fruit and vegetable initiatives, and many other programs to feed those in need. To assist food banks and homeless shelters in their efforts to feed the hunger, I worked to include an amendment to increase TEFAP funding by $10 million per year. Meanwhile, the committee worked together to produce a bill that increases food stamp funding by $3.6 billion. All told, fully 67 percent of the Senate farm bill’s funding is dedicated to protecting Americans from hunger.

This renewed commitment to fighting hunger could not come at a better time, as the number of families in need of resources like food shelves to keep their children fed has steadily increased. In my home state of Minnesota, the number of individuals visiting food banks grew nearly 14 percent from 2006 to 2007 in the metro area of the Twin Cities. As the demand for hunger programs increases, food banks, homeless shelters and similar organizations are facing serious challenges in securing the resources they need to meet this demand.

Our nation is too prosperous not to lend a helping hand when it is needed. We are on the cusp of a farm bill agreement that will help our nutrition safety net meet today’s challenges — let’s give this new farm bill a chance to deliver.

Coleman is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Nutrition and Food Assistance, Sustainable and Organic Agriculture, and General Legislation Jurisdiction.