Today’s food assistance programs started with literal food stamps, like this one the Federal Surplus Commodities Commission issued in 1939. Image: U.S. Department of Agriculture
Across the country, about 40 million people rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP. That includes about 260,000 Iowans.
When the federal government briefly suspended the benefits late last year, it was all over the news. But the program itself is older than you might think.
To learn how it started, dsm editor Michael Morain called Pamela Riney- Kehrberg, a distinguished professor of history at Iowa State University who teaches a course on American food history, from the era of early Indigenous culture on up to the present day. Students learn how food has been produced, distributed, prepared and promoted over the last few centuries. “It’s agricultural history,” she said, “but it’s also social and cultural history.”
Here are five takeaways from their conversation on the Iowa Stops Hunger podcast available through the BPC Streaming Network. Watch and listen now at businessrecord.com/bpc-streaming-network/.
1. SNAP traces its origins to the Great Depression, when the government printed and sold food stamps that allowed consumers to buy groceries at a discounted rate. “It was complicated,” Riney-Kehrberg said. “It was not the same as getting an EBT card today.”
2. Lawmakers created the program to alleviate hunger and to manage widespread agricultural surplus. With evolving technologies, bumper crops drove down prices.
3. President Lyndon Johnson revamped the program in 1964 as part of his War on Poverty. But this version “still requires people to buy [the stamps], and that doesn’t do a whole lot of good for the poorest of the poor,” Riney-Kehrberg said.
4. The stamp system remained in place until the late 1990s when states began moving to the EBT card model. Electronic Benefits Transfer cards enable participants to use SNAP benefits more discreetly and help state governments regulate the system and track its use.
5. Beginning in 2026, Iowa began restricting SNAP purchases, banning items like soft drinks and candy. President Johnson had called for similar restrictions back in the 1960s, but they weren’t approved. “Food processors have a really big lobby in Washington,” Riney-Kehrberg pointed out. “I’d like to know how Coca-Cola came down on that.”
Iowa Stops Hunger is an ongoing Business Publications Corp. initiative to raise awareness about food insecurity and inspire action to combat it.
