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The U.S. House, for the first time in 40 years, voted this week to exclude money for the food stamp program from the farm bill to reduce spending — a move that also unsettled farming and anti-hunger advocates in northwestern North Carolina, where state health statistics show that about 1 in 5 residents receives food assistance.

Dropping the food stamp program reduces the cost of the farm bill from $100 billion a year to about $20 billion a year.

House Republicans, including Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-5th, and Rep. Howard Coble, R-6th, want to deal separately with the food stamp part of the legislation. That bill is expected to make cuts much deeper than a bill that failed in the House last month, which trimmed around 3 percent, or about $2 billion a year, from the $80 billion-a-year feeding program.

Democrats opposed cuts to the food stamp program. Many Republicans thought it wasn’t enough, Coble said.

“I have no problem splitting them up,” said Coble, whose district includes Surry and Stokes counties. “I think the food stamp program should be cut some.”

Ericka Perryman, Foxx’s spokeswoman, echoed Coble’s view: “Congresswoman Foxx believes both farm and nutrition policy are important, and both should be examined and considered for reauthorization independently.”

Many counties in northwestern North Carolina — including Forsyth, Surry, Stokes, Yadkin, Davidson and Wilkes — have a significant portion of people on food stamps. The percentages ranged from more than 15 percent to about 23 percent in June.

In Wilkes, for example, 15,975 people were receiving food assistance last month, according to statistics provided by the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, or about 23 percent of the almost 69,000 residents.

In Forsyth, about 60,000 were receiving food assistance during June, or about 17 percent of the more than 358,000 residents.

In Davidson, it was about 34,000 people, or almost 21 percent of about 163,000 residents.

Bill Sebastian, the director of the Wilkes Department of Social Services, expressed concern about cuts to the food program.

“It would affect those who are the most vulnerable — those who are at or below the poverty level,” Sebastian said.

House Republicans who favor a separate bill to deal with food stamps point to the program’s growth — it has doubled in the past five years. Joe Raymond, the director of the Forsyth Department of Social Services, said that cutting the program won’t do much to deal with the root problem.

“The real concern is — why has it doubled?” Raymond said. “To me, this is the story of the economy. … It’s all about jobs.”

The bill that passed in the House on Thursday would cut farm program spending by about $1.3 billion a year and is almost identical to the larger bill defeated last month, except for the dropped food stamp language. The Senate overwhelmingly passed a farm bill last month with a half-percent cut to food stamps and would be reluctant to go along with a split bill or further cuts to the programs.

Some farm advocates said that a move by House GOP members to overly reduce the food program might jeopardize the farm bill when Senate and House negotiators try to draft a final bill in conference committee before sending it to President Barack Obama.

“We won’t have a farm bill until the president signs it,” said Justin Somers, the president of the Yadkin County Farm Bureau. “To put it mildly as possible, this could be a train wreck when it comes to conference with the Senate. … We feel it wasn’t sound policy.”

The farm bureau did not support the farm bill that the House passed Thursday 216-208 because of a separate provision to eliminate a standard set in the 1940s that requires a new farm bill to be drafted every five years, Somers said. Doing away with that provision decreases the leverage that farmers may have had.