WASHINGTON - As a House vote on the Farm Bill approached last week, Rep. John Faso was looking to his left flank to fend off attacks on beefed-up work requirements for recipients of SNAP benefits.

But the political wind that abruptly brought down the must-pass bill on Friday came from his right flank in the form of conservative fellow Republicans upset about immigration.

The Farm Bill unexpectedly went into a tailspin and crashed on the House floor in a 213-189 defeat, with 30 members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus voting “no” with Democrats who were mostly angry about the work provision for SNAP benefits, formerly known as food stamps.

Now, the Kinderhook Republican his fellow upstate GOP middle-roader Rep. Elise Stefanik of Willsboro are left scratching their heads and wondering what happens next, not only for SNAP but also dairy-price supports and agricultural-labor policies crucial to New York farmers.

Faso, a member of the House Agriculture Committee that compiled the bill, called the shoot-down an act of “legislative hostage-taking.”

“I’m disappointed that a small clique of members decided to torpedo all the work we’ve done for an agenda that’s unrelated to the Farm Bill,” he said in an interview Monday.

Nevertheless, he added, “I think this is just a bump in road and hope we can get it moving again.”

Stefanik had backed upping the Farm Bill’s Margin Protection Program for the price of milk from $8 to $9 per hundredweight. The program is an integral part of protecting the fragile dairy-farm economy against price dips.

Stefanik also inserted two amendments aimed at combating invasive species of strangling vines and wood-boring insects that threaten forests, trees and ponds across the region.

“Congresswoman Stefanik is disappointed that Democrats and the Freedom Caucus joined together to defeat the Farm Bill,” said her spokesman, Tom Flanagin. “However, she is optimistic this bill will eventually pass the House and continues to work with her colleagues on the path forward.”

The collapse of the Farm Bill is a primer in the complicated political weaving necessary to turn disparate legislative strands into finished fabric. Freedom Caucus members, longtime thorns in the side of House Speaker Paul Ryan, kept the bill at bay over two immigration issues.

They demanded a vote on a hardline immigration bill that parallels President Donald Trump’s call for a Southwest border wall, plus imposition of a “merit-based” structure for legal immigration.

But they also aimed at resisting a Democratic bid to force votes on the legal status of “Dreamers” -  youthful immigrants who were brought illegally to this country as children.

Then-President Barack Obama protected them in his 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals - DACA. But President Trump canceled the protection in September last year, leading to court battles that so far have kept the program on hold.

The “discharge petition” - the parliamentary move to force a House vote with enough lawmaker signatures - has drawn the support of 197 members from both parties, just 21 shy of success. Among those signing on: Stefanik and Faso.

“Congress has kicked the can for too long on fixing our broken immigration system, including for our agriculture workers,” Stefanik said after signing the petition May 9.

She and Faso face stiff challenges from Democrats. The House’s minority party since the 2010 mid-term election, Democrats smell blood this year in the form of disenchantment with the Trump presidency.

Both Faso’s Hudson Valley district and Stefanik’s North Country district voted for Trump in 2016. The two lawmakers are conservative at heart but in a Congress constantly reinventing what it means to be right of center, they are moderates on some issues such as immigration.

As New York’s lone Republican on the House ag committee, which oversees SNAP in addition to farm subsidies and other agriculture programs, Faso’s push for new work requirements has opened him up to attacks from Democrats and anti-hunger advocates alike.

About 42.2 million nationwide get SNAP benefits - almost three million in New York.

Opponents portray Faso as a heartless conservative and borderline racist who stigmatizes truly needy SNAP recipients, even going so far as to say that police upstate routinely find SNAP benefits cards when they arrest drug dealers.

Faso insists he has no regrets. The new work requirement, he said, would affect only the small strata of beneficiaries who are not elderly, disabled or parents of small children.

“Democrats are completely missing the point: Most taxpayers believe you shouldn’t be sitting on your butt and collecting benefits without working,” he said.

He called advocates’ claims that the SNAP proposal would take food out of the mouths of hungry people “Grapes of Wrath stuff that exists in their imaginations but not in reality.”