Will We See a New Farm Bill This Year?

The U.S. House of Representatives departed Washington, DC, for the August recess last week, and the Senate is currently wrapping up its business. When Congress returns in September, most of the legislative agenda prior to the Presidential election will be focused on funding the government past September 30, 2024. This naturally raises the question: will we see a new farm bill this year?

We can look to the past 10 farm bills (over the course of the last 50 years) for guidance. As noted in Table 1, only 2 of the last 10 farm bills were enacted during presidential election years (1996 and 2008 Farm Bills), and both of those were signed into law before Congress left town for the August recess. The remaining 8 farm bills were enacted in the Congress following the Presidential election, with 2 of those (1990 and 2018 Farm Bills) coming in the lame duck session following the midterm elections.

Table 1. Enactment of the Past 10 Farm Bills

While history does not bode well for wrapping up a farm bill this year (i.e., none of the last 10 farm bills were completed immediately prior to or following a presidential election), it’s not out of the realm of possibility. So, what would it take to get it wrapped up? Following are the key issues holding up completion: 

• Improving the farm safety net. As we’ve said for the last two years – and there seems to be growing agreement on this point – there is no point in doing a farm bill absent improvements to the farm safety net, namely improving the Reference Prices in the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) program and the loss thresholds in the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) program. With that said, there is still disagreement on the extent of the improvements and how to pay for them.

• Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC). Discretionary use of the CCC has long been a sticking point for lawmakers, but that concern has grown dramatically over the course of the last two Administrations, where the CCC has been used to deliver tens of billions in aid to agricultural producers and, more recently, climate-smart programming. Many in Congress would like to restrict the Secretary’s use of the CCC, returning decisions about funding to Congress. Doing so would save money that could be used to offset improvements to the farm safety net. While we discussed CCC funding in detail last Fall, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) will officially weigh in on this topic tomorrow when they release the cost estimate for the House Agriculture Committee-passed farm bill. 

• Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). While there seems to be growing consensus over bringing the IRA conservation funding inside of the farm bill, there are ongoing disagreements about whether that funding should continue to be restricted to climate-smart practices. Some lawmakers would like to put those decisions – like most other conservation decisions – in the hands of local decisionmakers.

• Thrifty Food Plan (TFP). There is still considerable frustration among most Republican lawmakers over the Biden Administration’s roughly $250 billion unilateral increase to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) via adjustments to the TFP in 2021. Similar to the discussion on the CCC, many lawmakers would like to return decisions about future increases in SNAP spending to Congress.

While there are certainly disagreements, in our view, the list above is by no means insurmountable. While there is very little legislative runway prior to the election, we do think it’s possible to wrap up the farm bill during the lame duck session, perhaps as part of a supplemental. Why?

A recent hearing before the House Agriculture Committee highlighted the mounting concerns about financial conditions in the countryside. With sustained high input costs and prices that continue to collapse, growers are facing a precarious situation as they plan for the 2025 crop year. That dynamic – coupled with natural disasters like the wildfires in the Texas panhandle – are triggering alarm bells and resulting in calls for additional disaster assistance.

Congress has a lot on its plate going into a new Congress. For example, the debt limit – which dominated much of the conversation in the first half of the current Congress – is currently suspended through January 1, 2025. In addition, several major provisions from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 – including several that are important to the agricultural community – are set to expire at the end of next year. Rather than punting the farm bill into the new Congress and relying on another year of disaster assistance, Congress could choose to reauthorize the farm bill in the lame duck session – improving the farm safety net and side-stepping the need for disaster assistance – all the while keeping the farm bill out of what will already be a very crowded legislative calendar in 2025.

Fischer, Bart L., and Joe Outlaw. “Will We See a New Farm Bill This Year?” Southern Ag Today 4(31.4). August 1, 2024. Permalink