5 takeaways from competing Democratic, GOP farm bill plans

House Republicans and Democrats have announced two competing visions for the Farm Bill, the $1.5 trillion omnibus that will support America’s food system.

The contrasting proposals illustrate the fault lines between the two parties’ visions for U.S. agriculture plagued by rising supply costs and climate change.

However, despite these disagreements, there are important overlaps between the two proposals. Both support massive spending on rural broadband and the high-tech “precision agriculture” it enables. Focus on promoting overseas trade of U.S. products. It also includes funding research at America’s land-grant schools.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-Pennsylvania), as the hard-line Republican minority in the House of Representatives currently intends to vote down any bill that does not include significant cuts to entitlements. is forced to choose between two difficult options. Either try to pass a partisan farm bill and risk the Freedom Caucus killing it, or try to pass a bill moderate enough to get Democrats on board.

Thompson told Agripulse. In March, he said he was considering a second option and was “‘burning’ bipartisan proposals into the bill.”

But conflicts between the two parties and factions within them prevented Congress from reaching an agreement on the farm bill last year, and instead lawmakers decided to release billions of dollars in surprise funding for programs supported by the American Food System. An additional bill was passed to avoid the suspension. depends on.

Congress has until September 30 to close these gaps and pass legislation. Key takeaways from the two proposals are:

Conflict over nature conservation funds

In their proposals, both Republicans and Democrats stress the importance of pumping more money into the hugely popular and brutally oversubscribed Department of Agriculture (USDA). conservation program.

Programs like the Environmental Quality Incentive Program help farmers pay for a wide range of projects, from cover crop and brush management to prescribed burns, that help maintain soil and water health.

Both parties’ plans would have put more money into the program, but they have now turned their backs on that plan. Two-thirds of eligible applicants Due to lack of funds.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 is already scheduled to reverse these numbers. approximately two-thirds funded — Provided that the project provides some climate benefit.

However, how to handle these IRA funds is a sticking point between the two proposals. Democrats argue that the funds allocated by the bill must continue to focus on reducing agriculture’s climate impact, but the existing controversy over reserving 50% of non-IRA funds for livestock operations The government intends to maintain provisions that foster this.

Republicans, by contrast, want to use IRA funds to cover all conservation programs and expand the categories of programs that count as conservation. Republicans did not say what new programs their proposal would include.

Such a development Popular with Senate Republicans, but it is unpopular with the public. Also, “Red line” A spokesperson for Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) told Michigan Farm News that House Democrats are unpopular with House “I will not support a farm bill that takes funding away from the Agriculture Committee.” original purpose. ”

Conflict over food aid

Democrats also have a clear red line on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

The program receives about 80 percent of current farm spending and is the glue that holds together the fragile political agreement between urban and rural representatives essential to passing the omnibus.

As The Hill reported, Thompson insisted the Republican caucus has no intention of cutting SNAP.

But he also reversed Biden-era reforms that increased food assistance to address rising prices of healthy foods like fruits and vegetables, and prohibited future presidents from increasing SNAP payments for reasons other than inflation. I’m thinking of doing it.

The center says that while doing so would not reduce current benefits, it would freeze benefits, effectively cutting $30 billion from SNAP over the next 10 years and reducing the health benefits of low-income people. This would hamper the Department of Agriculture’s efforts to ensure that people have access to healthy diets. On budget and policy priorities.

House Republicans said in a statement that this would save $300 billion over the next few decades, while correcting “extraordinary overreach in the executive branch” and eliminating “arbitrary control of SNAP benefits by future unelected bureaucrats.” He said he would prevent any “increases or cuts.”

However, Senate Democrats condemned these proposed actions. “We will not take money out of the nutrition right to fund another part of the bill. It has never been done before.” Stabenow told reporters..

Addressing climate change through the backdoor

Crop losses have soared over the past three years due to the constant drumbeat of extreme weather disasters such as wind, hail, drought and floods.

A 2023 report by the Environmental Working Group found that losses due to extreme weather events were: 500% spike Just between 2021 and 2023.That surge, in turn, will lead to record growth crop insurance payments That’s one big reason Thompson is urgently seeking new sources of funding to stop the bleeding.

Both parties’ plans aim to strengthen the crop insurance program, with the main purpose being to break the U.S. out of a cycle of having to repeatedly pass billions of dollars in unplanned catastrophe payments. However, opinions differ on how to do this.

Republicans want taxpayers to pay more of the premiums while building a private insurance market.

Some experts argue that crop insurance programs unfairly subsidize the largest and wealthiest landowners, buffering them from the need to meaningfully adapt their operations to a changing climate. This proposed course of action has attracted some criticism.

November 2023 Report The General Accounting Office (GAO) has proposed that taxpayers’ contributions should be reduced for the highest-income farmers, a small number of those earning more than $900,000 a year.

According to the report, these 1,341 high-income farmers received far more from the federally supported crop insurance program than they paid. That means for every dollar spent on premiums, they receive about $2.19 in taxpayer support.

The GAO said in its report that even a 15% cut in benefits for these farmers would still result in them getting back more than they put in, $1.59 for every dollar they put in, but would significantly reduce the stability of the crop insurance program. He suggested that it would increase.

During December, Thompson blasted He said the “one-sided report” was “not worth printing on paper” and said the report was “totally ignored”.[s] The benefits of federal crop insurance are one of the most successful examples of public-private partnerships in existence. ”

Democrats aim to make crop insurance more accessible to small farmers and producers who are typically excluded from federal crop insurance programs.

They also want the Department of Agriculture to respond to climate disasters, such as hail in a corn field or wildfires near vineyards, which could impair the taste or marketability of crops. I want to instruct them to create an “index plan” that automatically pays them. Make producers go through the objection process.

Proposing new fruit and vegetable support

Support for fruits and vegetables, known euphemistically as “specialty crops” in the USDA lexicon, has been a key point of agreement between the two parties, but the Democrats’ plan is more It will provide a lot of support.

This category of crops includes those most likely to fill America’s grocery carts and refrigerators, but most are excluded from USDA crop insurance plans.

Farmers who grow crops such as onions, apples, broccoli, and carrots do not have access to the same disaster-mitigating financial tools as farmers who grow long-term shelf life products such as corn, wheat, rice, soybeans, and peanuts.

This arcane monetary policy has a major impact on America’s food system, and is one of the reasons America’s processed foods are much cheaper than whole foods, even though they are less healthy.

The Democratic plan would give the USDA new crop insurance options for specialty crops and diversified farms whose ever-changing mix of crops makes them more resilient but difficult for traditional insurance companies to cover. Directed to create.

The Republican policy platform is less clear, but it directs the USDA to explore new insurance policies through “strong engagement with specialty crop producers.”

Cracks appear in America’s forests

Proposals from both parties tout the role of America’s forests in the nation’s conservation goals.

Public and private forests in the United States span 78,000 square miles (about the size of Kansas) and do valuable work by sucking up carbon dioxide, providing habitat for wildlife, and purifying the water that cities depend on. I am.

However, nearly a century of mismanagement and over-suppression of natural wildfires (particularly in the American West) has left this country with a devastating fire problem that has reached terminal levels in many regions and, in some cases, Entire societies are unable to purchase insurance.

Democrats and Republicans agree on the need and some steps to reduce wildfire risk and improve forest health. Both parties want to expand the size and scope of the Good Neighbor Office, which allows federal managers to contract with counties and tribes to thin public forests. And both companies hope to create new markets for novel American wood products, such as bulk-wood techniques used in the construction of skyscrapers.

But the policy document reveals broader philosophical disagreements about what America’s forests are and should be.

The Republican vision is based on the idea of ​​privately run “working forests,” or relatively homogeneous plantations where trees like pines are grown and cared for like any other crop.

Republicans seek to reduce wildfire risk and improve the health of these lands through expanded logging, but their plan would both reduce environmental regulations and outsource work on public lands to private companies. will be encouraged by

In contrast, Senate Democrats’ plan focuses on the role of public sector forests, rather than private ones, and the role those landscapes can play in improving water quality and curbing climate change.