A stopgap farm bill is set to expire next week, but the Congressional coalition that the massive bill has relied on for half a century is on the verge of collapse.
Now, negotiators in Congress are fighting hard, through long odds, to minimize the damage before benefits run out at the end of the year.
The bill's lapse marks the second year in a row that Congress has failed to pass the typically five-year bill that has supported the U.S. agricultural sector and food aid programs for nearly a century.
“What our farmers need is [a deal]” House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson (R-Pennsylvania), one of the signatories, told The Hill this week.
“By every measure, we are facing an agriculture and food crisis, and unless we provide leadership and provide hope and certainty, it will only get worse.”
But Congressional chambers and caucuses are divided, both within and within the party, over what steps should be taken to maintain support for the sector.
Typically, the two parties negotiate how much to increase subsidies to farmers and how much food aid to struggling Americans, and both sides reach a compromise.
However, that compromise did not reach negotiators this year.
“We have to start,” said Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), former chairman of the House Agriculture Committee and current ranking member. “Because the status quo Farm Bill, the extension, does not address the weaknesses in the safety net.”
The immediate risk is that one of Washington's last major bipartisan agreements, the Food Aid for Agriculture Project, which has sustained the U.S. agricultural sector for half a century, is on the verge of collapse. .
“Most people don't realize how broad the farm bill's jurisdiction is,” Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman (R-Ark.) told The Hill. “Essentially, it's all about 'growing America' and 'nutrition.' And…these are not necessarily easy issues to involve everyone in.”
“It's a really serious situation.”
where things stand
The 2018 Farm Bill is a five-year omnibus that supports a staggering number of agriculture and nutrition programs, proposed by then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and members of his own party.
Only a one-year stopgap measure prevented American farm aid from being suddenly reset to the Truman era.
That second bill expires on Monday, and the bulk of the funding won't be exhausted until the end of the year, but Congress will either try to pass the farm bill before the end of the year or pass yet another stopgap bill and move on to the next caucus. You need to decide whether you want to see his performance. It depends on the job.
The House Agriculture Committee introduced a farm bill in May along largely party lines, but with some support from Democrats. The Democratic-controlled Senate has not introduced any legislation of its own.
Under the House agreement, $20 billion in climate change and conservation funding provided by the Inflation Control Act will continue to go toward conservation. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, will remain at its current level and will be adjusted for inflation. And the new aid will go to America's largest producers of crops such as cotton, peanuts and rice.
“We should adopt it as a bill that we can work together on,” Thompson told the Hill Assembly.
“There's no bill in the Senate, and that's fine,” Thompson said. “But we have a bill that is going to test bipartisanship, and it is certainly bipartisan in its construction.”
But most Congressional Democrats disagree. The House bill offers what the party characterizes as stealth cuts. That means no immediate cuts to food aid now, but a permanent freeze on the ability of future presidents to increase food aid levels.
And on an issue that polarizes both parties, it also marks the end of America's five-year experiment with legal marijuana.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said SNAP reform would make the bill “dead on arrival.”
“$30 billion cut in nutrition? Really?” he said. “I told people I was willing to compromise. My compromise is to vote for a farm bill that doesn't increase hunger. But $30 billion would make hunger worse. .”
McGovern also criticized the Republican bill for prioritizing large corporate farms over small family farms.
“The way this bill is written hurts farmers. It's basically a 'go big or get out' bill,” he said. “I have a number of small and medium-sized farms in Massachusetts and New England and across the country, and what I have come to understand during the pandemic is the importance of local food systems.”
What happens if the bill is rejected?
If this bill fails, there are two possibilities, both of which are bad in different degrees. According to a report in May By the Congressional Research Service.
In a nightmare scenario, the Farm Bill would lapse entirely, triggering a return to mid-century programs that provided subsidies only for certain crops and were triggered only at certain price levels.
At the very least, it is likely to mean higher prices for both consumers and producers in that country. Areas where food prices are rising and where more than 140,000 family farms have gone out of business. From 2017 to 2022.
The more likely scenario is another standing resolution to keep the program at its current level for another year, but it's less dire.
But it will throw the agricultural sector into chaos for another year, making it difficult for farmers, bankers, conservationists and others to plan for the long term.
Earlier this month, more than 300 farm groups flew to washington Urges lawmakers to pass a complete five-year bill. In the letter, They warned that even if a “simple extension of the current law” were passed, thousands of family farms would not have the option of continuing to produce for the country beyond 2025.
Boozman was even more harsh in his comments to The Hill.
“Many farmers are in a very difficult situation and unless we do something, many farmers will not be found in the future,” he said.
That's true, he said, for two reasons. First, “they don't have the resources. And second, banks simply aren't willing to lend money because they don't have crop insurance or safety equipment to cover these catastrophic losses.”
The extension also does nothing to help farmers cope with increased costs from extreme weather events caused by climate change. By 2024, 20 disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damage each Damage has occurred, much of it hitting farmers.
“We've had hurricanes, floods, droughts, wildfires, wind events, there's volatility in the markets. American farmers have been really hit hard. We're in a crisis here, with acreage declines. , loss of farms, and therefore the Supplemental Disaster Relief Act is appropriate and justified,” Thompson said.
Situation of negotiations
The “four corners” of Congressional agricultural policy: Mr. Thompson, Agriculture Committee Ranking Member David Scott (D-Ga.), Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), and Ranking Member Mr. Boozman. — met Thursday to discuss emergency plans. To avoid catastrophe.
“Everyone is negotiating in really, really good faith,” Boozman told The Hill. The participation of hundreds of farming organizations earlier this month “really helped explain how difficult farming is and how much money it takes. This has made a big difference.”
Also Thursday, dozens of House Republicans wrote a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) urging him to schedule a vote on the farm bill by the end of the year.
Thompson told The Hill that Johnson has asked for draft language to be prepared for a one-year extension, but hopes he doesn't have to use it.
“I don't want it to be extended until the end of the year,” he said. “We don't need that.We worked with the Department of Agriculture and identified four things that would be affected. [if they pass] This continuing resolution. And we in the four corners don't want to send the wrong message that the Farm Bill won't pass in a lame duck. ”
It's a message that echoed on the other side. Ahead of a long recess before Election Day, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) announced three priorities he hopes Congress will address in the lame-duck session: funding the government, and defense spending. and the passage of the Farm Bill.
“We need to find a way forward and pass the Farm Bill to ensure that the needs of farmers are met, that the nutritional needs of ordinary Americans are met, and that we continue to make progress in agriculture.” It's going to be important to see if we can reauthorize it. We've been successful in fighting the climate crisis,” Jeffries told reporters at the Capitol.
Lucas, ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, said any lame duck progress will require involvement from top leaders. He is calling for serious negotiations that could lead to a breakthrough agreement.
“I'm hopeful that we're on the cusp of that because we've worked on funding the government and gotten through everything else that needs to be done. The only real heavy lifting that's been done is passing the bill in the House of Commons. “We have to get a version of the bill out of committee, so we have to get started,” he said.
“I'm an eternal optimist. We'll see in six weeks,” he added. “But I hope the big four get a chance to build some foundations while we're out.” [for the elections]. ”
McGovern, another senior member of the agriculture committee, was less optimistic.
He said the clear policy differences between the parties in the House, combined with the lack of movement on the farm bill in the Senate, mean Congress will have to pass another extension of the 2018 law in a lame-duck session. I predicted that this would mean that it would not happen.
“I'll have to get an extension when I get back,” he said. “We know there are no serious conversations happening, and the Senate hasn’t passed anything.”
Alex Bolton and Alice Foley contributed reporting.
