With Congress back in session this week after the election, one item on the agenda is the Farm Bill. The current version of the bill – which covers crop insurance, conservation programs and nutrition assistance – was written almost six years ago.
Lawmakers failed to renew it after a one-year extension expired in September, which prompted more than 300 agricultural industry groups to pen a letter, urging its passage by the end of 2024.
Mike Lavender, the policy director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, said a lot has changed since 2018 when the last Farm Bill package passed, including the pandemic, wars overseas and climate disasters.
“We need to have policy that’s right-sized for this moment – that’s meeting the moment,” he said.
Still, Congress was not expected to wrap up negotiations before the election and now is cutting short on time before the end of the year.
Yet, one looming provision could force action during the lame duck period: A decades-old law that would kick in on Jan. 1, known as the “dairy cliff.”
“ [The dairy cliff] would essentially require the federal government to buy up dairy product at very high levels,” said Paul Bleiberg, the executive vice president of government relations at the National Milk Producers Federation. “This would send consumer prices skyrocketing.”
Congress doesn’t want to let this happen, Bleiberg said, which is why it will likely pass some stop-gap measures. That could mean another one- or two-year extension of today's Farm Bill. It’s also possible lawmakers could tack on some additional economic support for farmers to the temporary bill.
If discussions about the next Farm Bill resume under President-elect Donald Trump with a likely GOP-dominated Congress, that could give Republicans an upper hand in accomplishing some of their goals for food and agriculture spending, including high levels of safety net support for row crop producers and the potential gutting of climate-focused agriculture money promoted under the Biden Administration.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
