There’s still a pathway to passing a farm bill this year, but it’s filled with a few potholes and bordered by red lines along the edges. That’s the scenario painted by House and Senate Ag Committee staff members at this week's annual American Farm Bureau Federation convention.
Funding tops the list of challenges, with House Ag Committee Chief of Staff Parish Braden highlighting the need for $70-100 billion above the current baseline for a farm bill that “responsibly meets modern priorities.”
Republicans aim to tap two “buckets” of dollars: Move some of the Inflation Reduction Act’s conservation and climate funds into the permanent farm bill baseline and place “narrow guardrails” on updates to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s Thrifty Food Plan, the economic model of food costs that' USDA uses to set SNAP benefits.
The restrictions would limit future benefit increases, but Braden says the guardrails would enable $30 billion to be spent on other farm bill priorities without cutting benefits to SNAP participants.
John Newton, staff economist for the Senate Ag Committee’s minority staff, noted that the panel's senior Republican, John Boozman, wants to bring the IRA's conservation program funding into the farm bill and remove restrictions that limit the spending to climate-related practices.
Under the IRA, the money must be spent by 2031. But bringing the money into the farm bill would allow lawmakers to permanently increase conservation funding beyond 2031.
Democrats have pushed back against restricting TFP updates or removing the climate guardrails on the IRA funding. Both are “a bit of a red line for us,” said Mike Schmidt, senior adviser for Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow at the Senate Ag Committee. “By saying that it cannot be updated and cannot keep up with changes in that marketbasket,” changes to the Thrifty Food Plan would be seen as a benefit cut, he said.
Clark Ogilvie, special counsel on the House Ag Committee’s minority staff, reminded workshop participants that when Republicans tried to spin off the nutrition portion of the farm bill in 2014 and make cuts in 2018, not a single Democrat voted for the farm bills.
“When you start robbing Peter to pay Paul, Peter tends to get a little upset. So, we've got to find that balance to make sure that the farm bill coalition can move forward,” Ogilvie noted.
Ogilvie asked Farm Bureau members for their involvement, advocacy, and also patience.
“These are tough choices…there is this need and great desire to do all these investments all across the farm bill. But we've got to find the resources. Once we find some agreement on where the resources are coming from, then you get to have a discussion of where they're going to go.”
With a slim one-vote majority in the House and a few dozen Republicans likely to oppose a new bill, GOP leaders recognize they will need Democratic support.
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In a letter to Senate colleagues last week, Stabenow outlined her five farm bill principles for modernizing the farm safety net. She’s also got an agreement with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to secure an additional $5 billion outside the farm safety net.
Schmidt said they are also looking to USDA for additional resources. For example, he pointed to a request Stabenow and Boozman made to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to increase trade promotion funding. The USDA’s $1.4 billion in funding, provided via the Commodity Credit Corporation, would essentially continue the Agricultural Trade Promotion program begun during the Trump administration to diversify trade away from China.
“We were able to basically, in the short term of those five years, double trade promotion assistance from resources outside the farm bill,” Schmidt said.
He added that there are other things that the department can do, “because if they make a change, we don't have to pay for it. If we change it, we have to pay for it.
“Looking at those flexible and creative ways, we think we can find more resources.”
Schmidt also pointed to USDA’s Risk Management Agency as an avenue to improve and expand crop insurance – outside of the farm bill.
“It’s a great public-private partnership and there’s a way to add crops, add coverage” and perhaps address some different risks beyond just market price and yield, he said.
Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack addresses the 2024 American Farm Bureau convention.Another avenue for funds could involve a closer look at the Congressional Budget Office scores. Schmidt said there are “examples all over” where CBO incorrectly predicted the size of a program, and that could open up opportunities for new spending.
From USDA's perspective, Vilsack told reporters he was open "to use the CCC to deal with whatever challenges there may be " in funding a new farm bill, including reference prices, disaster assistance, or crop insurance.
He said there should be "some creative way" to use CCC funds "in lieu of having to rob something from the farm bill's current structure or take money from the IRA's conservation funds.
In an interview after Vilsack spoke, AFBF President Zippy Duvall said “we are very intrigued about that idea and look forward to the conversation about how that might work and how it might affect other things.”
However, Vilsack acknowledged that "some folks are resistant to that because they don't want to spend any more money. Well, OK, then it's going to be difficult to get the votes" to pass a new farm bill.
Writing a new farm bill is delayed, Vilsack said, because "people are stuck on these issues and they need to unstick themselves. They need to be open to creative ways, which is — at the end of the day — what always happens."
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