Lawmakers are stepping up their work this week on a package of disaster aid and relief for commodity price declines as they head toward having to pass another extension of the 2018 farm bill.
Deputy Agriculture Secretary Xochitl Torres Small is scheduled to testify before the Senate Appropriations Committee at a hearing Wednesday on disaster aid.
USDA hasn’t released an estimate of agricultural disaster losses for the past two years, but the administrator of the Farm Service Agency, Zach Ducheneaux, told Agri-Pulse on Friday that the number is likely to exceed $14 billion.
Republicans on the Senate and House Ag committees also are interested in the package including payments to row crop growers who saw their income drop sharply this year because of declines in commodity prices.
A key question is whether the legislation can be written in such a way as it permanently increases the funding baseline for farm bill commodity programs. Doing so would make it easier to pass a new farm bill in the next Congress. A key reason the House Ag Committee’s farm bill stalled this year is that lawmakers struggled to find a way to pay for increases in funding increases for commodity programs.
“It's tough times in farm country, so we need both” disaster aid and assistance to farmers for declining markets," said House Ag Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson.
“Every day that goes by, we're losing farms and we're losing ranches. ... This is a time of year when they sit down with their bankers and they arrange for credit to be able to plant their crop or raise their herd, and many of them are being turned down because of a whole host of reasons,” Thompson said.
The top Republican John Boozman, R-Ark., said farmers need immediate assistance in order to get financing from bankers in the next 30 to 60 days. He said he’s in discussions with the outgoing Senate Ag Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and leaders on the House side about a relief package.
He declined to discuss specifics, but he confirmed that he wants to write the legislation in a way that would add baseline to the next farm bill, something lawmakers did for cotton and dairy producers in early 2018 to pave the way for passage of a new farm bill later that year.
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Boozman said there should be more clarity on relief efforts in the coming week and emphasized that it is “top of the list of things we need to do.”
Economists at the University of Minnesota said at an agricultural bankers conference last week that crop farmers across all states were expected to lose an average of $24,000 this year and $12,000 in 2025, compared to an average net income of $95,000 in 2023 and $381,000 in 2022.
Lawmakers apparently are going to punt their broader funding decisions into the new Congress. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told Fox News on Sunday that he expects lawmakers to pass another continuing resolution to keep the government funded at fiscal 2024 levels into early 2025.
He said lawmakers were "running out of clock." A CR that has been funding the government since FY25 started Oct. 1 expires Dec. 20.
Also this week, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is scheduled to attend the COP29 climate conference in Azerbaijan to talk about the Biden administration’s efforts to address climate change and the role of agriculture in reducing greenhouse gas emissions while increasing food production.
“The Biden-Harris Administration has led the most ambitious and successful climate agenda in history, both domestically and internationally, and COP29 represents another critical opportunity to accelerate global progress and implement the historic decisions adopted at prior COPs,” USDA said in a summary of his COP29 plans.
Vilsack has several events scheduled around the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate, or AIM for Climate, which was officially launched at the COP26 conference in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2021.
AIM for Climate is a five-year, multinational effort led by the United States and the United Arab Emirates to jump-start research into climate-smart agricultural systems. The initiative has mobilized 56 countries and $17 billion in funding, according to the AIM for Climate web site.
Here is a list of agriculture- or rural-related events scheduled for this week in Washington and elsewhere (all times EST):
Monday, Nov. 18
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack attends the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Azerbaijan.
4 p.m. – USDA releases weekly Crop Progress report.
Tuesday, Nov. 19
2:30 p.m. – Joint Economic Committee hearing on tax policy, 210 Cannon.
Wednesday, Nov. 20
10 a.m. – Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on disaster relief needs, 106 Dirksen.
Sustainable Agriculture Summit, Nov. 20-21, in Minneapolis.
Thursday, Nov. 21
8:30 a.m. – USDA releases Weekly Export Sales report.
Friday, Nov. 22
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