We use cookies to provide you with a better experience. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies in accordance with our Privacy Terms and Cookie Policy
<p>Balanced Reporting. Trusted Insights.</p>
Tuesday, April 01, 2025
Leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee this week will seek to get a strong bipartisan vote for their farm bill draft from the panel, giving the measure momentum as it heads to the Senate floor in the following days.
Leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee have reached agreement on a bipartisan farm bill that would keep the 2014 farm law largely intact while avoiding a partisan fight over food stamps.
The Republican chairman and the top Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee hope to release a draft of their farm bill this week, and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promises to move it quickly to the floor.
Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts forcefully rejected proposed farm bill reforms that would make the Agriculture Risk Coverage program more attractive and increase payments to farmers in the upper Midwest at the expense of producers in other regions.
Leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee are working to finalize key details of their draft farm bill, including changes to the Agriculture Risk Coverage program, with hopes of bringing the legislation out of committee sometime in June.
With a farm bill floor debate looming next week, House members have filed more than half a dozen amendments attacking various aspects of the crop insurance program and others seeking to tighten rules for commodity subsidies and to roll back the sugar program.
Brazil is preparing to challenge the U.S. again at the World Trade Organization over cotton subsidies, Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi said in an interview.
House Republicans are relying on elimination of the Conservation Stewardship Program and tightened eligibility rules and work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to fund other priorities in the new farm bill, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
House Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway kicked off a battle over the next farm bill by releasing draft legislation that offers producers improvements to major commodity programs at minimal cost, while overhauling conservation policy and making sweeping reforms to nutrition assistance.
A sweeping budget agreement that will provide new assistance to cotton and dairy producers and expand disaster aid to many other farmers and ranchers received final congressional approval in the House Friday morning.
