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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Sunday, December 29, 2024
Congressional leaders could finalize a stopgap spending bill this week that will likely include another one-year extension of the 2018 farm bill, but may lack a package of disaster aid and market relief for farmers.
Leaders of the House and Senate Ag committees are in active discussions about putting elements of a farm bill in an end-of-the year aid package, including possible new funding for commodity programs as well as crop insurance reimbursements.
House Ag Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson is ready to move another extension of the 2018 farm bill, acknowledging to reporters Monday evening that lawmakers are unlikely to consider the measure in the lame duck session. “We’re prepared for an extension,” Thompson said.
The White House formally asked Congress on Monday for $21 billion in disaster aid for farmers who have lost crops and livestock due to hurricanes, drought and wildfires over the past two years.
Ongoing partisan battles over nutrition assistance and Inflation Reduction Act funding have received all the attention but there are plenty of other policy disagreements in the approaches that leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture committees are taking on a new farm bill.
Farmers who bought crop insurance in 2022 will receive dramatically less in disaster aid than they have in recent years because of a “progressive factoring methodology” USDA made to the Emergency Relief Program for last year’s losses, according to an analysis by the American Farm Bureau Federation.
USDA plans to send Emergency Relief Program and Emergency Livestock Relief Program pre-filled applications directly to eligible producers in early summer for those with qualifying disaster losses for the 2022 calendar year.
Ag groups are debating once again the idea of a permanent disaster aid program, but congressional budget rules and concerns about the crop insurance system are likely to make it as difficult as ever for lawmakers to agree on a proposal.
