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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Tuesday, November 26, 2024
The climate funding package that Senate Democrats have agreed on should make it easier to pass the next farm bill while helping consumers and producers deal with climate change, says a Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, Tina Smith of Minnesota.
The landmark climate deal Democrats hope will clear Congress in coming days would upend the coming debate over the next farm bill, satisfying demands for new conservation spending but leaving farm groups still scrambling to fund enhancements in commodity programs.
Ballooning cost estimates for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are likely to paint a bigger target on the farm bill’s nutrition title heading when lawmakers start drafting the bill in the next Congress.
Lawmakers are starting hearings on the next farm bill at a time when the historically high commodity prices mean the public may see little need to beef up programs despite input prices that are also soaring.
President Joe Biden delivers his state of the union message this week amid a world crisis that is further clouding his political agenda, while congressional appropriators face a March 11 deadline for finalizing their 2022 spending legislation five months into the fiscal year.
There are new signs of division on the Senate Agriculture Committee when it comes to climate change. The committee’s top Republican, John Boozman, told members of the National Cotton Council Thursday that funding to address climate change could come out of existing farm bill programs.
The Agriculture Department is ditching a change in commodity program subsidy eligibility rules that would have unintentionally made it harder for some members of family farming operations to qualify for payments, a top official says.
A compromise farm bill ready for final congressional votes melds a variety of Senate and House improvements to the major commodity programs, boosts spending on several major conservation programs while also creating a new $30 million a year program to fight animal diseases.
