The farm bill lives on, at least for another year, according to Bloomberg Government, which reported that backers scored a big win this week by attaching a one-year farm bill extension to the massive continuing resolution barely in time to avoid a government shutdown this weekend.
Both chambers this week passed the stopgap measure and sent it to President Joe Biden for signing.
“We worked hard to present our case as to why we needed to do that to leadership,” Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.) told Bloomberg, adding that bipartisan agreement from agriculture committee leaders in both chambers was crucial to getting the farm bill extension in the funding extension.
“The fact that we’re going to get it done is really important, it gives our farmers the certainty that they’re going to need as they go to bankers and lenders” for credit ahead of the 2024 growing season, Boozman said.
While the one-year extension won’t address calls for enhancing risk management tools, including crop insurance, it ensures that they remain in place through Sept. 30 of next year, Boozman said. “Knowing that there’s this backstop for them, they need to be updated, but at least those risk management tools are in place” in 2024, he said.
The one-year extension gives Congress breathing room to craft a five-year farm bill in 2024. It also allows a chance to go over the wish lists from interest groups ranging from the CEOs of large trade organizations to smaller crop-specific associations.
Matt Carstens, President and CEO of the Iowa-based Landus Cooperative, has three top priorities: ensuring robust conservation and climate measures; preserving and possibly expanding safety nets for growers, including crop insurance; and protecting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
While SNAP often draws criticism for its costs and a GOP-led effort to impose work requirements, the role the nutrition program plays in supporting demand “particularly for our dairy farmers” gets less attention, Carstens said. “SNAP is important all the way through the farm bill, although it gets more notoriety” than credit for helping growers, he said.
SNAP can drive demand “particularly for things like fresh fruits and vegetables and the dairy industry, all of agriculture really,” Carstens said, noting how many grocery products contain corn and soybeans. SNAP benefits comprise roughly 80% of total farm bill spending.
Carstens said maintaining robust crop insurance support is also crucial to achieving a 2024 farm bill compromise, along with conservation and climate action. “They all tie” together, he said, and “you can’t just talk about one without talking about the other” in crafting a farm bill.
Crop insurance remains a priority for US growers. More than 444 million acres and $150 billion in livestock and crops were insured in 2021, with federal funding – which subsidizes growers’ costs – averaging about $9.1 billion a year over the last decade or so.
The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBR), which backs increased overall “baseline” funding for the next five-year farm bill, wants a “robust” crop insurance program, meaning no reductions in federal cost sharing helping growers pay premiums. It also wants to broaden the pool to cover specialty crops lacking access to the insurance.
AFBF President Zippy Duvall has touted the billions the US spends each year for a safety net to support growers – from crop insurance to commodity support programs – as a good investment. Such spending accounts for about two-tenths of 1% of federal spending, he said. In return, US food and agriculture in 2022 produced $183 billion of exports, 43 million jobs, and $2.3 trillion in wages, Duvall told the Senate Agriculture Committee in May.
Meanwhile, specialty crop groups such as the American Soybean Association (ASA) want increases in the reference price used to calculate agriculture risk coverage and price loss coverage. The ASA also wants Congress to reject amendments weakening crop insurance and to expand trade promotion programs including USDA’s Market Access Program, which expands commercial export markets.
“Protecting and enhancing farm safety net programs and risk management tools in the farm bill remain top priorities,” said Christy Seyfert, ASA’s Executive Director of Government Affairs. Crop insurance is a “critically important risk management tool that must remain affordable and effective,” she said.
Soybeans also are increasingly being used in biofuels. The ASA wants Congress to codify an existing USDA incentive program promoting greater use of ethanol and biodiesel renewable fuels. Nearly 40% of US soybean oil is used for biofuels production, up from nearly zero two decades ago.
Technologies including artificial intelligence to improve crop yields and reduce growers’ costs were front and center this week in a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing. Witnesses said AI could be a powerful tool, if deployed responsibly, to help growers reduce volatility and adjust to changing weather.
Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) told reporters that AI and other “precision agriculture” technologies show promise in helping to “reduce costs and address a number of things, including soil health.” But she warned that there are “a number of issues around data privacy that need to be addressed” more broadly, and not just for agriculture.
The next farm bill “certainly will” address those concerns and will include proposals to help growers better access agriculture technologies, Stabenow said, adding that AI and other advanced technologies must offer concrete benefits to growers and shouldn’t steal the spotlight from other important research.
Witnesses speaking at the hearing this week heralded benefits the new technology may bring, such as increased crop yields and reduced waste, but also said it must provide growers with clear benefits. Lawmakers are eyeing changes to federal loan programs that help farmers adopt new technologies, which could extend to new AI tools.
The hearing followed President Biden’s Oct. 30 AI-focused executive order that directs cabinet agencies, including the agriculture secretary, to issue guidance to state and local governments on the potential use of AI and algorithms in services they provide.
Deere executive Jahmy Hindman backed several legislative proposals to broaden eligibility for some USDA conservation and loan programs to spur more growers to acquire and embrace technology, including data-driven products.
Such incentives are important not just for boosting growers’ productivity and profitability, Hindman testified, but also would help increase food, clothing, and other products needed “to sustain the growing world population.” He urged the committee to consider adding the bills to the next five-year farm bill reauthorization.