Farm Bureau Encourages Farm Bill Movement
Congress still has work to do when it comes to the farm bill.
While many provisions of the food and farm legislation were taken care of in HR 1, or the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” last year, programs in all 12 titles of the farm bill still need to be addressed.
“We’re now on our third extension of the 2018 Farm Bill,” Brian Glenn, director of Government Affairs for the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), said. “In reconciliation, in the One Big Beautiful Bill, they were able to handle the investment, but due to the guardrails of reconciliation, they couldn’t address the policy updates. Farm Bill 2.0 does just that.”
House Ag Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-PA) recently revealed his version of the farm bill, or Farm Bill 2.0.
“We have been actively going through it,” Glenn said. “This text is pretty similar, I would say, to the bill text that passed out of the House Ag Committee in May of 2024, except everything that they accomplished in the One Big Beautiful Bill.”
The bill contains many Farm Bureau priorities, Glenn said.
“These are important policy updates that need to be made across all of the 12 titles of the bill, enhancing conservation programs and streamlining access to conservation programs, policy updates to support staffing capacity at agencies. There’s a lot on trade, expanding support for ag trade promotion programs,” Glenn said.
There are also updates in the credit title of the farm bill that would increase loan limits for farmers and expand upon credit and loan programs.
The legislation would strengthen rural broadband programs within the rural development title.
“There’s just over all general policy to help support rural communities and a lot also on research, expanding access and investment to important research and extension programs, as well,” Glenn said. “Those are some highlights, but there is a lot in this bill. It’s 802 pages long.”
The legislation would allow the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture to establish a framework to deliver future assistance to specialty crop growers to keep disaster response consistent in future administrations.
It would also create a standing authority to deliver ad hoc disaster assistance via block grants to states.
Farm Bill 2.0 would expand access to low-cost financing for agricultural storage infrastructure, namely propane, through the storage facility loan program.
In the conservation title, the bill would reauthorize the Conservation Reserve Program through fiscal year 2031 and maintain the current program cap at 27 million acres for five years.
AFBF and Texas Farm Bureau are urging the U.S. House Ag Committee and the full U.S. House to support the bill.
“It is important to the future success of American agriculture,” Glenn said. “These programs across all 12 titles, hundreds of programs, haven’t been addressed or updated since the 2018 Farm Bill. Market conditions and the state of the farm economy have evolved since 2018.”
The U.S. House Ag Committee anticipates markup on the bill will begin March 3.
If it passes through the committee, it will then go on to the House floor for a vote. If passed there, the bill would await consideration by U.S. Senate Ag Committee and the full U.S. Senate.
