By Jessica Domel
Multimedia Reporter
The one-year extension of the 2018 Farm Bill has expired, and Congress has until the end of the year to take action to protect America’s farmers, ranchers and dairymen.
“For the most part, for production agriculture, very little happens until the end of the year, and that’s because most programs, like the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) program or the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) program administered by the Farm Service Agency, run on a crop year or calendar year basis,” Dr. Bart Fischer, co-director for Texas A&M’s Agricultural and Food Policy Center, said. “That’s not to say an expiration is without consequence.”
Some of those consequences are that animal health programs, programs for socially-disadvantaged, veteran, young and beginning farmers, the Specialty Crops Block Grants program, the Market Access and the Foreign Market Development Cooperator trade promotion programs shut down Monday, Sept. 30, when the farm bill expired.
Other programs, like the Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) program, are funded through the end of the calendar year.
“If this were to drag into December without an extension—and Congress may choose not to do an extension in the near term because they want to keep pressure on getting a farm bill done—you’re going to hear more about the dairy cliff,” Fischer told the Texas Farm Bureau (TFB) Radio Network. “Once the farm bill has expired, we go back to permanent law for dairy.”
That means the U.S. Department of Agriculture would be unable to enroll new participants in farm bill authorized conservation programs like the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), livestock projects under the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), the Grassland Conservation Incentive and several wetland, forest and watershed restoration programs.
“It’s not a matter of them honoring contracts they’ve already done, but most of the time when we’re talking about that in the context of an extension, it’s really their authority to start to negotiate and sign new contracts,” Fischer said. “It’s not that people aren’t going to get paid. It’s just that USDA’s authority for new activities that’s typically curtailed once a farm bill has expired.”
The Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) other than the Grassland Conservation Incentive, EQIP with the exception of livestock projects, the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP) and the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) are funded through the Inflation Reduction Act and will continue.
Crop insurance is authorized through the Federal Crop Insurance Act, so it is unaffected by the farm bill’s expiration.
The Livestock Indemnity Program, Livestock Forage Disaster Program, Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honeybee, and Farm-Raised Fish Program, and the Tree Assistance Program are permanently authorized and also unaffected.
While some programs remain unaffected by the farm bill’s expiration at this point, Fischer said right now agriculture is in a position where farmers received virtually no support for 2024 due to outdated reference prices and no idea of what support will be available in 2025.
“If you’re a grower, you’re already planning for next year. You’re already talking to your banker about getting financing in place to be able to put a crop in the ground,” Fischer said. “We’re hearing of bankers all over. They call our office, or they catch us at meetings going, ‘I’m having a hard time figuring out how to cash flow.’ A lot of these guys say, ‘I don’t know how we’re going to be able to offer financing.’ That is where a new farm bill kicks in. The banker knows that, ‘If I’m going to finance a crop in 2025, at least I know this new and improved safety net in the farm bill is going to be there.’”
Congress is out of session until after the November General Election.
When they return, they’ll have until the end of the year to negotiate a new five-year farm bill or another extension. If neither happens, the country returns to permanent law from the 1940s.
“We have permanent law because no one wants to go back there. It forces a new farm bill to happen, for one. I don’t think that’s terribly effective,” Fischer said. “The idea has been that every farm bill since the ’38 Act and the ’49 Act—those are the two sources of permanent law—has just temporarily suspended those laws for the period covered by the new farm bill. So the 2018 Farm Bill, for example, was a five-year suspension of those permanent laws.”
The idea is that there’s no way Congress would let the nation move back to permanent law, so that threat pushes them to negotiate on another extension or a new farm bill.
While another extension of the 2018 Farm Bill is an option, it’s not ideal as the legislation uses statutory reference prices from the 2014 food and farm legislation with a price escalator.
“I think the concern amongst policymakers is once you extend a farm bill, it sort of takes the foot off the gas to getting a new bill done, and right now in D.C., we can certainly feel it,” Fischer said. “Our office works directly for the House and Senate Ag Committees. We’ve had a tremendous number of requests over the last few weeks. There was a fly-in about three weeks ago that Farm Bureau participated in and helped coordinate, and following that, there was a lot of activity in Congress to try to ramp up and start moving things along.”
While historically, there has not been a new farm bill passed in the same year as a presidential election, Fischer remains hopeful.
“We’ve never done one in a presidential lame duck. What we’re asking for here might be unprecedented, but if you look around, everything we do these days is unprecedented, right?” Fischer said. “The need is out there, but it is hard to get anything done these days.”
The House Agriculture Committee passed their version of the farm bill in a bipartisan vote in May. It awaits consideration on the full House floor.
Senate Agriculture Committee leadership has published frameworks for what they’d like to see in a farm bill but have not published a text.
Fischer said if Congress is not able to get a new extension or a new farm bill passed this year, the legislation dies and the process begins again when the new Congress is seated in January.
“We had the same thing happen in the midst of the 2014 Farm Bill with a Congress expiring in the middle. They’re not starting from scratch, but they’ve also got to take the input of all the new members (of Congress),” Fischer said. “They’re not starting from zero, but they do have several of those things they have to navigate.”
The committees would have to get new cost estimates for their farm bill drafts and the text would have to go through the committee and amendment process again.
“We saw that last time all with new politics,” Fischer said. “This time around, we don’t know what the balance will be, and frankly, there may be a shift in majority in the chambers. So you could have a new party that’s in control, and they may choose to completely scrap the previous bill and start over, which could add significant lengths to the process.”
While passing a new farm bill by the end of the year may be a big task, Fischer said he doesn’t think its out of the realm of possibility.
“I’m not in the job of telling what Congress what to do. That’s their decision. We just advise. But there’s clearly the need out there. There’s no question about the need and the need to have it in place so they can plan for what they’re going to be planting in the spring,” Fischer said. “With the farm bill, there’s still question marks there, just because it is so, so big and there’s just so many moving parts.”
Fischer said he’s also hopeful Congress will approve disaster aid for American farmers and ranchers impacted by disasters like Hurricane Helene, the wildfires in the Texas Panhandle earlier this year and the collapse in the farm economy.
“We’ve gone two years now, both ’23 and ’24, with no disaster assistance against the backdrop of a farm bill that has not kept up with the cost of production,” Fischer said. “It’s created this situation where the need is very acute, and I don’t see anyone really pushing back or questioning the need to get it done.”
Fischer noted even if Congress does pass a new farm bill this session, it will be focused on the 2025 crop year, not this year’s disasters, which further underlines the need for disaster assistance.
“2024 was covered by the last farm bill, but again, the last farm bill was negotiated prior to the explosion of the cost of production, so we’re operating under an extension of that bill, and very little assistance will go out the door,” Fischer said. “The estimate in 2024 is that direct support to growers will be the smallest amount since 1982. You’re talking about the lowest amount in 42 years—since the height of the farm collapse in the early 1980s.”
Potential payments under the next farm bill won’t be available to farmers until 2026.
“You’ve got growers facing huge losses right now, and I think at this point, there’s a need for disaster assistance,” Fischer said.
Texas Farm Bureau (TFB) and the American Farm Bureau Federation, along with a number of lawmakers, have also pushed for disaster assistance for American farmers.
“The delay in passing a bill with an updated farm safety net is causing great uncertainty for hardworking Texas farm and ranch families, while in turn putting consumers and our national food security at severe risk. The continued inaction is troubling and should not be tolerated,” TFB President Russell Boening said. “It is obvious there will need to be short-term natural disaster and economic assistance, in addition to passing a new farm bill this year. Texas Farm Bureau remains committed to doing everything in its power to urge Congress to deliver the farm bill and assistance to producers they so well deserve.”
Lawmakers are also calling on House leadership to make passing a new farm bill a priority when Congress returns in November.
Additional information on which programs are impacted by the expiration of the farm bill extension is available here.
Leave A Comment