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Ag economist says traditional farm bill may be a thing of the past

An ag economist says the days of a traditional farm bill could be numbered. Will Snell with the University of Kentucky tells Brownfield it won’t be like what agriculture has seen in the past. “I think we’re going to probably have more individual components instead of a comprehensive bill because of the challenges of getting anything passed in this type of political environment,” he says.

He says that could come at a cost to America’s farmers and ranchers. “Ideally, we want to see markets providing the support,” he says.  “And again, in the past five years, we’ve had to depend a lot more on government support and having congressional funding for agriculture is going to be a challenge moving forward.” 

The current farm bill officially expired at the end of September. 

Some provisions of the farm bill were included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed earlier this year.  But several areas, like research, marketing, and some conservation programs still need to be addressed.