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Ag policy analysts anxious on disaster relief package

The co-director of the Agricultural and Food Policy Research Center at Texas A&M University expects Congress to combine natural disaster relief with farm bill commodity program price supports this year.

Bart Fisher tells Brownfield its important lawmakers help farmers, because even if Congress passes a new farm bill in the lame duck session, it kicks in with the 2025 crop year and any farm bill assistance wouldn’t come until October 2026.

“We have a lot of growers in the country side scratching their heads about how do they make this stuff pencil out? These things are tough for Congress, but it’s not as tough as trying to farm right now.”

He says the relief could have a big price tag.

“If you just look at where the farm economy has moved, there’s no question the price is north of $10 billion. Where it lands, I don’t know. I think the other big question is: what does the form of this assistance look like?”

Jonathan Coppess with the Gardner Ag Policy Program at the University of Illinois says he’s almost certain Congress will move supplemental disaster assistance when it returns, but including commodity title assistance from the farm bill in relief package can be controversial.

“I think there’s a lot of concerns about how this gets designed. We need the adjustment down and would love to see something that works and helps farmers bridge through this moment, but it didn’t keep these costs inflated going through these next few crop years.”

Coppess says the more controversial a bill, the more difficult it is to pass in an already busy lame duck session.

“One of the questions is does Congress have the bandwidth and political ability to move three big spending packages in the lame duck session? Maybe,” he says. “I think a disaster package might make getting a farm bill done on its own difficult, I think, and it’s not going to be easy to attach it. I’m waiting to see some proposals being worked on.”

Brad Lubben, the Director of the North Central Extension Risk Management Education Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln says if commodity program assistance is necessary, it should be built into the existing framework of the new farm bill.  

Congress returns to Washington, D.C. following the November election.