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Farm bill markup underway as producers await long-term certainty

The U.S. House Ag Committee began its markup of the farm bill Tuesday night.

Republican Chairman GT Thompson says there are misconceptions on what lawmakers are seeking for conservation.

“Let me be clear,” Thompson said. “There are no cuts to the conservation title. Anyone saying otherwise is improperly analyzing the CBO score. The legislation before you contains an increase across the board in conservation funding compared to the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024 and the 2018 Farm Bill.”

Thompson urged committee members to base their votes on what’s in the bill and not what’s been left out.

“The Ranking Member has denounced this bill because it doesn’t contain year-round E15, it doesn’t provide emergency assistance to farmers, and doesn’t change the tariff policy,” Thompson said. “I’m very supportive of all three of those things, it’s just not our jurisdiction.”

Ranking member Angie Craig, a Democrat from Minnesota, says the bill includes some critical bipartisan provisions.

“Codifying the ReConnect Program to expand broadband access for rural Americans, making crop insurance more affordable and accessible for our veterans, and the PACE Act to improve credit and increase USDA loan limits,” Craig said.

But Craig says the legislation fails to address the most pressing challenges currently facing farmers and ranchers.

“This bill will not restore lost export markets or lower input costs,” Craig said. “It doesn’t help American children, seniors and veterans afford their groceries, or states and counties avoid an unfunded mandate that we – this body, a Republican-led body – shifted those SNAP costs to them.”

Nebraska Republican Don Bacon says he supports provisions that will help tackle the growing hunger crisis in the U.S.

“It’s going to transfer Food for Peace to USDA and returns the program to its originally intent of addressing the global hunger crisis through the purchase of U.S.-grown commodities,” Bacon said.

Democrat Shontel Brown of Ohio expressed disappointment with the drawn-out farm bill process over the last several years and suggested lawmakers have been “going through the motions.”

“There was no meaningful effort to negotiate and put forth a bipartisan product,” Brown said. “The bill ignores the alarm bills from farmers and families in red and blue states that our nation’s most effective anti-hunger program is at risk after the financial rug was pulled out from under them in HR 1.”

Illinois Republican Mike Bost says he’s pushing for the farm bill to include the Securing Our Lands and Resources Act – referred to as the SOLAR Act – which restricts USDA financial assistance for solar projects that convert prime, unique, or important farmland.

“We’ve got to do what we can to allow farmers and landowners to do whatever they need to do with their own property, but not subsidize them twice,” Bost said. “One, whenever they put in a solar plant, but also by taking prime farmland out of production.”

Kansas Democrat Sharice Davids says lawmakers can’t allow another short-term extension to move forward.

“The folks I talk to back home aren’t asking for political games, they are asking for stability,” Davids said. “Right now, what many of them feel instead is pure chaos. When those costs go up for farmers, they go up for families at the grocery store too. Just last year, nearly 700 farms in Kansas closed.”

Republican Randy Feenstra of Iowa says the farm bill needs to include the FARMLAND Act, a measure that would tighten restrictions on foreign ownership of U.S. agricultural land.

“We need to keep China away from our farmland,” Feenstra said. “Iowa farmland belongs to the Iowa farmer.”

Michigan Democrat Kristen McDonald Rivet says farmers and rural families are at a real breaking point and Congress needs to act quick.

“This year, policies from this committee have made things worse,” McDonald Rivet said. “Chaotic tariff policies have not only increased the prices of goods our farmers use in the field, but it’s also taken away many of their customers.”

The committee is continuing to markup the farm bill Wednesday. Farmers and ranchers have been without a full five-year farm bill since the 2018 Farm Bill expired in 2023. The 2018 legislation has received yearly short-term extensions since the initial expiration date.