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Hawkins: Congress ‘needs to deliver’ on farm bill

The president of Missouri Farm Bureau says he’s disappointed the U.S. Senate Ag Committee failed to advance a farm bill ahead of the August recess.

“We have been calling on Congress for some time to finish the job,” Garrett Hawkins tells Brownfield. “We can be grateful for the updates in farm programs that we received as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but we’ve been saying since then that Congress needs to finish the job. They need to finish writing other parts of the farm bill.”

He says that includes nationwide, year-round E15 and other key policies.

State cost sharing in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program remains the biggest sticking point as the U.S. Senate Ag Committee heads into an August recess.

Chairman Boozman’s staff says no date has been scheduled for the committee to reconvene, and it is “preserving options” for how to proceed. It’s expected the legislation will get another committee vote in September.

Hawkins says there’s still a chance Congress could complete a farm bill this year, despite the tight Congressional calendar.

“The expectation is they need to deliver.”

Brownfield interviewed Hawkins at the Missouri Farm Bureau’s Commodity Conference.