There likely won’t be a new farm bill this year as lawmakers run out of time to debate.
The extension of the 2018 Farm Bill – which expired on Sept. 30, 2023 with the end of the crop year – ends on Sept. 30, 2024.
“Even if things had been going well, the likelihood that something as complicated as the farm bill can be worked out in that stretch is highly unlikely,” said Jonathan Coppess, an agriculture policy expert at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “But things have not been going well.”
Fights over nutrition assistance and farm support programs are holding up the massive legislation, which sets funding and policy for food benefits and agriculture operations.
And July’s political shake ups – including the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden stepping down from the Democratic ticket – haven’t helped discussions.
But the bill was stalling even before the political chaos, said Josh Baethge, a policy editor with agriculture publication Farm Progress.
“It certainly hasn’t made the farm bill any more likely this year,” he said. “But I think the writing was already on the wall before those events.”
Timing obstacles
The long-overdue legislation took one step forward in late May, when a Republican-led proposal made it out of the agriculture committee in the House of Representatives.
But the farm bill still has a long way to go:
• The Senate agriculture committee needs to publish and pass a detailed proposal
• The full House and Senate need to approve the respective bills
• A committee would likely need to find a compromise between the two versions
• Both chambers would need to OK the compromise bill
• The president needs to sign the bill into law
