The U.S. House approved, 224-200, a five-year farm bill Thursday as members of Congress attempt to update major agriculture and nutrition policy after three years of extensions.
The bill would authorize subsidy and nutrition assistance programs through fiscal 2031. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated an earlier version of the bill would not meaningfully affect discretionary federal spending over an 11-year window, and would add $162 million in mandatory spending over the next six years.
Most Democrats opposed the bill, but 14 voted in favor. Three Republicans voted against. Six members did not vote.
The Democrats in favor were: Sanford Bishop of Georgia, Jim Costa and Adam Gray of California, Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Sharice Davids of Kansas, Donald Davis of North Carolina, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Kristen McDonald Rivet of Michigan, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Kim Schrier of Washington, Josh Riley of New York, Darren Soto of Florida and Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico.
The Republicans who voted against were: Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Andrew Garbarino of New York and Harriet Hageman of Wyoming.
Few policy changes
Because Republicans’ massive spending and tax cuts law last year made major changes to some U.S. Department of Agriculture programs, mainly the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that helped about 1 in 8 Americans afford groceries in 2024, the farm bill passed Thursday was a “skinny” version and relatively short on major policy updates.
The bill would still have to pass the Senate, which has not yet introduced its version.
Arkansas Republican Sen. John Boozman, who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, cheered House passage Thursday and said a Senate text would be released “in the coming weeks.”
“This is an important step toward updating long-overdue policies that support our farm families and strengthen rural communities,” he said of the House vote in a statement. “We’ve put more farm in the farm bill through the Working Families Tax Cuts (the GOP spending and tax cuts bill), and this legislation builds on that success.”
New authorizations needed
Farm bills are typically written to last five years. But Congress last approved a version in 2018. Extensions of the 2018 version were enacted in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
House Agriculture Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican, said the measure would still meaningfully update farm and food programs.
“It is more evident than ever that rural America needs a new farm bill now, not next year or next Congress,” he said. “Producers are operating under the third consecutive farm bill extension and the simple truth is the policies of 2018 are no match for the challenges of 2026.”
Agriculture Committee ranking Democrat Angie Craig of Minnesota opposed the bill, saying it did not address any of the pressing issues that farmers and SNAP recipients face. The bill does not help alleviate the rising costs farmers face from President Donald Trump’s tariffs and “locks in the $187 billion cut” to SNAP in last year’s spending law, Craig said.
“It doesn’t fix any of the underlying policy choices by Republicans and this administration that caused the problems in the first place,” she said, adding that continuing the SNAP cuts put “more pressure on struggling Americans at a time when the cost of groceries and healthcare continues to grow.
