Congress has returned to Washington, D.C. following a holiday season break and members of the House and Senate have again picked up work on two major unfinished items of business:
- Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 appropriations bills, which fund the federal government.
- Supplemental funding bill, which would provide aid to Ukraine and Israel, as well as U.S. immigration reforms and additional resources for US border security.
On January 18, Congress passed another short-term FY 2024 Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the government funded through early March. The CR extends funding for four appropriations bills (including the Department of Agriculture) through March 1, and the other eight appropriations bills are extended through March 8.
While these two major items have captured the attention of most of those in Washington, behind the scenes agriculture committee leaders in the House and Senate continue the work of crafting a bipartisan agreement on the next Farm Bill. There have been signs that the pace of activity appears to be ramping up, which is a good for those hoping to have a new bill wrapped up by the end of the calendar year.
On January 17, Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, sent a letter to her colleagues outlining some ideas for farm program reforms. In the letter Stabenow stated “My vision for modernizing the safety net centers around five key principles: programs must be targeted to active farmers; we need to provide farmers choices and flexibility; assistance should be timely; we need to expand the reach of programs to help more farmers; and we need to address the emerging risks farmers face. Crop insurance is a key tool that meaningfully advances each of these goals.”
Stabenow referred to the STAX insurance policy that was created in the 2018 Farm Bill that allows cotton farmers to insure 75% to 90% of their county’s expected revenue, with the government picking up 80% of the premium. “The next Farm Bill should give a similar option to all commodities,” Stabenow wrote.
In response to Stabenow’s letter, Senator John Hoeven (R-ND), a senior member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, stated that some progress has been made on crop insurance provisions in the Farm Bill. However, Hoeven said farmers shouldn’t be forced to drop out of the commodity programs, Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC), in return for getting those higher coverage levels. Hoeven indicated that more work needs to be done to resolve outstanding issues in the commodity title of the bill, including addressing reference prices under the PLC program.
Early in January, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson said he hoped to hold votes on a Farm Bill in both the Committee and on the House floor in March. While the CR passed on January 18 likely delays his timeline, the Chairman remains resolved to move the bill off the floor of the House as soon as possible.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack has floated the idea of tapping the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) to improve the safety net for farmers. The CCC is a $30 billion fund provided to USDA each year to use to support commodity markets. "I'm open to the opportunity to use CCC to deal with whatever challenges there may be relative to reference prices, relative to disaster assistance, relative to crop insurance, whatever it is that's a creative way in lieu of having to rob something from the current Farm Bill structure," Vilsack said.
Farm Bill insiders have noted that progress appears slow but the recent increase in activity and conversations around the issues are positive signs. Agriculture leaders in the House and Senate will now have to overcome the ongoing delays related to the funding of the government to keep the Farm Bill on track. If negotiators don’t come to a bipartisan consensus by the end of May, the congressional and campaign calendars will make it very difficult for a Farm Bill to be completed before December.
