Can the Farm Bill Survive Without a Rural-Urban Coalition? Former Ag Secretaries Weigh In

Senate Republicans will spend the coming weeks trying to agree on changes to President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. 

In this week’s episode of Agri-Pulse Newsmakers, Clinton and George W. Bush administration ag secretaries, Dan Glickman and Mike Johanns, were asked about how reconciliation elements may change in the Senate and the fate of the traditional rural-urban farm bill coalition.

“It looks to me like the coalition broke up,” Johanns said.

Glickman and Johanns also discussed the Make America Healthy Again report, President Trump’s tariffs, and USDA staff reductions.

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Please note: This transcript has not been edited.

Andrew Huneke: Welcome to AgriPulse Newsmakers, where we aim to take you to the heart of ag policy. I’m your host, Andrew Huneke. This week, we’re joined by two former secretaries of agriculture, Dan Glickman and Mike Johanns, who join us to talk about reconciliation, the Make America Healthy Again commission report, the farm bill, USDA downsizing and trade and tariffs.

But first, here’s this week’s headlines.

The Trump Administration has released the Make America Healthy Again report, which focuses on what’s driving chronic diseases for kids across the country. The report criticizes many aspects of the American food system, but also calls for more research to back up its strongest claims. When it comes to pesticides, the reports cite studies that link popular farming products like glyphosate and atrazine to bad health outcomes, but still says that more independent studies are necessary. The report and cabinet officials say this won’t hurt agriculture, but farm groups believe this will lead to doubt and confusion over pesticide use, despite decades of rigorous testing. The report also cited alleged health impacts from ultra processed foods, seed oils, added sugars and fats. The Chairman of the House and Senate Ag Committees, John Bozeman and GT Thompson, issued a joint statement saying they are troubled by the report because of its potential consequences for farmers. The report was put together by the Make America Healthy Again commission led by Health and Human Services Chairman, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins and EPA administrator, Lee Zelden, were also part of the commission.

President Trump’s big beautiful budget bill is now before the Senate and the legislation could see some significant changes. Wisconsin GOP Senator Ron Johnson for once says he thinks they have enough votes to, “Stop the process until the president gets serious about spending reduction and reducing the deficit.” Any changes made to the bill in the Senate would force the bill back to the house. Congressional Republicans are aiming to have the bill finished by the 4th of July. The bill includes big wins for farmers, including the tax benefits and more than $56 billion increase for farm bill programs. It would also bring IRA conservation funding into the farm bill baseline and remove restrictions that limit the dollars to climate smart practices. However, the bill has historic cuts to the supplemental nutrition assistance program, totaling about $286 billion.

Dan Glickman was the Secretary of Agriculture under the Clinton administration. We asked him how he sees the reconciliation bill changing in the Senate.

Dan Glickman: Well, I think it will change. They have something in the Senate called the Bird Rule, which limits extraneous amendments and discussions. It makes it much more tight in terms of the dollar amount and the fiscal limits that you can spend. So while I think the House and the President would like to just see the House Bill pass, I don’t think that’s gonna happen. Now what that will mean, I’m not sure. I think they will minimize the cuts in nutrition programs to some degree. I don’t think the add-ons in agriculture commodity spending will be quite as much as in the House Bill, we’ll see. So I think it will change, Andrew.

Andrew Huneke: Democrats in the House and Senate, they’ve stressed now that cutting nutrition assistance to fund farm programs is gonna make it harder to pass a farm bill later on. What are your thoughts on that line of thinking?

Dan Glickman: For over 50 years, we’ve had this coalition of urban and rural interests and farm and consumer interests working together to get a farm bill passed. So that would include not only the farm programs, commodity programs, but it would also include the nutrition programs as well. That is framed right before our eyes. I mean that coalition, at least right now, doesn’t really exist and historically, that’s been the way that you’ve been able to get farm bills through. But this particular reconciliation bill, which is in effect somewhat of a farm bill as it affects farm policy, no longer has that urban rural coalition. So what does that mean in the long term? I think it’s gonna make it a lot harder to pass farm bills and we should be worried about that.

Andrew Huneke: I’d like to piggyback a little bit more on that partisanship. We’ve seen it a lot here over the past couple years. Should farmers be worried that we may not see another comprehensive farm bill anytime soon after all of that partisanship that we’ve seen?

Dan Glickman: I’d say two parts to that. Number one is that I think, the Congress will always be responsive to farmers, farm policy, commodity programs, crop insurance. I think that the record is clear that there’s pretty good support about it. But if farmers are worried about will there be another farm bill this year or next year, wherever they should be worried because we haven’t passed one in now a few years. I’m frankly not very optimistic we’re gonna see a farm bill. This may be the farm bill and I mean, even though it doesn’t deal with all the titles of the other historic farm bill. So we’re at a strange junction point when it comes to passing farm policy.

Andrew Huneke: The U.S. Court for International Trade ruled President Trump overstepped his authority in using the Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs on all countries. We asked Dan Glickman about his thoughts on the ruling.

Dan Glickman: Well, first of all, I thought the tariffs were terrible. I thought they hurt agriculture very dramatically, I mean, we have to export roughly 30, 35, 40% of our products because we don’t consume any more than about 60% of aggregate farm products in our country, so if we don’t export, we’re in deep trouble, and so, I think the tariffs that were announced were not well thought-out, they hit agriculture particularly hard, the president made some sort of a statement where he said, “Well, our farmers will love being able to develop U.S. markets and won’t have to rely on export markets,” well, that’s ridiculous because we’ve got to have those export markets, so I think this is an interesting ruling, I think it’s gonna be appealed, certainly, whether to the Supreme Court or elsewhere, so I don’t think the issue is done, but I think it does reflect that most people who are involved in trade policy think that these tariffs went way too far and there wasn’t a clear justification for ’em.

Andrew Huneke: Despite that ruling happening, there is still the threat of trade wars on the horizon, should farmers still be worried about that?

Dan Glickman: Yeah, I think they should worry about trade and tariff issues, geopolitical issues, I mean, we’re talking about, are we gonna have a nuclear war in Iran? What’s gonna happen with Taiwan, with China? I mean, all those things affect agriculture, and farm production, and domestic consumption, and then, we have all the health issues, you may wanna ask about the MAHA report, that could affect agriculture as well, so these are very uncertain times, and the thing, Andrew, that disturbs me the most right now about what’s happening is the total uncertainty about everything. From day to day, we don’t know what’s gonna happen about tariffs, we don’t know what’s gonna happen about a farm bill, and our govern… Our national government, does not seem to be working all that well to come to a conclusion, and then, we have this horrendous national debt that this bill, this big beautiful bill, increases rather dramatically, and so, a lot of uncertainty out there.

Andrew Huneke: I’d like to wrap with the USDA downsizing that’s going on, about 15,000 employees have taken buyouts from the department so far. Do you think the department has the staff that it needs to protect American agriculture or to do critical research?

Dan Glickman: My answer in some areas is, “No,” and the research area particularly worries me because it’s research not only in agriculture, but in the NIH, and health, and everything else, I think we’re cutting that far, far too much. Food safety worries me in terms of having an adequate staff to deal with these foodborne diseases that are out there, and we wanna make sure that we have enough staff to deal with commodity programs, crop insurance and those kinds of things. I assume some downsizing can be done without dramatically destroying the ability to deliver programs, but, you know, this is happening to the entire federal government, agriculture is just one of the agencies that’s been impacted by this, some agencies have been cut by 40% and 50%, some agencies have basically been eliminated. The question here is, “Will Congress do the appropriate oversight to determine whether this makes sense or not?” And in the area of agriculture, hopefully, the Senate and House agriculture committees don’t just accept these things as a… That go into it, do the appropriate oversight because Congress has to have a role in this. If they’re gonna pass programs, they’re gonna have to know how many people it takes to properly implement it, oversee it.

Andrew Huneke: Former Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, thank you so much for joining us, sir.

Dan Glickman: You’re welcome, thank you, Andrew.

Andrew Huneke: We’ll be right back with more of our panel discussion, but first, Lydia Johnson looks at the amount of land USDA can enroll in the Conservation Reserve Program in this week’s “Ag by the Numbers.”

Lydia Johnson: USDA is accepting new applications for the Conservation Reserve Program, but high enrollment in recent years and federal funding will limit the amount of land USDA can enroll. Authorization of the program will lapse on September 30th, when the latest farm bill extension expires. That would leave uncertainty for farm country as to whether USDA could accept applications next year. As you can see on this chart, 25.9 million acres are currently enrolled in CRP. This is just 1.1 million acres away from the program’s 27-million-acre cap. CRP enrollment has been shifting in recent years. There’s less interest in the general signup, which focuses on returning whole fields from production for 10-to-15-year periods, and more interest in grassland enrollment, which allows farmers to graze land in emergency conditions. There’s also a category called continuous CRP for environmentally-sensitive land devoted to certain conservation practices. The program’s acreage limit may keep continuous CRP enrollment opportunities limited for 2025. Once all acres have been filled, everyone else could be turned away. Four major conservation programs were included in the House’s budget reconciliation bill passed last week, but CRP was left out. Its fate likely depends on Congress passing either a separate farm bill or an extension of existing farm bill programs left out of reconciliation. For “Agri-Pulse,” I’m Lydia Johnson.

Andrew Huneke: Secretary Johanns, thank you so much for joining us this morning as always. Senate Republicans will spend the coming weeks trying to agree on changes to President Trump’s Big, Beautiful Budget Bill as he’s calling it. You know the Senate well from your time there. How do you expect this bill to change?

Mike Johanns: Well, I believe it’s going to change. That’s first place to start. But on one hand you’ve got people saying, “Look, there’s not enough deficit reduction.” And that’s probably led by Ron Johnson, although there’s others who are a part of that. He says he’s got enough people, enough senators that are singing off that same hymnal that he can stop this bill. So there’s the issue right there. How do they get more deficit reduction? So I think there’s gotta be some changes there. The second thing that I think you’re going to run into is you’ve got a bird rule. You’ve gotta parliamentarian. So they’ve gotta sign off on this. The parliamentarian does. The bird rule also is a factor. You can only do so much with reconciliation. The whole idea is to protect the filibuster. So by the time it goes through what we call the bird bath, the parliamentarian blesses the thing, you would have to imagine there’ll be some changes there. Then there’s just always the things that come up with senators. I want a little of this, I want a little of that. And so I have to imagine that by the time it’s all said and done, it’s gonna go back to the House and they’re gonna have to address some Senate changes.

Andrew Huneke: I’d like to talk about the farm programs in particular. Democrats say House Ag Chair Thompson is breaking up that rural urban coalition that has been historically important for passing those farm programs. Do you see that happening? And if so, how would that impact future farm bills?

Mike Johanns: It’s happened. It’s not that I see it happening, I believe it has happened. If you look into the reconciliation bill and start peeling back the onion, it’s pretty amazing to me how much farm bill was put into the reconciliation bill. The focus tends to be on the reference prices. They were increased pretty well across the board. A lot of commodities will be positively impacted by that. You’ve got a whole host of other provisions in there. That piece of the reconciliation bill kind of reads like a farm bill, if you want to be perfectly candid about it. So, it looks to me like the coalition broke up. I think Chairman Thompson said, “Look, this is the only train leaving this station, so I’ve gotta get on top of this and try to get some things done through reconciliation.” The problem with that is going to be that there were pretty severe cuts that were done to the SNAP program and other important food aid programs. So that’s a red line. And for Democrats, that’s the red line. So it’s a little hard for me to imagine that they’d come back to the table and say, “Well, we’ll forget about those massive cuts that were made to the food program.”

Andrew Huneke: I’d like to talk a little bit more about some of the partisan politics we’ve been seeing on Capitol Hill a lot recently, over the past couple years even. Should farmers be concerned that we may not see comprehensive farm bills in the future after all of this partisanship that we’ve seen?

Mike Johanns: You know, things can always change. Pendulum does swing back and forth in Washington. We all know that. That was a delicate balance. When I was in the Senate, it was getting harder and harder to get a farm bill done just because there were so many stakeholders pulling at that farm bill. And people wanted less spending. People wanted more spending. People wanted bigger programs, this, that, and the next thing. And these are very, very expensive things. So, the problem we were running into is keeping the coalition together. Now, as I said, the coalition’s been frayed. So as I look to the future, I must admit I’m a bit pessimistic that you put that back together. Now again, I’ll emphasize that the pendulum does swing. What looks pretty bleak today can change tomorrow. But this was a pretty significant departure from how you traditionally got a farm bill done.

Andrew Huneke: The US Court for International Trade ruled President Trump overstepped his authority in using the Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs in all countries. We asked Mike Johanns about his thoughts on the ruling.

Mike Johanns: Well, I kind of, there also kind of peeled back the onion, and it was a unanimous ruling that caught my attention immediately. It was done by three judges who come from very, very different backgrounds. You can’t say that the liberals controlled that ruling, or the progressives, say. You can’t say that conservatives controlled that ruling. It was three judges with pretty varied backgrounds, so that caught my attention. The other thing I would say is that it was very broad and they said basically to the President, “You’ve tried to take this law and extend it well beyond what Congress intended.” So now, I would say this, it’s gonna be appealed. It’s in the process of being appealed literally as we speak. So, we haven’t seen the last of this, and this is one of those issues that I would fully expect it would go to the US Supreme Court, and we’ll see how those nine judges decide this. But it was pretty shocking. And like I said, it caught my attention that three judges of different backgrounds agreed unanimously on the opinion.

Andrew Huneke: And President Trump has been busy, at least working really hard before that ruling to get new trade deals done. What’s your thoughts just so far on the President’s trade strategy?

Mike Johanns: God bless them. I mean, this is overdue. You know, I think about the issues we have always faced with European Union. They wanna sell us their wine, and cheese, and specialty meats, whatever, whatever. They don’t wanna buy our products, and they’ve always got a reason. It’s poultry, wash shirts, hormones, or it’s something. I mean, there is always a reason it just drives me nuts. China, very good trading partner and drifted away. You know, it’s just very, very frustrating that China, they want a one-way street. It just drives you crazy that people want access to this tremendous market in the United States. Countries want that access, but they don’t wanna be reciprocal about it. And so I applaud President Trump. He’s trying to get a level playing field, and he’s facing some real obstacles. But if he can improve trade, and level the playing field, and open up new markets for agriculture, it’s a big deal.

Andrew Huneke: I’d like your thoughts, too, on the Make America Healthy Again Commission Report that dropped last week as well. The Chairman of the House and Senate Ag Committee say they’re troubled by that report because of its potential consequences for farmers. What are your initial thoughts on the report and its impacts on American agriculture?

Mike Johanns: You know, when I read the report and read all of the… or a lot of the articles about the report, all I could think of is they want us to go back to the 1940s or the 1950s. You know, how many studies have been done on various crop protection products that are out there that have come to the same conclusion that these are safe, that they can be used? I mean, and then you read this report and they put the bullseye on pesticides and whatever else. And, to me, it’s extremely frustrating. It’s like taking scientific development, very, very careful analysis, turning it upside down, and relying in speculation and theory on… And it’s just… You can’t feed the world the way they want to feed the world. I mean, sure, I love the farm. I grew up on 160 acres, 30 cows, you know, some chickens, and hogs, and cattle. But quite honestly, you won’t feed the world that way. And we have growing population worldwide. We have to do better than what that report is asking us to do. It’s just not possible to feed the world with what that report is, the direction that report is heading us in.

Andrew Huneke: Former Ag Secretary Mike Johanns, thank you so much for joining us, sir.

Mike Johanns: Yes, you bet.

Andrew Huneke: We’ll be right back with more “Newsmakers.” But first, Lydia Johnson looks at US counties most reliant on farming in this week’s “Map It Out.”

Lydia Johnson: Counties whose local economies are most reliant on farming are primarily located in the Central United States. Based on analysis from the USDA Economic Research Service, 453 of the 3,143 US counties are classified as having a high concentration of earnings and jobs in farming. This means at least 20% of the annual average labor and proprietors’ earnings come from ag production. 409 of these are in a region stretching from the Dakotas down to the Texas Panhandle, including most of the counties in both Nebraska and South Dakota. 44 of the farming-intensive counties are located in metro areas, where many residents commute for work. But the economic activity remains concentrated in agriculture. While the shaded counties do not necessarily have the highest levels of ag production or the most ag land, they rely most on farming for their earnings and jobs. For Agri-Pulse, I’m Lydia Johnson.

Andrew Huneke: Thanks for joining us for another episode of “Agri-Pulse Newsmakers”. Here’s what’s on the horizon for next week. Both the House and Senate will be back in session. The House Agriculture Committee is holding a hearing on conservation, while the Senate Ag Committee will take action on a bill called the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act. Also, signup is open for the Agri-Pulse Food and Ag Issues Summit in Sacramento, California on June 10th. You can gain insights on water issues, the ag economy, and prospectus from the California Capital, from industry leaders and lawmakers. To sign up, visit the events tab on our website, www.agri-pulse.com. And finally, my colleague, Lydia Johnson, will bring you a special episode next week from the World Pork Expo in Des Moines, Iowa. For “Agri-Pulse Newsmakers”, I’m Andrew Huneke Thanks for watching.

Narrator: “Newsmakers” is a production of Agri-Pulse Communications. You can also find our new content on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget to follow Agri-Pulse and our correspondence on social media to get breaking news and more. For agriculture, trade, food, environment and regulatory news, your source is agri-pulse.com.