Farm Bill Delay Likely Unless the Dems’ ‘Attitude Really Changes’

The top agricultural issue for the lame duck session will be disaster and financial aid to farmers. The farm bill, meanwhile, already a year overdue, is likely to be delayed until 2025 “unless the attitude really changes,” said House Agriculture chairman Glenn Thompson on a podcast.

Thompson also said he thinks stopgap aid for farmers will get done.

“The other things that we worked hard to put into this farm bill, we will get them done. We always planned on having to do an extension if we couldn’t get it [completed],” said Thompson during the podcast with Missouri Rep. Mark Alford, a Republican member of the committee. “But it doesn’t mean we have to wait a year to get the rest of the farm bill done.”

Thompson blamed the months-long farm bill impasse on Senate Agriculture chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, who has rejected Republican proposals to cut SNAP outlays or to allow climate funds to be used for conservation practices that do not reduce greenhouse gas emissions or sequester carbon in the soil. “Unless the attitude really changes with the Senate Democrats,” the farm bill will not move, he said. Republicans attempted to cut SNAP in the 2014 and 2018 farm bills.

“So if we do the things that are really disaster-driven or that are absolutely essential because of the issue of market volatility, disaster relief for farmers, I think that’s a positive thing,” said Thompson.

The 2018 farm law expired in September 2023. Congress extended it for one year. If another extension is not passed, the farm program would revert to the 1949 permanent agriculture law, which sets subsidies at unworkably high levels.