The Farm Bill is kaput.
Congress has failed to extend or replace the 2018 Farm Bill by the Sept. 30 deadline, meaning it has expired.
Officially known as the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, the 2018 farm bill is the most recent omnibus farm bill. It contained 12 titles. In November 2023, Congress enacted a one-year extension to 2024.
But all that time has now run out.
The nearly $900 billion bill is dead, but some of its spending will continue through the end of the year.
That means the current Congress has little time to work on the issue, or it will have to leave it to the new Congress that takes over in January.
According to the Congressional Reserve Service (CRS), updates in the 2018 Farm Bill modified some farm commodity programs, expanded crop insurance, amended conservation programs, reauthorized and revised nutrition assistance, and extended authority to appropriate funds for many USDS programs.
CSR reports that four titles accounted for 99 percent of the 2018 farm bill’s mandatory spending: nutrition (primarily SNAP), commodities, crop insurance, and conservation. All other titles in the expired Farm Bill accounted for about 1 percent of mandatory outlays and receive mostly discretionary (appropriated) funds.
House Republicans, with a few Democrats, passed a new Farm Bill earlier in the year, but it never went anywhere with the Senate.
Something did seem to be happening earlier in the summer when House Committee Chairman Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson, R-PA, expressed support for a Senate framework that “elevates the urgent needs voiced by diverse stakeholders across the country and articulates common-sense solutions.”
At the time, he said House Republicans “are eager to build on this momentum and enact a comprehensive farm bill that meets the needs across the agricultural value chain.”
According to the Farm Bureau’s Chief Economist, Roger Cryan, everything falling apart does have immediate consequences.
He lists some programs are shut down immediately, as their day-to-day authority depends on the farm bill. Among those are:
- Numerous international programs, including the Market Access and Foreign Market Development Cooperator trade promotion programs and Food for Progress;
- The Bio-based Markets Program and Bioenergy Program for Advanced Biofuels;
- Several important animal health programs;
- Programs for socially disadvantaged, veteran, young, and beginning farmers;
- The Specialty Crops Block Grants program, and The National Organic Certification Cost-Share program.
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