Is There Anything New from the Latest Farm Bill Debate?

This week we had a farm bill-related conference, a hearing and lots of talk about a new farm bill. But nothing really new surfaced after all that mostly noise. Here's a quick recap.

Farm Bill Timing 

Sen. John Boozman’s (R-Ark.) comment that he’s “feeling good” about the new farm bill’s timely passage was met with laughter from wonks and lobbyists attending a farm policy confab, those so-called “smart money” experts who are frequently wrong.

Upshot

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) in his presser this week accurately forecast that nothing new about the farm bill will likely surface until after the debt limit debate is completed (remember that ahead). That will take months to unfold.

We need to know the final funding level before there are any attempts to mix and match to get to a final bill/scoring. And Republicans must come to grips with the third rail of farm bills: don’t alter SNAP/food stamps with draconian language or funding reductions that will be defined by Democrats.

What Thune Knows and Apparently Many Others Do Not

On IRA dollars, remember that everyone agrees they cannot all be spent by September 30, 2031, when the new money dries up. So, it makes sense to use the money that cannot be spent anyway on other things.

Shifting Funding Around a Big Hurdle

Sen. Thune chatted about his farm bill priorities — including raising commodity reference prices and protecting crop insurance. Nothing new there. But when the conversation turned to conservation, and the almost $20 billion for climate-smart agriculture in Democrats’ party-line Inflation Reduction Act, Thune suggested Republicans might come for that pot of money.

Good luck having to deal with a farm bill leader veteran: Senate Ag Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who cheered the billions of dollars in climate-smart funds to cut down on farming’s carbon emissions.

“With these landmark investments, we are equipping farmers, foresters, and rural communities with the tools they need to be a part of the climate solution,” Stabenow said in August.

Bottom Line 

A Democratic-controlled Senate is unlikely to relinquish that money. Thus, more funding is needed or a realization that the billions of dollars in ad hoc aid funded by taxpayers over the past several years must be reworked into the crop insurance program to make it more reflective of today’s agriculture. But that may take some tweaks that some key crop insurance users do not want.

Besides food stamps, crop insurance reform will be the big farm bill debate ahead. We heard little about that this week.