The American Farm Bureau Federation has issued a strong statement blasting Congress’ delay in moving the draft farm bill forward. The current farm bill expires Sept. 30.
Five hundred thirty organizations, including the AFBF, sent a letter to Congress recently urging lawmakers to come together and pass a bipartisan farm bill.
AFBF President Zippy Duvall said, “If Congress fails to pass a new and improved farm bill, they will be responsible for leaving farmers in a lurch at a time when we’ve lost more than 140,000 family farms in just five years. When the current farm bill was drafted in 2018, the agricultural landscape was drastically different.
Policy that pre-dates a global pandemic, historic inflation, skyrocketing supply costs and geopolitical uncertainty just won’t cut it today or next year. Congress must not put farmers, ranchers and America’s families on the back burner. The House Agriculture Committee has done its part so far. It’s now time for the Senate Agriculture Committee to move this process forward.”
Congress failed to pass a farm bill last year. A draft farm bill passed the Republican-led House Agriculture Committee in May with little Democratic support and is now awaiting reconciliation with a Senate Agriculture Committee bill led by Democrats.
The House bill passed out of committee on a 33-21 vote with only four Democratic votes. It expands farm commodity supports, shrinks Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funding and reallocates nearly $20 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act intended for climate-smart farm practices—a measure unlikely to win favor from Senate Democrats.
The House committee’s top Democrat, David Scott, from Georgia, called parts of the House bill “mean-spirited.” Senate Agriculture Committee chair Debbie Stabenow has expressed doubts about the ability of the House bill to pass. Most farm groups support it, however.
“The very real and damaging consequences of Congress’ failure to pass a modernized farm bill are brought to light in a new analysis by American Farm Bureau Federation economists,” the AFBF said in its statement. “It provides a clearer picture of major impacts of relying on the antiquated 2018 farm bill, including the likely loss of more family farms in the U.S., all of which impact the country’s ability to produce the food, fuel and fiber America’s families rely on.”
The report highlights five specific impacts of the failure to pass a new farm bill: a weakened farmer safety net, less future funding for sustainability efforts, a gap in coverage for dairy farmers, further erosion of U.S. leadership in public agricultural research as China takes the lead and reduced overall economic and national security.
The AFBF said that reference prices, the point at which federal programs compensate farmers when markets bottom out, need to be modernized. The report states that while a few commodities’ reference prices have increased due to a price escalator added in the 2018 law, all lag significantly behind increases in the cost of-production.
Once a global leader, America has fallen far behind China in publicly funded agricultural research. China spends more than $10 billion a year on agricultural research, double the spending in the U.S. In fact, China’s research investments nearly match the combined investments by the U.S., India and Brazil.
The AFBF said, “Supporting the productivity of U.S. agriculture is critical to our competitiveness in the larger world market; it is fundamental to building our capacity to contribute to environmental sustainability; and it is absolutely necessary to supporting the health and nutrition of the world’s population.”
David Murray can be reached at [email protected].
