Farm bill may get back on track

Since the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was signed by President Donald Trump in July 2025, most talk about a farm bill has unfortunately taken a backseat.

There are opportunities with OBBBA that will strengthen the farm safety net, because it increases statutory reference prices that will producers who use Agricultural Coverage and Price Loss Coverage programs. However, those enhanced monies will not arrive until this fall.

Meanwhile, in late December, the Trump administration announced the Farmers Bridge Assistance Program as a way to help producers who have been affected by tariff policies in markets and input costs. That measure added $12 billion—including $11 billion for major commodities that included canola, corn, cotton, soybeans, sorghum, sunflowers, and wheat—that is expected to start being delivered electronically to farmers Feb. 28.

Times, of course, remain uncertain for High Plains’ grain farmers. Extension agricultural economists have noted that the prices of most major crops remain at or below production costs.

Josh Strine at the University of Purdue’s Center for Commercial Agriculture in his assessment, based on information from the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture’s first forecast of the farm balance sheet, said balance sheets will be tested.

“While farm equity and assets have increased annually since 2020, the percent change between 2025 and 2026 is forecast to be the lowest since 2019 to 2020. On the other hand, the percent change in farm debt is forecast to increase between 2025 and 2026, marking the third time debt accumulation has accelerated in the past four years.

“Non-real estate assets are expected to decline in 2026, driven by a decrease in animal, animal products, and crop inventory. Animal and animal product inventory is forecast to decline by $15 billion between 2025 and 2026, ending three straight years of asset growth in the livestock category. While total non-real estate assets are declining, a few categories are forecast to expand in 2026. Farm machinery and vehicles are expected to increase by $12 billion, continuing a four-year trend of growth.”

Tanner Ehmke, lead economist for grains and oilseeds at CoBank, in a recent story written by Field Editor Kylene Scott, noted that tariffs have cost farmers $1 billion in additional costs for imported machinery parts, fertilizers, crop chemical protectants and seed.

Tariffs have also changed the marketplace for farmers trying to export grain. One can argue that markets have always had barriers, and other countries are also successfully using high production techniques. Trying to abruptly change the U.S. system that has been in place for many years has been a difficult hill to climb.

Capitol Hill is now where the focus is, and credit has to go to agricultural committee chairs in the Senate and House. U.S. Senate Chairman John Boozman, R-AR, and House Chairman GT Thompson, R-PA, and ranking members Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-MN and Rep. Angie Craig, D-MN, and key farm state lawmakers from both parties who feel the pain from their constituents.

The current farm bill, remains the 2018 bill, shepherded by former U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-KS, and that legislation was approved overwhelmingly on a bipartisan basis. However, the five-year bill has expired and since has been running on one-year extensions via congressional resolutions. That is no way to address current and future needs for the agricultural community.

The OBBBA, thought to take the lion’s share of meeting farmers and ranchers’ needs, does not address all of those needs. Research at land-grant universities, feeding the needy—particularly if Making America Healthy Again is a permanent nutritional mandate—year-round E15, biofuels, and oversight of federal spending as it pertains to agriculture, must be addressed.

The beauty of the farm bills is that while they are contentious at times, they tend to pass on bipartisan support of rural and urban lawmakers. That stress test unfortunately is getting narrower where Congress prefers to kick the can down the road approach.

That has to stop and the surety of a new farm bill, on a bipartisan basis, would help boost optimism for grain producers.

Dave Bergmeier can be reached at 620-227-1822 or [email protected].