The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy has released the following statement from Michael Happ, Program Associate for Climate and Rural Communities, in response to the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026, House Agriculture Committee Republican’s draft farm bill text released last week:
Last Friday, the House Agriculture Committee released a draft Farm Bill. There are a lot of similarities between this bill and the bill from spring 2024 — and there is a lot in this bill to be concerned with.
This new Farm Bill seeks to lock in a status quo that hasn't worked for most farmers. Its crop insurance provisions propose vague initiatives with long timelines for specialty crop producers, and don’t address the needs of small and diversified growers.
It siphons money from oversubscribed and underfunded nationwide conservation programs to fund unproven and region-specific programs such as the feral swine eradication program, as well as a new program meant to address conservation needs from a border wall being built by another department with plenty of resources. It prevents people harmed by toxic chemicals from seeking relief, and it obstructs market access for farmers who have improved their farm operations’ treatment of animals.
This Farm Bill is operating with no additional funds, a fiscal situation made more difficult by recent massive tax cuts for those who need it the least. This is also the first Farm Bill draft since nutrition assistance was slashed in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. This Farm Bill does little to address the hunger gap caused by those cuts.
We are experiencing a farm crisis in the United States. It is tied to rising costs, broken markets, and attacks on the farm and food workforce. This Farm Bill falls well short of the transformative policy needed to turn the crisis around. Instead, it keeps in place a brittle, fragile system that has brought us to this point.
For more info and insights into the Farm Bill, follow along on our blog at www.iatp.org/farm-bill-23
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Based in Minneapolis with offices in Washington, D.C., and Berlin, Germany, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy works locally and globally at the intersection of policy and practice to ensure fair and sustainable food, farm and trade systems. To learn more, visit: www.iatp.org.
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