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 Senate Farm Bill text released today:
Many farmers right now are struggling under the weight of high input costs. These farmers are trapped in an input-crop price vise, where costs have increased and crop prices have not, leaving farmers with less money to plan for the future. Bankruptcies are up and morale is low in farm country.
If the Senate Farm Bill was serious about helping farmers reduce the needs for inputs, it would invest in conservation programs that can help farmers manage their nutrients — practices such as crop rotations that have been shown to work over centuries. Instead, this bill cuts funding for key conservation programs that are popular with farmers and oversubscribed every year.
The Senate should also provide greater flexibility within the federal crop insurance program for farmers wishing to diversify their operations to manage for input reduction and improve resilience, with premiums that are priced at least as favorably as those offered to conventional farmers.
A forward-looking Farm Bill would more seriously build on-farm resilience rather than lock in an unsustainable system where billions go out the door in disaster relief without addressing why disasters are getting more frequent and more expensive. While it probably comes as a relief to some specialty crop producers that disaster relief would be treated in a more standardized way, changes are needed to reflect the unique needs, value, and changing nature of many specialty crop farms, especially those that are highly diversified.
As is too often the case, Senate Republicans provide what they think of as a solution: more debt. One of the changes from current policy that this bill provides is the increase in farm operating loan limits, tied to inflation. Again, this is not a policy that seeks to keep money in farmers' pockets, but rather is one that sends more money from the farmer to the lender.
This bill also fails to address the glaring issues with nutrition programs created by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. A lack of action on nutrition will lead to higher cost burdens on states and more people going hungry across the United States.
We appreciate that the Senate Farm Bill does not include some controversial provisions considered in the House bill, such as those on pesticide preemption and weakening of animal welfare standards. We will continue to advocate for the exclusion of any amendments adding these provisions later in the process. We will also continue advocating for improvements for farmers, including country of origin labeling for beef, protected funding for popular conservation programs, and actions that would protect farmers and consumers from consolidation and anticompetitive behavior in the ag industry.
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.
Download the PDF here.
