While planting season is now in full swing, some area farmers are keeping an eye on Washington, where Democrats and Republicans are hoping to negotiate a five-year Farm Bill before the current short-term extension runs out on Sept. 30.
Amid a historically unproductive Congress marked by both heavy partisanship and discord within the ranks of the House’s narrow Republican majority, last fall marked the fourth cycle in a row in which Congress has failed to pass an updated farm bill on time.
Passing a Farm Bill sooner rather than later is a priority for 1st Congressional District Rep. Brad Finstad, R-New Ulm, who represents St. Peter, and 2nd Congressional District Rep. Angie Craig, D-Prior Lake, as well as United States Sens. Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar, all of whom have seats on the Agriculture Committees.
Though significant differences remain between the proposals of House Agriculture Committee Chair Glenn Thompson, R-Pennsylvania, and Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan, both parties appear to share many of the same core priorities.
Both draft frameworks of the roughly $1.5 trillion Farm Bill would seek to boost funding for rural broadband and technology, bolster crop insurance and conservation programs, grow U.S. exports and provide additional funding for research and technology.
Even amid growing partisan rancor, the House and Senate Agriculture Committees are traditionally known for their relative collegiality. Stabenow and Thompson describe themselves as friends and say they plan to include proposals from both parties in the omnibus bill.
Northfield Township farmer Bruce Peterson, a former President of the Minnesota Association of Corn Growers, said that the top priority of local farmers is to maintain the safety net provided by the Farm Bill’s crop insurance programs.
Peterson said that farmers would also like to see a boost to the commodity price supports, as reference prices have not kept up with the rising costs. However, he didn’t express much optimism that Congress would come up with the funding to significantly boost price supports.
Kent Thiesse, a farm management analyst and recently retired ag lender, said that preliminary proposals do show at least some increase to price supports and more options for crop insurance, along with more funding for conservation security program and Environmental Quality Incentives (EQIP) program.
While the conservation programs are voluntary, Thiesse said that the most significant barrier to their success has been insufficient funding, not insufficient interest. Currently, about two-thirds of eligible applicants are turned away for lack of funds.
In addition to strictly farm-related programs, Thiesse noted that the Farm Bill includes a wide variety of vitally important programs for rural America, including funding for rural broadband, ambulance services, health care and economic development.
Controversial proposals
While the Farm Bill is best known for including programs which provide crucial support for local farmers and help keep food prices lower, more than 80% of the bill’s funding goes towards the nutrition portion, primarily food stamps.
With an eye towards reducing federal spending and/or directing more money towards other parts of the bill, Republicans have traditionally made a variety of proposals to limit federal spending on food stamps, but these proposals are strongly opposed by Democrats.
Additional work requirements for food stamp recipients under the age of 55 were included as part of last year’s debt ceiling deal between President Joe Biden and then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, with exemptions for veterans, homeless persons and adults exiting foster care.
Now, Thompson has proposed limiting potential increases to food stamp benefits strictly to inflation-based adjustments, undoing the Biden Administration’s efforts to further boost food stamp benefits to keep pace with the rising cost of healthy foods like fruits and vegetables.
Part of the reason why fruits and vegetables tend to be more expensive than processed foods is because producers aren’t eligible for the same crop insurance protections as growers of shelf stable commodities, a discrepancy which both parties have expressed interest in addressing.
Another Thompson proposal would allow agriculture conservation funds approved as part of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act to be used for a wide variety of conservation projects, not just those which reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
While Democrats in the House and Senate say they do not support allowing IRA conservation funding to be used for projects that wouldn’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Thompson said allowing conservation funds to be used in a more flexible manner is popular with stakeholders.
The conservative Republican Study Committee, which includes over 80% of House Republicans, including MN CD1 Rep. Finstad, has proposed much deeper cuts and larger reforms to farm and nutrition programs as part of its controversial Fiscal Sanity to Save America plan.
The RSC claims that “America’s farmers would thrive under the RSC Budget’s package of pro-growth tax reforms and deregulatory measures,” a centerpiece of which would be full repeal of the estate tax, which as of 2020 affects less than 1% of farm transfers.
On the spending side, the RSC’s budget proposes eliminating new enrollments in conservation programs, abolishing dairy subsidies, reducing crop insurance premium subsidies and limiting crop subsidies to farmers with an adjusted gross income below $500,000.
With regards to food stamps, the RSC budget proposed converting the SNAP program into a federal block grant as was done in the 1990s with the Temporary Aid to Needy Families program, while expanding work requirements to cover those up to age 65.
While Thompson is not a member of the RSC, a majority of Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee are. Stabenow and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack were quick to express alarm at the proposal, with Vilsack describing it as “radical.”
Ongoing negotiations
Given the closely divided state of Congress, votes from both parties will likely be needed to advance the bill through both chambers, meaning that such dramatic reforms are almost certainly a no-go if legislators do indeed want to pass a farm bill this year.
In the House, Chair Thompson is expected to release a full bill text in advance of a scheduled committee vote on May 23. MN CD2 Rep. Craig expressed concern that the House Republican majority may be preparing to move ahead with a partisan bill.
“The House ag committee has been one of the last places in congress where true bipartisan work gets done,” Craig said. “But right now, it looks like they’re going down a partisan path.”
For Craig and other Democrats, Thompson’s partial freeze of food stamp benefits is a “red line.” Vilsack argued that the proposal would effectively reduce benefits by $30 billion and argued that it represented a breach of agreements made during the debt ceiling negotiations last year.
Craig also expressed concerns that Thompson’s yet-unreleased bill could tilt heavily towards the interest of larger southern farmers, and pledged to fight hard to prioritize programs important to local farmers, including the EQIP program which she said many local farmers are enrolled in.
“We’re going to make sure (the bill) makes sense for Minnesota farmers,” Craig said. “It’s got to invest in nutrition assistance, got to improve rural health care, got to expand access to high speed internet.”
Though it was passed by a Republican Congress and signed into law by President Trump, Craig said that the 2018 farm bill represented a strong bipartisan compromise and praised Stabenow’s proposal, titled the Rural Prosperity And Food Security Act, for building on it.
Stabenow’s framework includes several proposals backed by Sens. Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar, including improvements to the Dairy Margin Coverage program that has provided a crucial lifeline to local dairy farmers amid the chaos of COVID-19.
“This proposal includes more than 100 bipartisan bills that support farmers while keeping rural communities strong, including provisions that make investments in the farm safety net, protect against animal disease, promote export opportunities, invest in biofuels and biomanufacturing, and support conservation and nutrition programs,” said Sen. Klobuchar in a statement.
While Senate Agriculture Committee Ranking Member John Boozman, R-Arkansas, says he will release a competing proposal, Stabenow touted that her bill includes more than 100 bipartisan proposals. Craig said she believes the House will eventually take a similar tack.
“My experience has been that they try everything first that is not bipartisan, and in the end they have to put a bipartisan bill on the floor,” Craig said.
Listening to feedback
A fourth generation family farmer who represents an expansive, largely rural district covering 21 counties which stretch clear across southern Minnesota, Finstad has made it a priority to seek feedback from the farming community about the bill.
“I was honored to have a farm bill listening session in every county in the district to hear straight from our farmers,” Finstad said. “We wanted to make sure the farm bill would be written by them and for them, by rural America and for rural America, not something that just comes out of DC.”
Finstad said that crop insurance programs provide an essential “safety net” amid the volatile markets and weather farmers face and need to be updated and strengthened after dramatic increases in input costs over the last five years.
With regards to the nutrition side of the program, Finstad said that while he and other Republicans support strengthening SNAP benefits to help those in need, reforms are needed to help rein in waste, fraud and abuse.
“We need to make sure we’re not in the business of turning a blind eye on waste and abuse in the administration of the program,” Finstad said. “The reforms in the bill that will be good for taxpayers and good for recipients of SNAP.”
Amid a tight labor market affecting nearly all sectors of the economy, agriculture is facing challenges that are likely to grow in the coming years. The average age of a farmer is now 58 years old, with less than 10% of farmers under the age of 35.
To help ease future workforce challenges, Finstad partnered with Sen. Tina Smith last year to introduce the Agriculture Skills Preparation for Industry Recruitment Efforts (ASPIRE) Act, which would provide a work-based agriculture training program within the USDA and boost participation in apprenticeships and internships.
Adam Schiff, an Agriculture Legislative Assistant with Sen. Smith’s office, said that legislation is among the priorities which his boss would like to see included in the farm bill, along with proposals to boost access to childcare in rural areas, help farmers establish small energy projects on their land and boost soil health.
Despite skepticism from some outside observers that an agreement could come to pass in the midst of a heated election, Schiff expressed optimism that continued negotiations could produce a farm bill amenable to all, avoiding the need to again temporarily extend the 2018 bill.
“We’re very hopeful there’s not going to be another extension,” he said.
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