Producers should expect another extension, a U.S. senator said
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
Congress hasn’t passed a new farm bill since 2018, and the ag community shouldn’t expect a new one any time soon.
President Biden signed an extension of the 2018 Farm Bill in November 2023, bringing its expiration date to Sept. 30 of this year.
With about a month to go before the new deadline, farmers should expect more of the same.
“I think, unfortunately, it looks to me like we’re running up against the deadline without a replacement in place, meaning that we’ll probably end up with another extension,” U.S. Senator John Thune (R-S.D.), told South Dakota Public Broadcasting.
He anticipates another full year extension because there isn’t enough time to complete the markup and other necessary processes.
Farmers, however, want a new version of the farm bill.
Simply, some producers view the 2018 farm bill as outdated.
“There’s very little within my farm today that was the same as in 2018,” Marc Arnusch, a farmer in Weld County, Colo., told Colorado Public Radio. “Whether it was the cost of production, input prices, commodity prices, even the way we manage our farm has changed significantly since 2018. National ag policy needs to evolve with our evolving farms.”
Indeed, input costs have increased since that time.
In 2018, for example, U.S. farmers spent about $15.4 billion on pesticide. That cost increased to more than $21 billion in 2022 and is projected to be close to $21 billion for 2024, USDA data shows.
And labor costs have gone up from $33 billion in 2018 to a $46 billion projection for 2024.
Ag reps are urging Congress to act to get something done.
Passing a new bill may be out of the question, but there’s time for a bill that could act as a bridge between the two.
“We need a farm bill, (and) we needed it done yesterday,” Andy Brown, Louisiana Farm Bureau’s commodity and public policy director, said in a recent interview. “But because you didn’t get it done, Congress, we need something to help us get to the next farm bill.”
Farmers like Arnusch aren’t confident in lawmakers’ ability to get a farm bill done.
The political climate feels too divided, he said.
“Today it feels like — for the very first time in my farming career — we have a very red farm bill and a very, very blue farm bill, and there's an ocean apart between the two,” he told Colorado Public Radio. “That comes to me as a little bit of surprise. I'm 25 to almost 30 years into my farming career and this is the first time I felt that.”