By Emily Cabrera
Whether or not you follow politics, policies passed in Washington, D.C., shape nearly every part of daily life in the U.S., from how our food is grown to how it reaches our tables.
Among the largest and most wide-reaching pieces of legislation is the Farm Bill, an omnibus law that governs the nation’s agricultural production and nutrition programs. Passed roughly every five years, the Farm Bill covers 11 major areas, or “titles,” including crop insurance, conservation, nutrition assistance and agricultural research.
The most recent version, enacted in 2018, was extended twice and set to expire this September. In the meantime, U.S. producers have faced a mix of challenges from extreme weather events, global supply chain disruptions lingering from the COVID-19 pandemic, trade wars and the ongoing pressures of globalization.
In a departure from tradition, Congress this summer signed into law House Resolution 1 (H.R. 1), a sweeping measure that folded many elements of a typical Farm Bill into a broader legislative package covering a wide range of budget and policy changes. While H.R. 1 kept many core Farm Bill programs intact, it also set the stage for how U.S. agriculture will operate in the near future, blending short-term relief with longer-term strategies for global market development.
A new Farm Bill by another name
According to Ford Ramsey, an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Georgia, the agriculture-related components of H.R. 1 function much like a traditional Farm Bill.
“If you look at where most Farm Bill dollars go, such as nutrition programs, federal crop insurance and commodity programs those core pieces are in H.R. 1,” said Ramsey, faculty in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES). “So, functionally, it acts like a Farm Bill.”
The 2018 Farm Bill expired in in 2023, and Congress since passed multiple extensions of the current law while competing versions of a new bill stalled in both the House and Senate. With Republicans retaking the Senate and the White House after the 2024 election, this set up the potential for the majority party in Congress to pass legislation via the budget reconciliation process, a procedure that is often used when one party controls both the executive and legislative branches. Reconciliation is an expedited legislative process that allows for changes to measures that impact spending and revenues to be passed with a simple majority vote in the Senate, rather than the usual 60-vote threshold for passage. As Congress considered and passed a reconciliation bill, H.R. 1, this summer, a decision was made to insert certain Farm Bill programs into the bill.
On the nutrition side, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) remains in place, although work requirements have become more stringent. Ramsey explained that SNAP was historically included in the Farm Bill to help unite urban and rural lawmakers, where nutrition assistance helped address food insecurity issues in more populated areas and agricultural support for farming communities in rural areas. The alliance has weakened over the past decade, he said, making bipartisan support for the massive legislation increasingly difficult to achieve.
How the bill helps farmers stay afloat
For Georgia farmers, H.R. 1 provides a blend of financial support and stability through programs that work much like insurance. Two of the most important are Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC).
ARC helps farmers when their total revenue the combination of prices and yields falls below a set average. PLC kicks in when market prices drop below a guaranteed reference price for a specific crop. When that happens, the federal government helps make up the difference.
“When prices fall or yields are poor, these programs help farmers stay in business,” Ramsey said. “Peanuts and cotton are the big winners in Georgia because their reference prices were raised in this bill.”
Another major piece is the federal crop insurance program, which helps protect producers from losses due to weather, pests or disease. Farmers pay premiums, but those premiums are heavily subsidized, making coverage affordable enough that most large-acreage crops, like cotton, corn, soybeans and peanuts, are insured every year.
Preparing for storms and market shocks
For Georgia’s poultry industry, H.R. 1 directs the U.S. Department of Agriculture to create an insurance program for poultry operations, the first of its kind for the state’s top agricultural commodity, which brings in $6.93 billion annually to the state’s economy.
The coverage will likely function like disaster insurance, providing payments when hurricanes or high winds strike poultry-producing counties. The industry suffered devastating losses from Hurricane Helene in late September 2023, totaling $683 million, and producers are still working to recover and rebuild.
Source : uga.edu