Time is Running Out to Pass New Legislation in 2024

Sep 20, 2024

By Kalee Olson

With fewer than four months of 2024 remaining, the window of opportunity for Congress to pass a new farm bill is narrowing. Partisan divides on key issues, as well as November’s general election, are just two of the many factors at play as lawmakers prepare their final to-do list for the year.

The path to a new farm bill has been long, and there remains much work to be done. Marker bill introductions and negotiations began in 2023, and an extension of the 2018 farm bill allowed conversations to continue into 2024. Unfortunately, lawmakers remain in the preliminary stages of passing the omnibus legislation through Congress. Progress remains where it stood on May 30, when we published our last Farm Bill Bulletin. The House of Representatives passed its version of the bill—the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024—on May 23. The Senate’s version of the bill—the Rural Prosperity and Food Security Act of 2024— has yet to be voted on by the Agriculture Committee. Only a detailed summary has been released.

Despite ongoing negotiations, there are three topics at the core of partisan disagreements. First, lawmakers do not see eye-to-eye on the climate guardrails established by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). With these guardrails in place, only a subset of conservation practices are eligible for financial assistance using IRA funds. Second, lawmakers disagree on whether reference prices for crop insurance should be raised and, finally, whether more money should be made available for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). These disagreements are further compounded by efforts to maintain a budget-neutral farm bill, which often requires taking money away from one program to support another. In addition, lawmakers are simply running out of time, as passing next year’s federal budget—or a continuing resolution—will require their attention before Sept. 30.

While the outlook for the remainder of the year is uncertain, it is likely that one of two scenarios will result. Congress will either pass a new farm bill during the “lame duck” session following the election or punt the reauthorization process to 2025, which means it will be picked up by a new Congress and administration. The latter scenario would require lawmakers to pass a second extension of the 2018 farm bill by Sept. 30.

Regardless of the path ahead, advocacy for a farm bill that provides for strong rural communities is as essential as ever. If you want assistance contacting your U.S. representative or senators to express your support, please email me at kaleeo@cfra.org. You can find contact information for your members of Congress here.

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Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”