Groups Call on Congress to Pass Robust Farm Bill

USAgNet - 09/12/2024

Citing worsening economic conditions impacting the nation's farmers, over 300 national and state groups sent a letter to congressional leaders today calling on them to pass the farm bill before year's end.

Signatories included groups representing farmers, livestock and specialty crop producers, lenders and other essential stakeholders in agricultural communities across the U.S. Commodity and lending groups will head to the Capitol en masse this week to advocate for passage of the legislation with a stronger agricultural safety net.

"It is critical that Congress pass a new farm bill that strengthens the safety net as many producers are facing multiple years of not being profitable, and this is causing their overall financial situation to deteriorate," the letter said. "Some will have challenges as they seek operating credit for the 2025 crop year."

The farm bill is typically passed every five years and supports the nation's farmers, ranchers and forest stewards through a variety of safety net, credit, conservation and other critical programs. The law was originally scheduled for reauthorization in 2023. Last November, Congress voted to extend the existing legislation to September 30, 2024. Since that point, the leadership from both parties on the Senate and House Agriculture Committees have worked to push the legislation forward.

As the farm bill has faced delays, producers across the country have experienced headwinds, ranging from extreme weather to high input costs to uncertain global demand to supply chain disruptions.

Since the beginning of the year, the harvest price of major crops traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Intercontinental Exchange have fallen by an average of 21% while total production costs remain near record levels.

Farmers and their allies say these challenges have exposed areas of the farm bill that need to be strengthened.

"Since the 2018 Farm Bill was signed into law, we have realized considerable gaps in the farm safety net due to sharply changing conditions, including the trade war with China, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, COVID-19 and related supply chain challenges, rising foreign subsidies, tariffs, non-tariff trade barriers and other harmful practices," the letter said. "These conditions seriously tested the effectiveness of the 2018 Farm Bill, and it was only by the aggressive use of supplemental assistance that many farms survived."

The letter noted that the outlook for farm country is even more daunting, as the USDA-projected market prices for the 2024 crop are well below costs of production, and current projections paint another bleak picture for 2025.

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