Stopgap spending bill would extend Farm Bill one year

Congress took steps this week to avert a year-end cliff for key farm and food assistance programs as lawmakers have struggled to reauthorize a new farm bill this year.

The U.S. House voted Tuesday to extend the current farm bill for one year while negotiations continue on a new farm bill.

House lawmakers passed a short-term funding bill to keep the federal government operating and avert a shutdown, sending the bill to the Senate days before a Friday deadline. The Senate is expected to quickly approve the bill, which would allow President Biden to sign it into law before the deadline.

The legislation extends funding for the U.S. Department of Agriculture at current spending levels until Jan. 19 and extends all programs at levels provided in the 2018 Farm Bill through Sept. 30, 2024.

It provides funding for a handful of small-ticket programs that were orphaned at the end of fiscal year 2023, including feral swine eradication, urban agriculture and a reserve fund for overseas food aid. The outlays would be offset by rescinding $177 million in unobligated funds in the Biorefinery Assistance Program and savings in USDA internal operations, Politico reported.

Without an extension, farmers would see commodity policies revert to permanent law with controls on production and costly price supports adopted in the 1930s and 1940s.

Under the House-passed stopgap spending bill, dairy subsidies would be extended through Dec. 31, 2024, to avert the looming “dairy cliff” on Jan. 1, when the government-guaranteed price of fresh milk would more than double, potentially driving up grocery-store prices.

Iowans in Congress want new Farm Bill passed

While good news for farmers, Iowa Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley and U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, of Marion, said the extension is not a substitute for a reauthorization.

“There was no way I would have let the Farm Bill expire, and I’ve already urged Speaker Johnson to put passing a strong Farm Bill at the top of our priority list,” Hinson said in a statement to The Gazette.

She said she’ll continue working with her colleagues to strengthen voluntary conservation programs, lower input costs, provide regulatory certainty, and ensure an affordable food and fuel supply for Iowans.

“I’ll continue working to ensure the final legislation strengthens risk management tools like crop insurance, preserves and expands market access for ag products, promotes precision ag and other farmer-led conservation, and modernizes USDA conservation programs to improve resiliency against flooding and drought,” she said.

Iowa Republican U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, of Ottumwa, said in a statement to The Gazette that it is “essential that the House move forward and swiftly pass a Farm Bill that is written by and for our farmers.”

“As Iowa leads the United States in corn and ethanol production, it is vital that we advocate for provisions to grow the industry,” Miller-Meeks said. “We must also work to safeguard commodity and conservation programs, rural broadband funding, and crop insurance initiatives."

Grassley, speaking to reporters by phone Wednesday, said the House bill has a good chance to passing the Senate.

“The extension will provide certainty, but just for one year, and that’s obviously not as good as if we got a five-year program through,” he said.

Grassley added program pricing that provides financial protections to farmers from substantial drops in crop prices included in the 2018 Farm Bill do not reflect increased input costs for fertilizer, chemicals, seed and fuel.

The sprawling legislative package that’s reauthorized every five years supports several key farm and safety net programs, like crop insurance, as well as agriculture research, rural development, conservation, SNAP benefits — once called food stamps — and more.

Uncertainty lingers

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Chad Hart, an economist and crop markets specialist for Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, said passage of the House bill provides farmers with some certainty about whether key farm commodity support will continue.

But, he said, “they still face the uncertainty of whether the government is going to be able to administer those programs,” as it still leaves open the possibility for a future shutdown if lawmakers can’t come to an agreement on long-term spending measures.

“We now know when farmers plant in the spring the support programs they will have in place to support them through the year,” he said. “What we didn’t get out of last night’s vote was certainty on the long-term funding for government operations.”

Hart noted some mandatory expenditures and others marked as discretionary that fund food assistance programs could go forward, but that funding for food assistance for women and children who rely on the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children — commonly called WIC — would run out and cease operations if a shutdown runs long enough.

"There’s not been a lot of forward-thinking discussion of what changes might be made in either existing programs or new programs created in the next Farm Bill,“ Hart said.

”This buys them another year to basically have that discussion. … Income support programs will be in effect for the 2024 crop year. Before the extension, those programs stopped with 2023. But will the government be able to run the programs and cut the checks?“

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com