Lawmakers have spent a year in listening sessions and congressional hearings for the 2023 farm bill but are still weeks away from drafting the legislation, said leaders of the Senate and House Agriculture committees. They are waiting for new budget estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, expected in mid-May, and for a decision on raising the federal debt limit. SNAP spending is entangled in the House Republican debt package.
“We are going to move as quickly as we can,” Senate Agriculture chair Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, told the North American Agricultural Journalists (NAAJ). “This will take several months yet” to send a bill to the White House.
House Agriculture chair Glenn Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican, said nothing is on paper for the farm bill. “I think we’ll have to start soon. We’ll wake up and it will be May,” he told the NAAJ. Arkansas Sen. John Boozman, the senior Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, said, “If we can get our data together, it [drafting] will go quickly.”
The new CBO “score” will clarify the funding available for crop subsidies and other USDA programs. Farm bills are broad-spectrum legislation that include export subsidies, agricultural research, nutrition assistance, crop insurance, overseas food aid, land stewardship, and rural economic development. Farm groups want more money for crop supports, but there is no assurance of additional funding for them.
In the interim, the Senate Agriculture Committee scheduled two hearings in early May to gather producer and industry perspectives on the farm bill. Thompson said a handful of farm bill listening sessions were on tap for the West.
The information-gathering process for the 2023 farm bill began last April 29 for the Senate Agriculture Committee with a hearing at Michigan State University. The House Agriculture Committee has spent months on the farm bill as well, including hearings last year to review the performance of the 2018 farm law.
Large-scale farmers should be the focus of the farm program, said Rep. Austin Scott, a Georgia Republican, at a House Agriculture subcommittee hearing on Wednesday. He was immediately challenged by Rep. Shontel Brown, an Ohio Democrat.
“One thing I would like to point out is that approximately 90 percent of our nation’s food comes from 12 percent of our producers,” said Scott. “There is no question that food security is national security, and that 12 percent does considerable work in making sure we have the abundant, affordable food supply that we depend on.”
Brown pointed to “the stark lack of diversity … in terms of farm size, gender, and race” among the witnesses at the hearing — mostly middle-aged white men speaking for 10 groups representing corn, cotton, rice, canola, dry peas, soybeans, sugarcane, wheat, sorghum, and peanut growers. U.S. agriculture is an overwhelmingly white occupation. Brown said lawmakers should hear from minority and disadvantaged farmers, too. “We must acknowledge this farm bill is for everyone — no matter what you look like, what you grow, or where you grow it.”
The hearing gave the so-called commodity groups the opportunity to argue for an expanded crop insurance program and increases in reference prices. Many of the organizations have testified at least once at previous farm bill sessions.
“These improvements will come with a price tag,” said Thompson, who stopped by the hearing to welcome testimony “from voices in the countryside.”
The government has spent tens of billions of dollars in stopgap aid to farmers since the 2018 farm bill took effect. Estimates vary from $70 billion to $90 billion, depending on the aid and time frame considered. Farm groups and their friends in Congress say the outlays are proof the farm safety net needs to be expanded. Production costs are the highest ever, they say, in asking for more protection.
In their debt bill, House Republicans would broaden the group of people subject to a 90-day limit on food stamps and bar states from carrying over individual exemptions from the time limit from year to year. At present, able-bodied adults ages 18 to 49 without dependents (ABAWDs) are limited to 90 days of benefits in a three-year period unless they work at least 20 hours a week or are in a job training program. The GOP bill would extend the ABAWD time limit to age 55. The House sent the bill to the Senate on a 217-215 roll call on Wednesday.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated the provisions would reduce SNAP enrollment by 294,000 people and save $1.1 billion a year.
To watch a video of the subcommittee hearing or to read written testimony from witnesses, click here.