There is little reason for optimism that Congress will pass the new farm bill this year, wrote farm policy expert Jonathan Coppess on Thursday as part of an analysis showing that farm program payments favor Southern growers. “The chances of farm bill reauthorization in 2024 grow more dim with each passing day, and analysis begins to take on the tenor of postmortem.”
Writing at the farmdoc daily blog, Coppess compared basic input costs for crops in each state with payments for farm programs, including conservation programs. Proportionally, Southern states benefited the most. “There is little doubt that these disparities are fueling at least some of the demands that are causing the impasse” in the farm bill debate, said Coppess, an associate professor at the University of Illinois.
Farm groups have given priority in the farm bill to higher reference prices, which would make it easier to trigger crop subsidies, and a stronger crop insurance program. Leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture committees have been stymied for months on how to pay for higher reference prices. Democrats say they will not allow cuts in climate funding or SNAP.
In the view of former Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts, there’s an 80 percent chance that Congress will not agree on the farm bill this year because of the ideological agenda of House conservatives, reported the Kansas Reflector. Roberts, the only person to chair both the Senate and House Agriculture committees, made the comments at a news conference a week ago.