The government should provide emergency aid to farmers to help them weather sharply lower commodity prices, said Arkansas Sen. John Boozman, the senior Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, on Tuesday. Prompt action on emergency aid should be coupled with enactment of a new farm bill yet this year, he said.
“Our family farmers are staring down a crisis that is growing more dire by the day, and many fear that the Senate simply doesn’t care about their plight,” said Boozman. “Even with record yields, farmers are not breaking even.”
Boozman’s call for stopgap assistance to farmers created a new dimension to congressional wrangling over larger farm subsidy spending. Until this week, the argument was directed toward the new farm bill. On Monday, Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran, a Republican, said additional support to crop growers might be included in an extension of current farm law, or be tucked into a must-pass bill yet this year.
“The chairwoman is focused on finishing a five-year farm bill,” said a spokesman for Senate Agriculture chairwoman Debbie Stabenow when asked about emergency funding. Congress has seven weeks left on its calendar for legislative action this year. If Senate and House Agriculture committee leaders reach agreement soon, the farm bill could see a floor vote after the Nov. 5 elections.
Progress on the farm bill has been stymied for months by disagreements over SNAP funding, crop support levels, and climate mitigation. Republicans have proposed a 15 percent increase in so-called reference prices, making it easier to trigger crop subsidy payments, but have not said how to defray the cost. Democrats opposed GOP proposals to cut SNAP funding by $29 billion and to allow climate funding to be used for conservation practices that do not sequester carbon or reduce greenhouse gases.
Boozman did not suggest how much money should be put into emergency assistance.
“Farmers across the country need a bridge to help their family farms survive in the next year,” he said on the Senate floor. “We’ve seen previous ad hoc assistance programs established in a period of weeks, as demonstrated by then-Secretary [Sonny] Perdue when Coviid-19 created disruptions for producers.”
Net farm income, a measure of profitability was estimated by USDA at $140 billion this year, a steep step down from the record $182 billion of 2022 but still the fourth-highest on record. A University of Missouri think tank forecasts income will decline for the third year in a row in 2025, but will average nearly $140 billion from 2025-29.
The government sent $23 billion to farmers and ranchers in 2018 and 2019 to offset the impact of the Sino-U.S. trade war, and $31 billion in 2020 and 2021 for pandemic relief.