The traditional urban and rural coalition that carried the farm bill to passage in the past is losing its appeal, said farm policy expert Jonathan Coppess on the farmdoc daily blog, pointing to partisan polarization and “negative-sum factional polarization.” Coppess, an associate professor at the University of Illinois, said with agreement on a new farm bill difficult to achieve, “extension [of the current law] becomes increasingly convenient, more politically palatable, it will become the default.”
Leaders of the Senate and House Agriculture committees said last week that they hoped to break an months-long impasse over the new farm bill. “I believe we have a small window of opportunity to broker a deal,” said Georgia Rep. David Scott, the senior Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, in a letter to committee Democrats. If the committee leaders make progress this month, “the hope would then be for the package to be included in must-pass legislation” after the Nov. 5 election.
Some farmers say a new farm bill running two years with an updated safety net would be preferable to a second extension of the 2018 farm law that expired last Sept. 30, said Scott.
“If further proof is needed that farm bill reauthorization is not going to happen in the 118th Congress, the impasse over funding the government proves it,” wrote Coppess. Just as disagreements over government funding persist for months, lawmakers cannot find accord on elements of the farm bill. And the knowledge that is would be relatively easy to extend current law removes the impetus for agreement on a farm bill, he said. The threat of reverting to unaffordably high commodity supports, if the farm bill is allowed to expire, no longer compels action.