2023 farm bill

A decade after the House briefly put the idea into play, a senior Republican on the House Agriculture Committee said the far-ranging farm bill should be divided into two separate pieces of legislation: SNAP and everything else. SNAP, which cost $119 billion last year, has become “an emotional, political issue” that taints consideration of farm supports, said Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia.

The 2023 farm bill is headed for defeat if Republican leaders meddle with SNAP, said Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee on Monday, pointing to floor votes that delayed enactment of the 2014 and 2018 bill. It was the second warning by the committee’s Democrats against additional cuts in food stamps following revisions in the debt limit deal in June.

Growers in the U.S. South could lose $1.4 billion in farm subsidies over the next decade if Congress decides to align payments more closely with the crops they produce, said an analysis by Republicans on the Senate Agriculture Committee. “A mandatory base acre update would create winners and losers ... and most certainly complicate efforts to pass a new farm bill,” said the analysis.

For the first time in polling by Purdue University, a plurality of farmers say Congress is unlikely to pass a farm bill in 2023. Lawmakers are all but certain to fail to enact a successor to the 2018 farm bill before it expires on Sept. 30 and plan to be in session for as few as nine of the remaining 22 weeks of this year.

The “very difficult” politics of SNAP are among the greatest obstacles to passing the new farm bill, said Senate Agriculture Committee chair Debbie Stabenow on Wednesday. The Michigan Democrat is a stalwart defender of public nutrition programs in a year when House Republicans want to apply a 90-day limit on food stamps to a greater number of recipients.

Large-scale farmers and ranchers are slightly more optimistic than they were last month that Congress will pass a farm bill this year, but they doubt it will be a vehicle for overturning California’s Proposition 12 animal welfare law, said the Ag Economy Barometer on Wednesday. The pork industry is seeking a legislative override of Prop 12 after losing a Supreme Court challenge to the voter-approved law in May.

SNAP “is in dire need of reform,” and the solution is to turn the program into a block grant that requires states to share the cost of benefits, said a group speaking for conservative House Republicans. The Republican Study Committee budget package also said lawmakers should follow former President Donald Trump’s lead to slash farm supports.

Senate Republicans will do their part to smooth the way, but time is already running out for Congress to write the new farm bill, said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday. The 2018 farm law expires in four months, and leaders of the Senate and House Agriculture committees have yet to unveil a first-round text for the farm bill, an unusually late start for a time-consuming process.

House Democrats announced their opposition to further cuts in SNAP on Wednesday amid signs the farm bill will be the next battlefront over work requirements for safety net programs. “We stand united against efforts to take food away from children, families, or any vulnerable American — in the farm bill or any legislation,” said Rep. David Scott, the senior Democrat on the Agriculture Committee.

The Senate and House Agriculture committees are weeks or even months away from drafting the 2023 farm bill, a remarkably late start for what is always a detailed and time-consuming process.

An exultant House Speaker Kevin McCarthy twice suggested House Republicans would seek more stringent work requirements for the government’s safety net programs now that the House overwhelmingly approved a debt ceiling bill that also limits federal spending. “Think about how much further we can go,” McCarthy told reporters.

Congress "must remove the climate restrictions" on $20 billion in funding that had been given to the USDA to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase climate resiliency, said two senior Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee on Tuesday. Chairman Glenn Thompson and Indiana Rep. Jim Baird said the money should be available for all land stewardship practices.

House Republicans proposed broader application of a 90-day limit on food stamps for able-bodied adults as part of the annual USDA-FDA funding bill on Wednesday. The proposal mirrors the GOP position in debt ceiling negotiations with President Biden.

The two largest U.S. farm groups stuck to requests for expensive changes in the farm safety net — higher crop subsidy rates and broader access to subsidized insurance — in the face of a warning on Tuesday that the money might not be available. Senate Agriculture Committee chair Debbie Stabenow pointed to proposals that would tie an increase in the federal debt limit to steep cuts in spending.