As we’ve discussed in this column before, Congress has not adopted a comprehensive five-year Farm Bill since 2018. In states like Mississippi, there are few pieces of legislation that are more impactful, given this state’s $9.51 billion total agricultural production value and the jobs those activities support.
Historically, farm bills were mostly bipartisan efforts aimed at the
myriad issues touched by the legislative beast known as the Farm Bill.
But as enunciated in a Jan.7, 2025 scholarly article in the
conversation.com by Arizona State University researchers
Christopher Neubert and Kathleen Merrigan entitled “Why 2026 could see
the end of the Farm Bill era of American agriculture policy,” it’s clear
that traditional Farm Bills may be a political thing of the past.
On that same Jan. 7 date, Republican U.S. Senate challenger Sarah
Adlakha – the Gulf Coast osteopath – lambasted incumbent GOP U.S. Sen.
Cindy Hyde-Smith over the lack of a Farm Bill, given her status as a
Republican member of both the Senate Agriculture and
Senate Appropriations committees.
The Adlakha attack makes a good sound bite, but one that roundly ignores
how the GOP congressional majority in both houses and the Trump White
House invoked Republican policies on several key Farm Bill points of
disagreement in the so-called “One Bill Beautiful
Bill Act” (OBBBA) budget reconciliation legislation – and why.
First, it’s important to note that passing a full five-year Farm Bill –
because of its size and complexity — generally requires a 60-vote
supermajority in the U.S. Senate, whereas only a simple 51-vote majority
can suffice in the budget reconciliation process
like the OBBBA. The House requires a simple 218-vote majority for
passage, but the GOP's partisan margin is incredibly close. It was 218
to 214 for the OBBBA vote.
Second, is passing a traditional Farm Bill still politically possible?
Neubert and Merrigan, two scholars with prior experience in Congress and
at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, are skeptical, writing: “Farm
bills are massive pieces of legislation that
address a diverse constellation of topics, including agricultural
commodities, conservation, trade, nutrition, rural development, energy,
forestry and more.
“Because of their complexity, farm bills are difficult to negotiate in
any political environment. And as the topics have expanded since the
first iteration in 1933, Congress has agreed to take the whole thing up
once every five years or so.
“However, the most recent farm bill’s provisions expired in 2023. They
have been renewed (on a one-year basis) ever since, but without the
comprehensive overhaul that used to accompany farm bills. As former
federal employees who handled agriculture policy and
now study that topic, it’s unclear to us whether a comprehensive,
five-year farm bill can be passed in 2026, or ever again,” they wrote.
So while raising that very real issue that times are tough for American
farmers in a Mississippi Republican U.S. Senate primary might grab a
headline, the fact for Republican voters is that the OBBBA increases
agricultural spending by some $66 billion, preserves/extends
several key tax provisions vital to farmers and farm lenders, and made
30 million acres eligible for Price Loss Coverage and Agricultural Risk
Coverage programs and allows payouts from those programs to increase in
2026.
For those not familiar with those programs, OBBBA changes increase
commodity price supports. Crop insurance received a $6.3 billion funding
boost in the bill, but OBBBA also cut nutrition. programs by $186
billion through 2034 and expanded work requirements
for receiving SNAP benefits or food stamps.
After Trump signed OBBBA into law on July 4 last year, the American Farm
Bureau Federation said: “The resulting sweeping legislative package
preserves Farm Bureau-supported provisions, strengthens the farm safety
net and offers longer-term certainty for farmers
and ranchers navigating rising input costs, volatile markets and
weather uncertainty.
“(OBBBA) delivers long-overdue policy certainty by strengthening core
safety net programs, enhancing risk management tools and locking in
important tax provisions for family farms. It reflects many of Farm
Bureau’s top priorities and offers measurable wins
for producers navigating an increasingly complex farm economy. At the
same time, OBBBA is not a complete substitute for a full farm bill
reauthorization,” Farm Bureau said.
Sen. Hyde-Smith will face tough attacks in a primary battle, but this
one seems particularly contrived when compared to the facts of this
legislation.
Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at sidsalter@sidsalter.com.
6 comments:
It’s not a “farm bill.”
It’s a Food Stamps bill.
One of Mississippi's largest agricultural products, if not the largest, is timber. To my knowledge there is absolutely nothing in this farm bill for timber farmers. The promotion of the timber industry in Mississippi could be one of the greatest economic booms of our generation. The problem is not enough production capacity but yet no elected officials seem to be interested. Some argue that we have over supply but the real issue is a lack of timber mills.
As a 32 year Forester, Mississippi has an abundance of timber, all products are in abundance. It seems Mississippi does very little to attract big users of our forest products.
The paper/container market for pulpwood products has gone away, I fear to never return. If our state is to continue to prosper and have timber as one of our growing industries, we need markets to come to the state, to be developed by the people that use the pulpwood sized products, chips, pellets, bio-char, and others. 15 years ago I was told MS had a backlog of 6-8 years of pine sawtimber supply, now I am being told it is 15-18 years supply, that if a major player came to central MS, it would be 15 years before they had to pay more than they are paying now because of this oversupply. More needs to be done to boost our timber industry within our state. Foresters are tired of seeing other states getting new industry while we have timber that needs to be cut and it is left standing.
Mississippi is tiny. Never going to compete with Canadian lumber.
@ 9:15 - Should the market determine the number of timber mills or should the government gin up committees to tend to and push that initiative?
If there is acreage to be harvested and trucks to haul cut timber and there's a profit to be made by all, wouldn't a timber mill be built?
As a 32 year Forester, Mississippi has an abundance of timber, all products are in abundance. It seems Mississippi does very little to attract big users of our forest products.
The paper/container market for pulpwood products has gone away, I fear to never return. If our state is to continue to prosper and have timber as one of our growing industries, we need markets to come to the state, to be developed by the people that use the pulpwood sized products, chips, pellets, bio-char, and others. 15 years ago I was told MS had a backlog of 6-8 years of pine sawtimber supply, now I am being told it is 15-18 years supply, that if a major player came to central MS, it would be 15 years before they had to pay more than they are paying now because of this oversupply. More needs to be done to boost our timber industry within our state. Foresters are tired of seeing other states getting new industry while we have timber that needs to be cut and it is left standing.
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