On March 5th, the House Agriculture Committee passed the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 (Farm Bill) out of committee on a bipartisan vote of 34-17 with 7 Democrats joining all Republicans in supporting the bill. The Democrats who voted in support are Rep. Jim Costa (D-CA), Rep. Sharice Davids (D-KS), Rep. Josh Riley (D-NY), Rep. Adam Gray (D-CA), Rep. Don Davis (D-NC), Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-NM), and Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-MI). While much of the farm safety net was enhanced, strengthened, and reauthorized as part of last year’s Budget Reconciliation Act, this measure includes those policies and programs that were not part of last year’s legislation. Some of the highlights include protecting and enhancing working lands conservation programs like EQIP and CSP while promoting precision agriculture. The Conservation Title emphasizes science, technology, and innovation, including within the conservation practice standards establishment and review processes. The bill increases funding for USDA trade promotion programs and raises the loan limits for USDA’s direct and guaranteed loan programs. Also included is language to ensure labeling uniformity as it relates to pesticide products producers rely on. In order to preserve regulatory certainty and maintain a science-based national standard for pesticide labeling, language in the farm bill provides this clarity, and ensures that states maintain their ability to further regulate these tools. The Farm Bill summary and title by title overviews and other details are available here: Farm Bill | House Committee On Agriculture Republicans
House Agriculture Committee Chairman, G.T. Thompson (R-PA) has indicated his plan to bring the bill to the full House of Representatives for consideration in the near future, though no date has been confirmed yet. It is expected that the Senate Agriculture Committee will begin its consideration of the Farm Bill at some point this spring.
Sign up for the USDA Farmer Bridge Assistance (FBA) program is open through April 17. The program will provide up to $11 billion in support for row crops including barley, chickpeas, corn, cotton, lentils, oats, peanuts, peas, rice, sorghum, soybeans, wheat, canola, crambe, flax, mustard, rapeseed, safflower, sesame, and sunflowers. USDA reports that enrollment has progressed very well and several billion dollars in payments have been issued in the very early stages of enrollment so far.
In addition to the USDA FBA program, discussions continue on Capitol Hill about the need for additional economic assistance for crop producers suffering through negative margins due to continued highly elevated input costs and depressed market prices and sluggish export demand. There remains the potential for a Congressional economic assistance package to be considered later this spring as part of a broader supplemental funding bill to address a number of emergency needs, including natural disasters.
