Noah Wicks

For the third Congress in a row, House members have offered a bill addressing agriculture’s labor shortage, reintroducing the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which allows year-round ag labor for H-2A workers and creates a merit-based visa program for the ag sector.

The House and Senate Agriculture Committees are still several months away from voting on a new farm bill, but the major issues in each of the 12 titles are coming into focus even as lawmakers continue offering new proposals they’d like to see included. Here is a summary of the issues in play as well as notable proposals lawmakers would like to see included in the bill.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is warning that funding for a new farm bill is likely to be tight in the wake of last month’s debt ceiling agreement.

Republicans are looking to force a House vote on a Bureau of Land Management plan to allow the issuance of conservation leases on land the agency controls.

The Biden administration has released a historic amount of funding to fill gaps in broadband service across the country.

USDA economists continue to trim their forecast for supermarket prices this year.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers are introducing legislation today to ensure the government keeps using U.S. commodities to provide food aid around the world. About half the funds for the Food for Peace program are currently used to purchase and deliver U.S. farm goods.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, are proposing a bill requiring the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. to review foreign entities’ land purchases or leases exceeding $4 million or 320 acres of land over the past three years and adding the Agriculture Secretary as a member of the panel.