Farm Bill

Farmer financial aid, a voluntary ethanol boost and an overdue farm bill are again in focus as Congress races against a legislative clock with a raft of competing concerns. Republican and Democratic lawmakers are pushing to get more aid for farmers to help sustain them until October, when updated safety-net programs passed by Congress last year take effect.

Republicans aim to fast-track a sweeping spending package that includes key agriculture investments. 

Former U.S. Agriculture Secretary and Senator Mike Johanns discusses the future of American agriculture and farm bills. 

R-CALF USA sent a letter urging the Senate Agriculture Committee to include mandatory country-of-origin labeling for beef in its farm bill discussions.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman, R-Ark., said on Tuesday that the committee will markup the 2026 five-year farm bill next week at the earliest, ideally provided hospitalized Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., returns to the Senate.

Senate Ag Committee Chair John Boozman, who has consistently said he doesn’t want to touch the state SNAP cost sharing requirements enacted in last year's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, tells Agri-Pulse Newsmakers he’s open to providing some relief to states working to comply.

 The Senate’s draft farm bill doesn’t include language for year-round E15 or the elimination of California’s Proposition 12, but Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman is still highly optimistic both measures will make it through Congress this year. The two biggest U.S. ethanol trade groups are defending the Trump administration against legal challenges to EPA biofuel-blending rules from environmentalists, biogas groups and oil refiners.

Only nine states had payment error rates in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program below 6% in fiscal 2025, USDA has announced, which would allow them to avoid paying a portion of SNAP benefits starting in October 2027. Another six, as well as the District of Columbia, were above a higher threshold that gives them a two-year delay.

Discussion on the potential for Senate passage of an E15 bill swirled on Capitol Hill Tuesday after the release of a draft farm bill that doesn’t include the pro-ethanol measure. A bill to expedite Emergency Conservation Program payments to producers whose land has been damaged by wildfires cleared the House Tuesday with a 386-19 vote. It now heads to the president’s desk for his signature.

Partisan fighting over nutrition aid policy is threatening to derail efforts to pass a Senate farm bill.