The House Committee on Agriculture Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-Pennsylvania) and U.S. Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan) each released overviews of their plans and priorities for the 2024 Farm Bill on May 1.
Stabenow unveiled the Rural Prosperity and Food Security Act, which contains more than 100 bipartisan bills.
“This is a serious proposal that reflects bipartisan priorities to keep farmers farming, families fed and rural communities strong,” Stabenow said in a statement. “The foundation of every successful farm bill is built on holding together the broad, bipartisan coalition of farmers, rural communities, nutrition and hunger advocates, researchers, conservationists and the climate community. This is that bill, and I welcome my Republican colleagues to take it seriously and rejoin us at the negotiating table so we can finish our work by the end of the year. Farmers, families and rural communities cannot wait any longer on the 2024 Farm Bill.”
The Rural Prosperity and Food Security Act would support beginning farmers and ranchers and strengthen the farm safety net through programs like Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) while improving rural communities and investing in nutrition assistance.
Here are some highlights from the released summary:
- Improves crop insurance by making the most common, area-based, crop insurance more affordable while preserving access to commodity price support programs
- Improves whole farm and microfarm insurance policies
- Provides certainty to farmers by making payments under the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) program and the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) more likely to trigger and improves emergency disaster assistance
- Under the bill, all major covered commodities will see at least a 5% increase in reference prices during the 2024 Farm Bill, with many seeing 10%-15% increases
- Supports beginning farmers by providing premium discounts on crop insurance and new opportunities to access commodity programs, improving access to credit, supporting education and training for the next generation of agriculture professionals, and creating a new program to support agriculture programs at community colleges around the country
- Supports trade programs that build on a $1.2 billion investment outside the bill secured by Chairwoman Stabenow and Ranking Member Sen. John Boozman (R-Arkansas) that will effectively double USDA funding to develop new markets for American agriculture over the next five years
- Supports small farms by creating an Office of Small Farms to advance small farm policy and sets aside dedicated funding for popular, voluntary conservation practices
- Protects producers, consumers and the economy from devastating animal disease by increasing funding for early detection, rapid response and recovery from animal disease outbreaks, including highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI)
- Builds on the successful DMC safety net to help dairy farmers protect against milk price drops or high feed costs
- Promotes competition for American livestock producers by expanding options for processing and ensuring fair competition practices in the marketplace
- Supports growth in the organic agriculture industry, protects the integrity of the organic seal, and expands technical assistance and market opportunities for existing organic farmers and those just getting into the business
- Strengthens the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network to support farmer mental health and manage stress as they navigate one of the riskiest businesses in the world
Thompson says the Committee on Agriculture is set to mark up its bill on May 23, and he “hopes for unanimous support in this endeavor to bring stability to producers, protect our nation’s food supply and revitalize rural America."
"This bill is a product of an extensive and transparent process, which included soliciting feedback from members of both political parties, stakeholder input from across the nation and some tough conversations,” Thompson said in a statement. “Each title of this farm bill reflects a commitment to the American farmer and viable pathways to funding those commitments and is equally responsive to the politics of the 118th Congress."
He shared a title-by-title overview of the bipartisan policies and priorities included in the 2024 Farm Bill.
Highlights include:
- Risk management assistance through the reauthorization and enhancement of commodity, marketing loan, sugar, dairy and disaster programs
- Enhances standing disaster programs and expands eligibility for assistance
- Continues to support voluntary, incentive-based and locally led conservation
- Provides farmers, ranchers and growers with financial and technical assistance to address a variety of natural resource concerns such as soil health and erosion, water quality and quantity, and wildlife habitat
- Protects and enhances working lands conservation programs like the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) while promoting precision agriculture
- Modernizes the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) by incentivizing enrollment of marginal lands and emphasizing state partnerships
- Addresses trade barriers and infrastructure deficiencies
- Supports access to families formerly disallowed to receive benefits, refocuses work programs to support upward mobility, invests in and modernizes food distribution programs to create parity with urban programming, promotes program integrity and state accountability, and advances policies related to healthy eating, healthy behaviors and healthy outcomes
- Provides additional financial resources across multiple programs that have successfully benefited tribal communities, seniors and households pursuing healthier food options
- Enhances financing options for producers who are unable to obtain credit from a commercial lender
- Provides resources to new, young, beginning and veteran farmers in their transition to farming and ranching
- Strengthens broadband connectivity to rural communities
- Protects access to health care in rural America
- Enhances efforts to meet the childcare demands of rural areas
- Increases access to energy system and efficiency updates for farmers, ranchers and rural small businesses while encouraging growth and innovation for biofuels, bioproducts and related feedstocks
National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) President and CEO Gregg Doud said dairy farmers are “heartened” by this progress.
“Dairy farmers and the cooperatives they own are better served by the certainty provided under a five-year farm bill, and as both chairs point the way toward important dairy priorities across multiple farm bill titles, all of dairy is eager to see this process get moving,” Doud said in a statement. “We look forward to the House Agriculture Committee’s markup of its bill on May 23. We’re ready, and excited, to work with both chairs and their ranking members to complete work on a farm bill this year.”
The agriculture committees in both chambers will now separately debate their respective proposals and markup compromise bills, which, upon approval, will be passed to a joint conference committee to develop a single bill for Congress to consider.
