From left: Aaron Lehman, Iowa Farmers Union President, and IFU members Joshua Manske, John R. Whitaker and Zachary Couture, pose for a photograph outside of the United States Capitol during the annual National Farmers Union fly-in to Washington, D.C., September 11, 2024. (Nina Elkadi, Barn Raiser)
As a September 30 deadline looms to pass a new farm bill, farm groups and agriculture leaders of all stripes are stepping up calls for Congress to act, warning that too long of a wait for a new bill, or an extension, could create problems for farmers and eaters across the country.
Last week, nearly 300 representatives from 27 state chapters of the National Farmers Union (NFU) met with legislators on Capitol Hill during their annual legislative “fly-in.” On September 9, the NFU joined more than 300 state and national agriculture, commodity and banking groups that signed a letter urging congressional leaders to pass a farm bill before the end of the year, citing worsening economic conditions, natural disasters and international supply chain challenges as reasons for passing new farm policy.
From left: Aaron Lehman, Iowa Farmers Union President, and IFU members Joshua Manske, John R. Whitaker and Zachary Couture, pose for a photograph outside of the United States Capitol during the annual National Farmers Union fly-in to Washington, D.C., September 11, 2024. (Nina Elkadi, Barn Raiser)
“[S]ettling for a simple extension of current law,” they wrote, “would leave thousands of family farms with no options to continue producing for this nation in 2025 and beyond.” The last farm bill was signed into law in December 2018 and expired in September 2023, when it was extended for another year.
“The 2018 Farm Bill was a good farm bill, but we’re in 2024, and things are different,” Iowa Farmers Union member Joshua Manske told Barn Raiser in between meetings on Capitol Hill. “Equipment manufacturers like Kinzie and John Deere are cutting jobs, which is the canary in the coal mine.”
In June, John Deere announced it was laying off around 600 people in plants in Illinois and Iowa and moving manufacturing of some equipment to Mexico, and in August Kinzie Manufacturing announced it was laying off just under 200 people.
“[These layoffs have] a ripple effect throughout the entire economy, not only in Iowa, but in rural communities,” Manske said. “That person that’s working in that plant, they’re not farming, but they’re certainly affected by the farmer’s pocket.”
The push to lobby lawmakers comes on the heels of more signs that the farm economy remains under significant pressure. On September 5, the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecast a 6.8% decline in farm income for 2024, down nearly 20% since record highs in 2022, the third-largest two-year decline in history when adjusted for inflation.
Brooklyn, Iowa, farmer John Clayton worries that the current House Republican farm bill proposal could jeopardize the use of Inflation Reduction Act funds for conservation. In 2024, over $1.65 billion in IRA funding went to the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), and $1.4 billion went to other agricultural conservation programs.
“IFU is urging lawmakers to include the conservation and climate mitigation funds from the IRA into the farm bill and to keep the funds dedicated to conservation and climate mitigation,” said Iowa Farmers Union President Aaron Lehman. “We are concerned by proposals to divert the funds for other purposes in the farm bill. These programs have been underfunded for years and farmers have been trying to apply for them but funding has run out. We are concerned by proposals to divert IRA funds for other purposes in the farm bill.”
The Union is advocating for a farm bill that allocates IRA funds to boost payments for farmers participating in the Conservation Reserve Program and the Conservation Stewardship Program, with the goal of encouraging more farmers to dedicate additional acres to conservation efforts.
“The IRA money is funding climate-smart practices. Cover crops, rotational grazing, no-till systems,” said John R. Whitaker, former Iowa Farmers Union president. These “climate-smart” practices are one of the pillars the Union is encouraging the USDA to fight for.
“The first pass analysis of the farm bill proposals are largely what we expected,” Clayton said. “The Senate version is oriented toward protecting some wins from the Inflation Reduction Act, and defending some key Democratic party priorities like SNAP, but appears to be missing both the breadth and depth of reforms our movements have been calling for. On the House side, we have concerns that some Titles in the proposal are significant steps in the wrong direction from our priorities.”
National Farmers Union President Rob Larew addresses Biden administration officials, lawmakers and NFU members at the 2024 Fall Legislative Fly-In. (National Farmers Union)
The farm bill provides farmers with protections if crop prices fall. This year, prices for corn, soybeans, wheat and rice are all down. The farm bill also allocates funding for crop insurance and other safety net programs. While the proposed bill passed the House Agricultural Committee with unanimous Republican support, it included a $27 billion cut to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs (SNAP) funding over a ten-year period, crossing a red line for Democrats. In May, weeks before House Republicans released their draft farm bill, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack warned against doing this, saying “it’s not the right policy,” and that it broke Chair Glenn Thompson’s promise in April not to cut SNAP.
“It’s going to be a heavy lift from Congress to put aside some partisan bickering during an election in order to set us up to get something really important done between now and January,” Lehman said.
The farm bill logjam sets the stage for another looming government shutdown. Congress has less than two weeks to approve how they will fund the government before the end of the fiscal year on September 30. That includes figuring out if they will again extend the 2018 Farm Bill, although farm bill negotiators generally agree the final deadline for such an extension is at the end of the year when key commodity programs would expire.
When it’s time to harvest, it’s time to harvest. When it’s time to plant, it’s time to plant, right? There’s no ‘I will do that tomorrow.’
Manske said he was hopeful that a farm bill could pass this year until he and IFU representatives talked to Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. “She said, ‘It’s going be a tough one.’ So that dimmed the hopes a little bit. But hope does spring eternal.”
Farmers also heard from U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.
“One thing that I found remarkable after our meeting with Secretary Vilsack was his message that ‘more of the same’ is not going to work,” Lehman said, “I thought that was pretty remarkable because it’s not a message that we’ve always received from the secretaries of agriculture.”
They also heard from Federal Trade Commission Chairperson Lina Khan, who also met with Iowa Farmers Union members back in April to hear their concerns about the acquisition of a fertilizer plant by Koch Industries. That deal has since gone through. Still, farmers see her as a strong anti-trust ally.
“Khan has a passion for protecting fair and transparent markets needed for the farm economy to work for family farmers,” Lehman said. “Her background in addressing agriculture market issues gives our farmers hope that she has the experience needed to tackle monopolies in agriculture.”
If the farm bill does not pass this year, Lehman called it a “lost opportunity” for improving the safety net and getting more investments on the farm for conservation.
“We’re farmers, we’re going to keep working. We’re going to keep planting the crop. We’re going to keep cultivating those seeds,” he said. “As farmers, we also know that sometimes the crop is ready to harvest and you have to take advantage of that opportunity. If we don’t do it, I think it’s a lost opportunity.”
In a cab on the way from their final meeting on Capitol Hill to a tour of the White House, Manske nodded in agreement, adding, “When it’s time to harvest, it’s time to harvest. When it’s time to plant, it’s time to plant, right? There’s no ‘I will do that tomorrow.’ ”
Nina Elkadi is a writer from Iowa who reports on the intersection of climate change and agriculture. Her work also explores the manipulation of science and how corporate negligence affects consumers and workers.
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