The Senate Agriculture Committee will take up its version of the farm bill Thursday, with provisions meant to help farmers with financial aid, crop sales overseas and year-round sales of ethanol-blend gasoline.
But the outcome is unclear, particularly without a clear bipartisan deal on parts of the measure dealing with when some states must start sharing costs under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The current short-term extension of the farm bill expires at the end of September. Chair John Boozman (R-Arkansas), after weeks of negotiations, released a compromise bill text and emphasized the need to act ahead of the August recess.
“We need to act this week, or we run out of time,” Boozman said.
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Farm bankruptcies are at record highs largely due to several consecutive years of high input prices and extreme weather. The Senate bill attempts to help farmers on both fronts, by giving farmers more flexibility to use emergency government land and cost-sharing programs during droughts and floods.
The bill also changes how conservation payments are calculated so farmers with drought- or flood-prone land receive more support. And it raises the size of loans farmers can access, puts more money into helping U.S. crops sell overseas and expands support for newer farming technology that helps producers use less fertilizer and fuel per acre.
The most contentious piece remains how to handle SNAP payment error rates. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who farms corn and soybeans with his family and has been in the Senate since 1980, said this has been the most difficult farm bill to get bipartisan support for in his career.
“I think every other farm bill that I’ve worked on in the 46 years I’ve been in the United States Senate has been a bipartisan bill,” Grassley told reporters. “It seems like this year, it’s very difficult to get Democratic support, mostly over a food stamp issue.”
Democrats have asked for a two-year delay in the cost shift to states with SNAP payment error rates above 6%, which is scheduled to start next year. Republicans have preferred to leave the changes made to SNAP in a 2025 reconciliation law.
Boozman’s bill met Democrats halfway, with a one-year delay. In exchange, states with higher error rates would pay a bigger share of the cost than in the original reforms passed in the reconciliation law.
Boozman has acknowledged that many states simply need more time. Only nine states and the Virgin Islands have error rates belowthe 6% threshold, according to data gathered by the USDA.
Democrats aren’t sold. Ranking member Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) hasn’t made her thoughts on the updated text public. Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) is encouraging Democrats to hold out for a better deal.
“Democrats should remain united and only support a Farm Bill that includes a clean two-year delay of the SNAP cost shift to states,” Booker said in a statement.
One compromise included is the bill is language authorizing permanent, nationwide year-round sales of E15, the 15%-ethanol blend corn growers have chased for years.
But the provision has garnered the ire of oil producers and their representatives. A provision to approve year-round E15 in the House version of the farm bill nearly derailed the bill’s progress on the House floor, but ended up passing in a separate vote in May.
Complicating all of it is the absence of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky). Republicans and Democrats effectively enter Thursday’s markup with even numbers, raising the odds that Boozman will need Democratic votes just to move the bill out of committee.
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