Stabenow: Farm and food coalition is key to passing farm bill

The only way to pass a farm bill this year is to assemble a farm and food coalition of rural and urban lawmakers, said Senate Agriculture chairwoman Debbie Stabenow at a farm conference on Monday. “We need to be strengthening all parts of the farm bill,” rather than trying to raid SNAP and climate funds to pay for larger crop subsidy outlays, she said.

“I believe we will get a farm bill by focusing on coalitions,” said the chairwoman. Negotiations on the farm bill, nearly six months overdue, were at an impasse over farm supports, climate funding, and SNAP. Arkansas Sen. John Boozman, the senior Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, pointed to other instances in which major legislation emerged from months of stalemate.

“All of a sudden, these things come together. I hope (the farm bill) is one of those,” said Boozman, who spoke at the Agri-Pulse conference a half an hour before Stabenow. There was “predominant agreement” between the two committee leaders on seven or eight of the 12 titles of the farm bill, said Stabenow.

In a straw poll, 81% of attendees at the conference said they did not expect a farm bill to be enacted this year. Congress has extended the life of the 2018 farm law, which expired last fall, through Sept. 30. Another extension would be needed if lawmakers do not agree on a replacement.

As vigorously as she called for a bipartisan coalition to carry the farm bill to passage, Stabenow spoke as strongly against divisive proposals that would weaken support for the bill.

“What does not work is playing the politics of food assistance and nutrition against everything else in the farm bill,” she said. “I will not have my legacy [be] cutting food assistance for Americans.” She also opposed “taking conservation money away from farmers.”

Farm groups have given priority to an increase in so-called reference prices, which would make it easier to trigger crop subsidy payments, and a stronger crop insurance program. The $20 billion given to the USDA for climate mitigation has been eyed as a source of money to pay for higher reference prices.

“We’ve got to have a reset,” said Boozman. The pandemic and high inflation in 2022 have altered market fundamentals, he said. Farm groups say high input costs have greatly weakened the value of commodity support programs.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the administration would spend $20 billion over three to five years to various initiatives to create new sources of agricultural revenue, ranging from climate-smart agriculture and eco-systems services to expanding local processing capacity and developing new bioproducts made from farm waste.

“Today, farmers get anywhere from 15 to 22¢ of the food dollar at the grocery story. When they sell locally or regionally, they get 50 to 75¢,” he said, in describing the effort to find new outlets for farm products.