Has the farm bill hit a dead end?
What was once a bipartisan slam dunk has now become a hyper-politicized game of chicken, with hunger, nutrition, and conservation programs on the line.
Last Tuesday, Senator Mitch McConnell returned to Congress after a three-month absence and cast the deciding vote in the Republican-led agricultural committee. Despite Democrats blocking the Senate's version of the farm bill in August, McConnell's vote did little to advance the bill's progression to a full vote. With Republicans holding a majority of 53 seats, they need 60 votes to pass a bill, meaning they would need to sway several Democrats to their side in a short amount of time.
Midterms are in November, and Democrats mainly oppose the current draft because it doesn't reverse cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and includes a crucial change to SNAP that would increase states' administrative costs. Without these changes, it remains unclear if Senate Democrats would support the package in a floor vote.
The cuts to SNAP have significant impacts for low-income families and the farmers whose customer base includes SNAP benefit users. Additionally, the Senate farm bill doesn't delay a change to the cost-sharing structure of SNAP, which could force states to rethink their budgets, impacting departments of agriculture at the state level.
While there is a bright spot in the latest Senate farm bill, which excludes the Save Our Bacon Act, certain agricultural groups are still unhappy with cuts to conservation programs and other provisions. Many federal agricultural programs may continue to be funded by stopgap measures until 2027, as no deal on the current versions of the farm bill is better than a very bad deal.
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