A frustrating talking point for farmers and producers has, and continues to be, the lack of a new federal Farm Bill. Despite little movement, the ag community continues to ask for a new, five-year Farm Bill. However, producers aren’t hearing much optimism around the prospect.
Farmers have been asking Congress for a new Farm Bill for years. The 2018 Farm Bill expired in October 2023 and has been extended twice.
Lance Perrion is a third-generation farmer from Ipswich. He said what worked in 2018, doesn’t today.
“You know a lot of the programs have changed, our environment’s changed, our government regulations have changed,” Perrion said. “So, it’s just way outdated for the environment we’re in.”
Perrion added that it’s no secret costs are high right now.
“It’s not so much anymore that we’re in a free market. You know, we just heard the news and, ‘Oh it’s tariffs or it’s this or that,’ and these companies just keep raising prices. And we’ve got plenty of supply on these products, but the price doesn’t come down because they’re saying it’s tariffs or it’s this or that," Perrion said. "That’s irrelevant to what we’re actually dealing with. So that’s some of the things that we need, you know, correlations of our prices to reflect what’s actually happening.”
He said he’d also like to see programs for young farmers continued and updated.
Some of the legislation typically found in the Farm Bill was passed in July under Congress’s reconciliation bill, more commonly known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” That was primarily safety net provisions, like row crop insurance.
Robert Lee is a farmer in Kingsbury County. He said the reconciliation package didn’t accomplish everything, so there’s still work to be done.
“Some of the other stuff, the SNAP, local, regional food procurement type stuff, that was left out of that because it just didn’t meet the standard to do it under reconciliation,” Lee said.
He attended a “fly-in” to Washington DC to advocate for a new Farm Bill. There, he spoke to USDA officials.
“And I don’t that you’re ever going to get anybody to just outright acknowledge, ‘Nah, we ain’t going to get nothing done.’ I think there’s always that optimism, but just to be frank, you know from my perspective as a producer, my optimism wanes every year that goes by,” Lee said. “I’ve been out here, I think this is my fifth fly-in that I’ve done, and every year it’s kind of the same conversation.”
The current extension of the Farm Bill expires at the end of this month.
