2025 will be a fresh start in the push for a new modernized and updated five-year farm bill. Ag groups and ag state lawmakers will be hopeful that farm bill work gets completed early in the year, but will that come to fruition?
Two farm bill extensions were too many. But how quickly can agriculture recover from the legislative setback, given a new Congress must be seated and cabinet nominees confirmed?
That is American Farm Bureau’s Director of Government Affairs Joe Gilson. Congress passed its last-minute stopgap funding bill, extending the outdated 2018 farm bill through the end of September, taking pressure off lawmakers to rush with new farm law in 2025. Gilson acknowledges the challenges ahead.
The pressure farmers exerted to win $10 billion in farm aid could be on display again for a farm bill. Gilson says incoming Senate Ag Chair John Boozman could short-circuit the legislative process, given earlier farm bill hearings
Gilson says Boozman and House Chair Glenn Thompson could still hold a hearing. Either way, he says the Farm Bureau wants to “hit the ground running” and avoid repeating Senate Ag’s out-of-time proposal in 2024.
