August 2024 Policy Update

By Lily Hawkins, Policy Director

Farm Bill Progress Stalls

This spring we at last saw encouraging progress towards a new Farm Bill with either proposals or full bill text released in both the House and Senate Ag committees. However, as we enter August progress has slowed, even as the September 30 deadline approaches. The House Agriculture Farm Bill must still pass on the House Floor—this was always going to be difficult due to the inclusion of several policies Democrats view as red-lines. Recently the Congressional Budget Office stated that the House Agriculture Committee’s Farm Bill would raise the federal budget deficit by $33 billion over the next decade, making a way forward even more challenging.

Meanwhile in the Senate, the Republican response to the Majority Senate Farm Bill Framework closely resembled the House Bill, and the Senate Agriculture Committee will need to work to pass a consolidated Senate version. Once both chambers have passed their own version of the bill, leaders from the House and Senate will work to combine the two bills into one bill, which can then be voted on by the full Congress.

It is increasingly unlikely that this process will be completed before the deadline at the end of September. It’s possible that a bill could be passed this fall, but the closer we creep to the 2024 election process the greater the likelihood that the Farm Bill will be extended again until 2025.  There are lots of unknowns, and the future path of the bill rides on election outcomes and how a possible extension might be drafted.

Meanwhile, new marker bills continue to be introduced with the hope that the policies in them will be included in the final Farm Bill. You can read more about them in our Farm Bill Marker Bill Tracker.

Appropriations Progress at a Stand-Still

OFA has been tracking work on annual government spending bills in Washington. In June, the House Appropriations Agriculture-FDA Subcommittee approved a draft version of its fiscal 2025 Agriculture-FDA spending bill on a party-line vote. The bill would provide $25.9 billion in funding across USDA and FDA, with approximately $22 billion going to USDA, representing a more than 1% cut from current funding levels. The Senate Appropriations Committee has also passed a bill, however House lawmakers left early for their August Recess without bringing the bill to the floor for a vote as originally planned.

This leaves only three weeks in September for legislators to push through final spending bills before the start of the 2025 fiscal year on October 1, making it very likely that the legislation will have to be extended until after the election and dealt with by the next Congress. 

Opportunity to Submit Content Request for the 2027 Census of Agriculture

The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is currently accepting stakeholder feedback in the form of content requests for the 2027 Census of Agriculture. The deadline for comments is August 19, 2024. For more information and to comment visit the Federal Register here.

OFA will be drafting comments in the coming weeks. If you have a new question that you would like to see added to the 2027 Census of Agriculture, contact OFA Policy Director Lily Hawkins at lily@organicfarmersassociation.org.