WASHINGTON — Republicans on the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee on Tuesday released their framework for a novel five-year farm bill that will set policy and funding for key food, agriculture and conservation programs.
The committee’s ranking Republican, Senator John Boozman of Arkansas, said: GOP Priorities with reporters during a briefing Tuesday morning ahead of the framework’s release.
These priorities include increasing reference prices for all covered commodities, increasing spending on nature conservation programs by cutting funding from climate legislation passed in 2022; “cost-neutral” updates the formula used to calculate benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); higher crop insurance premiums; and reporting requirements for the purchase and ownership of farmland by foreigners.
“Hopefully we can take all of this together and build on it so that we can actually pass a farm bill,” Boozman said.
The Republican measure also doubles funding to land-grant universities for research on topics such as fertilizer employ, pesticides and labor, Boozman said.
Boozman said the investment in research would lend a hand “bring agriculture into this century.”
Boozman said the framework will also strengthen crop insurance by increasing support for Supplementary insurance option to 80% and the coverage rate to 90% for more than 55 specialty and row crops.
He added that the Senate framework is similar to that proposed by Republicans in the House.
“Following the bipartisan passage of a farmer-focused farm bill by the House Agriculture Committee, we are laying out a framework that shares common ground with our Democratic colleagues on several key priorities and provides a path forward in the areas where we differ,” Boozman said.
House action
The House Agriculture Committee At the end of May, the committee passed its version of the agriculture bill. and while four Democrats joined Republicans in supporting the bill, nearly two dozen Democrats opposed it.
The House version of the farm bill is expected to cost $1.5 trillion over the next decade. However, there is currently no cost estimate for the Republican Senate version. There is also no bill text for the Senate version.
The current Farm Bill expires on September 30. If Congress does not pass a novel bill, an extension of the measures passed in the 2018 Farm Bill would be necessary.
Boozman expressed hope that Congress would not have to extend the deadline, but if it did, he expected to be able to pass the farm bill during the outgoing administration’s session after the November elections.
Like the House Republican version, the Senate bill would divert funds from climate-related legislation passed in 2022 to conservation projects that would remove some climate-friendly guardrails, which has met with opposition from Democrats.
Boozman said removing the guardrails would “make it more useful.”
Nutrition programs
The Republican Senate agriculture framework bill would make no changes to SNAP benefits and eligibility, but it does restrict an update tool used by the Thrifty Food Plan.
“The Republican framework restores Congress’s constitutional spending authority by returning to a cost-neutral and transparent process for future five-year reassessments of the (Thrifty Food Plan) based on the most current consumption data and nutritional guidelines, while ensuring annual inflation adjustment,” the framework states.
In 2018, the Farm Bill allowed the U.S. Department of Agriculture to re-evaluate the Thrifty Food Plan and In 2021, the agency updated it was adjusted for the cost of living, resulting in a 21% escalate in SNAP benefits. About 12.8% of U.S. households were food insecure in 2022, according to USDA. More than 41 million people Use SNAP benefits.
The Senate’s version returns to a “cost-neutral” model, Boozman said, that is similar to the version pushed by Republicans in the House. Democrats have already spoken out against those changes.
The Democratic chair of the Senate Committee, Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, released a Sectional version of the Democrats’ farm bill in early May. This version would escalate eligibility for SNAP benefits, but there is no legislative text for this bill either.
Foreign ownership of agricultural land
The restriction on foreign ownership of US farmland has received bipartisan support in Congressbecause the states have passed their own laws on this issue.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said most foreign landowners are based in Canada, the Netherlands and Britain. But there are concerns in Congress about land ownership by Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, which collectively own less than 400,000 acres of land.
Lawmakers are pushing to include a federal reporting requirement in the Republican Senate’s farm bill under Title XII, Miscellaneous.
“This modernization will help ensure compliance with reporting requirements and provide a clearer picture of the scope and magnitude of the problems that foreign ownership of U.S. farmland poses for our country,” the framework states.
