EDITORIAL: Congress cultivates dysfunction with farm bill

In many ways, the farm bill that comes out of Congress is a misnomer.

Under that singular monicker is an omnibus package of 12 bills dealing with everything from agricultural policy to nutrition, conservation, trade and rural development. In other words, the rather innocuous sounding farm bill is one of Congress' more significant duties.

Given that importance, the farm bill - which traces back to The Great Depression - exemplifies a decade of congressional dysfunction. The legislation typically is passed for a five-year period; but instead of making changes to how food goes from farm to table for 330 million Americans, legislators simply renewed the bill for 12-month periods each of the past three years.

Now, amid stressors on farmers largely created by the Trump administration, the House of Representatives is preparing to vote on an update next week.

And as a coalition of agriculture groups wrote to House leadership: "Economic pressures facing producers have only intensified. Already high input costs, including fuel and fertilizer, have risen sharply, driven by ongoing global conflicts, supply chain disruptions, and uncertainty in both domestic and foreign demand."

Farmers have been economically damaged by President Donald Trump's tariffs and the resulting counter-tariffs from trading partners. In December, the administration announced $12 billion in one-time payments for U.S. farmers while blaming the policies of the Biden administration and ignoring the impact of Trump's tariffs. (During Trump's first term, his administration delivered $28 billion in taxpayer money to farmers harmed by his initial trade war.)

Now, the United States' attack on Iran has disrupted global oil supplies, raising costs for fuel and fertilizer. Farm organizations hope the farm bill provides some relief and - more importantly - some long-term stability: "The complete suite of programs across all farm bill titles remains essential to ensuring the resilience, productivity and global competitiveness of American agriculture, as well as the strength of rural communities nationwide."

But there is more to the farm bill than the concerns of producers. As Politico explains: "Republicans used a major cut to spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to pay for tax cuts and farm safety net improvements in their massive tax and spending package last year, sparking anger among Democrats."

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed in July includes a shift of SNAP costs (colloquially known as food stamps) from the federal government to the states. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank, writes: "In the face of these massive new costs, states may take away food assistance from people with low incomes or even end SNAP entirely."

The proposed bill also reduces the power of states to regulate pesticides, drawing the ire of Democrats and even some Republicans. As Thomas Massie, R-Ky., wrote: "Americans need to know: Our government is under siege by lobbyists for German company Bayer. To Make America Healthy Again, Congress should remove the language containing the pesticide liability shield from the Farm Bill."

Such issues suggest there will be contentious negotiations when the House takes up the farm bill legislation. They also suggest that a simple renewal of existing legislation is likely.

That would be disappointing. As the coalition of farmers writes, "The timeliness of this legislation to the agricultural economy and rural America cannot be overstated."

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This story was originally published April 24, 2026 at 7:07 AM.