The National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD) released policy recommendations for the 2023 Farm Bill. Over the last year, NACD’s Farm Bill Task Force has convened more than a dozen times to review USDA conservation programs and consider policies to strengthen support for voluntary, locally led conservation efforts. The recommendations were recently approved by NACD’s Board by Directors at NACD’s Annual Meeting in New Orleans.
I wrote in the last Legislative Landscape about the stated commitment of the new House majority to reduce federal spending and with the farm bill up for reauthorization, it will be a challenge to increase funding for critical farm bill programs.
AgriPulse recently ran an excellent article on the history of the farm bill – due to be reauthorized next year – by a Missouri farmer and greenhouse grower, Blake Hurst.
Major U.S. agricultural production groups are pulling together their requests for the next farm bill — the massive legislation that Congress rewrites every five years to set farm and food policy — with crop insurance and disaster assistance on the top of their lists.
A panel of executives from farm groups detailed some of their concerns and requests for the next farm bill Tuesday at the Minnesota FarmFest, an agribusiness fair organized by the American Farm Bureau.
The farm bill includes both mandatory and discretionary spending. Congress can change discretionary spending in the annual spending bills.
But most farm bill programs are mandatory spending, including crop subsidies, farm bill conservation programs and some forms of crop insurance. For those programs, the farm bill will set the funding structure for the next five years.
Congress continues to take input on changes to the next farm bill which will be drafted next year. Below are some comments from Rita Hite, president and CEO of the American Forest Foundation, on changes her organization would like to see in farm, specially forest, programs.
As mentioned last week, the puzzle pieces to develop a new farm bill funding reauthorization are being put in place by Congress and industry groups. This past week, the American Soybean Association's 2023 farm bill priorities were announced with a focus on safety net language as well as conservation, trade, energy and a handful of other aspects of the legislation.
Like most major reauthorization bills – infrastructure, defense, health, housing, tax, etc. – the development of the multiyear farm bill brings out all the agriculture interests to advocate for their programs. Most recently, it was the specialty crop groups that had the attention of Congress as it pursues a farm bill proposal.
The Senate Agriculture Committee will hold its first 2023 farm bill hearing later this month in Michigan, Chair Debbie Stabenow (-MI) and Ranking Member John Boozman (R-AR) announced this week.
Producers and landowners will be able to start signing up for the Conservation Reserve Program at the end of the month as the department tries to expand the acreage to reach the 2018 farm bill’s goal for fiscal 2022.