Failure to Enact a New Farm Bill Proving to Be a Colossal Blunder
Any Farm Bill that gets out of this Congress - if any does - will be much weaker than what Congress could have passed in 2023 or 2024, but didn't
Donald Trump’s FY 2026 budget proposal, released Friday, makes clear that when Congress failed to enact a new Farm Bill in September 2023, and then repeatedly further delayed enacting a new one despite promises to do so, it made a colossal and costly blunder.
Iowans in Congress are no innocent by-standers in this grave miscalculation. Two thirds of them serve on the House or Senate Agriculture Committee and therefore have a special responsibility to get an updated Farm Bill passed, a responsibility they failed to meet.
Had Congress acted in 2023 - shortly before the 2018 Farm Bill expired or, as they promised, urgently thereafter in 2024 - much stronger federal farm programs could have been enacted in a new Farm Bill than is now likely in this Congress with Trump in the White House.
It has been 582 days (as of 05/04/2025) since the 2018 Farm Bill expired on September 30, 2023. Despite early promises to enact a new Farm Bill promptly, in the remainder of 2023 and all of 2024, there has no been no action to move a new Farm Bill an inch closer to the finish line. It’s been pretty much forgotten in 2025.
No action.
Forgotten.
Here are the names of the Iowans in Congress who serve on either the House or Senate Agriculture Committee: and have been part of that forgetting: Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Reps. Zach Nunn (R-3rd IA) and Randy Feenstra (R-4th IA).
What is new is action by the Trump/Musk so-called “Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), cutting over a billion dollars from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA); eliminating and making deep cuts in international and domestic feeding programs that buy farm products from American farmers; the legally dubious Trump declared tariffs that are disrupting US foreign farm markets; and even a proposal to sell the USDA headquarters building in Washington, DC.
Does that sound like a stronger farm bill is in the wings, just waiting for the perfect moment to strut to center stage for a grand unveiling?
Not at all.
Any Farm Bill that comes out of this Congress - if there even is a new Farm Bill - looks more likely to be just another swing of the axe.
The budget plan released by Trump Friday confirms this. He wants to cut the USDA budget by $5 billion, 18.3% of its total budget.
Had Congress acted to pass a new Farm Bill in 2023, either shortly before the 2018 bill expired or soon there after, Joe Biden would have still been in the White House, the Senate was still controlled by Democrats, and Republicans controlled the US House. No party would have been able to ram through rigid partisan ideology and traditional bi-partisan negotiations would have produced a compromise bill far stronger than what Republican ideology is now likely to produce on its own.
Democrats have generally been supportive of a strong Farm Bill. Republicans - well, we’re seeing what Republicans think about federal farm policy.
How did we get here? Republican partisanship.
After they blocked enactment of a new bill in 2023, they kicked the can down the road to 2024, promising to pass one then. In reality what they did was decide to wait out the 2024 election year and see if they could get more control over things with the 2024 election results. Their partisan obstruction was rewarded with a newly Republican Senate, a House that was still Republican, and Donald Trump back to the White House.
Since Trump re-entered the White House, congressional Republicans haven’t talked much about the Farm bill. They have been content to “Let Donald Do It.” On everything.
Trump’s budget proposals make clear the Trump/Musk so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” (DOGE) cuts at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) were just a preview of coming attractions. That effort cut $1 billion in USDA funding primarily. from programs that buy food directly from local farmers for schools and food banks.
Wasteful spending?? A program that expands markets locally for farmers and helps feed school kids and families facing severe food insecurity?
Rural counties, by the way, are often hit harder by food insecurity than urban counties. That means that, among other rural Americans, Iowa families in small rural communities will be hit hard by DOGE’s legally questionable cuts.
Response from Congress on this? Crickets. Even though we’re talking about feeding hungry neighbors right here at home in a way that boosts the income of our farm neighbors.
Meanwhile, the new Republican House is working on its own budget that would cut billions in funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which helps eligible poor working parents, seniors, veterans and homeless people access adequate, healthy, nutritional food supplies.
With 41.5 million Americans a month relying on the SNAP program, that program alone constitutes a sizable domestic market for American farmers. Add that to the disruption of international farm markets by Trump tariffs and you get a pretty grim glimpse of the coming future for Agriculture under Trump and his allies.
International feeding programs are also being decimated - programs that not only save lives in countries facing hunger and famine, but also promote stability and peace, and make friends and allies for the US abroad.
They also constitute another large market for America’s abundant food production.
Suffice it to say, like the rest of us, farmers live in a very different world than they did in 2018, the last time federal farm policy was reviewed and updated.
Congressional inaction - malfeasance might be a better word for it - on enacting a new Farm Bill has ignored that reality.
You’d be hard pressed now to find any member of the Iowa delegation doing or saying anything to move a new Farm Bill toward enactment.
Iowans in Congress, especially those who serve on one of the House or Senate Agriculture Committees, had an obligation to do their jobs in a timely manner.
They failed to do it.. As a result, any Farm Bill passed by this Congress, and signed by this President is going to be a pale shadow of the Farm Bill that could have passed in 2023 or 2024.
They promised. But they never delivered. They didn’t even try.
They chose politics, once again, over good government.
Can we please stop pretending that today’s Republicans, including those from Iowa who represent the state in Congress care even “half a whit” about farmers? Because their actions - their failures to act, actually, time and time again, say they don’t.
WEEKLY OVERDUE FARM BILL TICKER - 582 DAYS: The number of days that have passed since the 2018 Farm Bill expired on September 30, 2023, without Congress passing a new one. (Total days as of Sunday, 05/04/2025).
Two thirds of Iowa’s congressional delegation serves on the U.S. House and Senate Agriculture Committees: Grassley (R-IA) and Ernst (R-IA) in the Senate; Nunn (R-3rd IA) and Feenstra (R-4th IA) in the House.
There is little indication Congress will act any time soon to pass a new Farm Bill, or if it does - given the Trump-Musk wrecking ball and the eagerness of Republicans in Congress to appease them - that it will be helpful to farmers.
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Rural Iowa voted overwhelmingly for Trump all three times. The first time Trump was president, he imposed tariffs and Iowa farmers were on welfare. This time around Trump's tariffs and retaliation will kill off the farm economy with permanent damage. Many of these markets for soybeans, pork, etc. aren't coming back. The question I have is how long are the rest of us supposed to bail out farmers who are getting what they voted for, who want their welfare checks but have issues with some poor child being fed? They also might want to stop voting for the Iowa senators and representatives who enable this crap.
As a former Farmer, I Quit after the 2018 crop, and now rent our Farm out, this is a Very Disappointing article. I was unaware that the Farm Bill had not been updated. I am neither R nor D, there is a reason the Republican Party has been referred to as the Stupid Party. To be fair, the Democratic Party seems to have lost its way. Either way, Agriculture is Hurting and,in some respects, Failing. The Ag Bill Needs to be Updated and Passed, and not be done thru another Executive Order. Just my opinion.