Earlier this week, Senate Democrats unveiled their 2024 Farm Bill text led by Senate Ag Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-MI). However, the Senate Democrats’ version at this point may just get the “cold shoulder” treatment from Republican lawmakers during the lame duck session of Congress.
“The reality is [the Farm Bill] is not going to happen this year, and I don’t know if it’s going to happen early next year,” says Kip Tom, former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Agencies for Food and Agriculture during President Trump’s first term in office. He’s also a farmer based in Kosciusko County and has been mentioned as a possible candidate for President Trump’s next Secretary of Agriculture.
With Trump returning to the White House and Republicans taking control of both the House and the Senate, Tom believes that Republican lawmakers have the chance to get what they want in the next Farm Bill as opposed to having to make a great deal of concessions with Democrats—considering that Senate Ag Chair Debbie Stabenow is also a “lame duck” lawmaker and will not be returning to the Senate in January after choosing not to run for reelection in 2024.
“Obviously, with Republicans taking back control of Senate, Sen. John Boozman (R-AR) will now be leading the Senate Ag Committee. There’s no doubt I think he’ll push forward to try to get that Farm Bill done,” says Tom. “I know there are some other potential relief plans being discussed at the moment to go out to farmers to help them fill that gap between now and that time frame to deal with this year’s low commodity prices, but a Farm Bill is what we need to have—but we need to make sure that it’s structured properly.”
Tom says that Republicans in Congress will be looking to focus much more of the Farm Bill on the needs of America’s farmers now that they will have control in Washington.
“We all know that the Farm Bill is 83 percent food assistance and about 17 percent actual agriculture,” says Tom. “We need to make sure that we put more ‘Farm’ back into that Farm Bill—whether it’s in a form of crop insurance, supporting that to a better degree, making sure it’s more durable and more reliable for the farmers like ours that buy that crop insurance, we’ve got to have that.
“This is why I say, let’s put more ‘Farm’ back into the Farm Bill—and let’s make sure we clean up the food assistance programs that take place in our country today,” he says.
After this week, only three weeks remain of the lame duck session of the 118th Congress. The 119th Congress will be sworn in on Friday, Jan. 3, 2025.
CLICK BELOW to hear Hoosier Ag Today’s full radio news report.
