Since the last Farm Bill was enacted in 2018, international wars and pandemics have disrupted supply chains, soared inflation, and worsening climate change has renewed emphasis on conservation.
Farmers feel left behind and forgotten.
“I’m supposed to be in a good mood. My Illini just won and I had a fun weekend with my family, but to be honest, I’m frustrated,” Jared Gregg, a seventh-generation Piatt County farmer, said in September. He told the Tribune earlier this month.
He had just gotten a call from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, asking him to help with a survey as they prepared for the busy harvest season. Gregg said it was yet another reminder that the federal government is out of touch with farmers.
Again, Congress is unlikely to pass an updated farm bill.
The comprehensive legal package setting out agriculture and food policy is to be updated every five years. But partisan impasse got in the way last year, forcing Congress to simply extend the 2018 bill for another year. The extension expires on September 30, but with less than two months until the presidential election, Congress is not focused on finalizing a new five-year plan. Experts say lawmakers are likely to extend the 2018 bill again.
“We want the government to put in as much effort as American farmers do,” Gregg said. “Watching them play politics when prices are going down and expenses are going up is a tough pill to swallow.”
Consumer food prices rose 25% from 2019 to 2023 and have continued to rise since then, but this has not translated into additional income for farmers. Supply chain issues between farms and stores are further accelerating price increases.
But like all Americans, farmers’ expenses, from labor to equipment to fertilizer, are rising.
“Who wants to live in a world where revenue is 2018 and spending is 2024? Without an updated farm bill, we’re stuck in this world,” Illinois Agriculture said. said Brian Duncan, president of the station.
Brian Duncan operates a combine harvester to harvest corn on September 27, 2024 in Polo, Illinois. Duncan started harvesting corn a few days ago and hopes to have it harvested by Thanksgiving. Family farming goes back several generations, with its origins dating back to the 1900s. (Stacy Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
If Congress does not extend the 2018 Farm Bill by the end of the year, which is highly unlikely, a permanent New Deal-era law would go into effect that would nullify the interim Farm Bill and leave farmers with even more outdated legislation. It will be operated.
The local economy of Illinois, the nation’s No. 1 soybean producer and No. 2 corn producer, will be hit hard. The state’s agriculture industry supports about 2 million jobs and more than $462 billion in economic output, said Ben Goldie, communications director for the House Agriculture Committee.
Jonathan Koppes, an agricultural policy expert at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is particularly concerned that programs to encourage sustainable agriculture could fall flat without a new farm bill. About 40% of Illinois’ valid applications have already gone unfunded, according to a letter from the Democratic delegation of Illinois lawmakers to the U.S. Department of Agriculture in August.
“We are limiting the amount of funding available to farmers for conservation work and then expanding what we want them to do under the umbrella of conservation,” he said, adding that poor Citing growing interest in the role that agricultural practices play in the climate crisis and loss of biodiversity.
Even in 2018, Farm Bill funding available for conservation programs did not meet demand. The Inflation Control Act of 2022 injected nearly $20 billion into these programs over five years. However, there is still a backlog of orders. Inflation only makes the problem worse.
Both Democratic and Republican farm bill proposals would strengthen conservation programs, but the Republican version removes programs focused on reducing carbon emissions and carbon sequestration, which Democrats hope will reduce IRA inflation. It’s a warning that was injected with additional funding from the law.
Illinois is having a particularly difficult time securing conservation funding in the current funding environment. Illinois has the fourth-most farmland of all states, but received less conservation funding from 2018 to 2022 than 36 other states, according to a delegation of Illinois lawmakers.
Meanwhile, lawmakers estimate that only 4% of Illinois’ 22 million acres of cropland have conservation practices in place, a dismal number that is based on Illinois’ cropping practices, weather conditions, , blames “uniform and inflexible ‘standards'” for funding that are biased towards topography. .
The delegation, which included Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin, called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to double or triple the national conservation funding allocated to Illinois.
Jared Gregg harvests soybeans on a farm in Cerro Gordo on September 20, 2024. Greg is a seventh generation farmer. (E. Jason Wambs Guns/Chicago Tribune)
Greg has two great applications: experimenting with pesticide mitigation strategies and growing cover crops. Both have been shown to improve soil quality, reduce nutrient runoff that causes harmful algae blooms, and promote habitat for pollinators.
He is motivated by the potential to tap into new clean energy markets such as sustainable aviation fuels. Earlier this year, the federal government cleared the way for making jet fuel from corn that meets certain sustainability standards.
“If they expect me to produce in a way that has environmental protection in mind, I’m going to hold up my end of the bargain. But I don’t want that to happen on their side. I don’t see it there,” said Greg, who has poured hours into his farm’s conservation plan.
He does not have the wiggle room to change the budget to introduce the necessary sustainable practices without government support. Market prices for corn and soybeans have fallen 15% and 25%, respectively, since last summer. Meanwhile, Greg expects spending to be about 30% higher next year than the average of the past five years.
Koppes, a professor at the University of Illinois, worries that if applications continue to be rejected, many farmers will be discouraged from adopting conservation practices. Fewer applications could mean even less funding, creating a counterproductive cycle that kills the current enthusiasm for conservation-oriented agriculture.
For the farmers who were lucky enough to secure the funding, it was transformative.
“Without the funding, we would never have been able to build the high tunnels (structures that reduce nutrient loss and improve soil quality) or install pollinator zones. It would have been a risk,” said Ed Dubrik, a first-generation chicken farmer from Cisna Park.
Coppes said Americans across the country stand to benefit from widespread on-farm conservation practices.
Cover crops reduce nutrient runoff that contaminates local drinking water and then flows into the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the Cajun seafood industry. No-till farming keeps the soil in place, reducing the risk of deadly dust storms like the one that struck Interstate 55 last summer. Pollinator strips increase biodiversity.
Brian Duncan operates a combine harvester to harvest corn on September 27, 2024 in Polo, Illinois. (Stacy Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
“Conservation is like a bridge between farmers and non-farmers because it pays farmers to do things that help them and the rest of us.” said Koppes.
The Farm Bill expires Monday night, but funding won’t be reduced until early next year. Goldie said House Agriculture Committee Chairman GT Thompson is committed to working during the October recess to pass a farm bill by then.
When lawmakers can’t reach a compromise, Koppes offers counterintuitive but pragmatic solutions to outdated bills. Instead of falling into a pattern of adding one year each year, lawmakers should extend the current Farm Bill by two years. This gives the incoming Congress a more realistic time frame to negotiate and reach an agreement.
In any case, farmers are already pessimistic about the prospects for this year’s new farm bill.
“All we can do is hope,” said Illinois Farm Bureau President Duncan. “We’re tightening our belts, deferring capital expenditures, making our recurring expenses as efficient as possible and hoping things get better. It looks like we’re going to have a bumper year, at least here in Illinois.”
