By Brendan Scanland
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Roughly every five years, Congress serves up one of the biggest items on America’s policy menu — the Farm Bill.
This summer, a large piece of the comprehensive bill came baked into the president’s “One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act.”
It’s like the Swiss Army knife of American agriculture- the Farm Bill covers everything from crop insurance to food stamps, from research labs to rural broadband.
“We invested in agriculture programs probably in a way that haven’t been done for many farm bills,” said House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-Pa.), adding that roughly 80% of the new Farm Bill’s investments were completed in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“The agricultural title was a significant part of that bill,” he said.
Thompson says the headline for the changes is certainty. Among the new ingredients for this year’s fragmented Farm Bill include a stronger safety net for farmers — like disaster relief and crop insurance.
“In the past farmers that take a loss, and we’ve had flooding incidents just this past year, we actually incorporated some disaster assistance into crop insurance. We paid for it. We provide certainty,” said Thompson.
On the trade front, Thompson says the bill beefs up investments for trade assistance.
“And those have never been increased from the time that they were created decades ago. We actually doubled those. And that’s all done,” said Thompson.
However, there are still some pieces that are not done. Due to procedural rules in the Senate, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act could not include everything.
“We’re working on those right now,” Thompson said.
Lawmakers are already cooking up what they’re calling “Farm Bill 2.0,” with a side of rural broadband and a new recipe for the SNAP nutrition program, which Thompson says could remove the so-called “poverty cliff.”
“Unfortunately, the way the program is currently, the better you do financially, you hit a wall and you’re not ready to go be out there on your own independently — but they pull the rug of financial assistance from underneath you. My hope is to correct that in Farm Bill 2.0,” said Thompson.
In addition to other major changes to SNAP in the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act, federal regulators are now granting several states the authority to remove sugary foods and drinks from the program. Earlier this summer, six additional states were granted waivers from the USDA to prohibit SNAP benefits from being used on certain processed food and beverages. A total of 12 states now have SNAP restrictions on items like soda and candy.
