The Farm Bill

Why Should I Care About the Farm Bill?

Or, who is affected by the Farm Bill?

Everyone, including you!

Whether directly or indirectly, everyone in the United States is affected by the the Farm Bill, which in its present form is the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018. Even those who are outside of the United States are affected by the Farm Bill, since food that is produced in the US is also exported to other countries via trade or as international aid.

It is obvious that farmers would be affected this Bill. But why would people who are not farming care about this law? Well, everybody needs to eat and farmers are those who directly supply the food to us. And the Farm Bill covers a breadth of topics including the agricultural products and processes to those who live near where the magic happens.

Continue reading below to see a historical overview of the Farm Bill or to explore the Bill by its Titles (or content sections). You can also explore the Bill by different topics!

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A Brief History

Although it is known as the Farm Bill, the bill affects more than just farms. Over time, the Farm Bill has evolved into a beast of a bill, known as an omnibus bill, that covers all sorts of activities that are related to agriculture.

So how did it get so complicated?

What started as an attempt to answer the question, "how do we ensure the people that provide us food are adequately supported?" continued to evolve with more and more questions such as "how do we not waste extra food?" and "how do we make sure every American is not hungry?" to "how do we make sure our farming practices are sustainable?" and "how do we support those living in rural farming communities?". Everyone views the Farm Bill as an opportunity to pursue some greater goal. This results in a complex process of negotiation and compromise.

Agriculture is tricky business. Like any form of business, there are realities on supply and demand. Unlike many other forms of businesses, a lack of agricultural supply is a life-or-death issue -- we all need to eat. Also at the same time, we can only eat so much. Thus, demand for food, particularly on a personal level, is rather fixed. Not having enough supply means that people might go hungry; having too much food means that some of it might go to waste (it is important to note that food can still be wasted if there is not enough and people could still go hungry if there is too much food).

The original intent of the Farm Bill was to support farmers after WWI who suddenly found themselves in some serious debt.

During WWI: High Demand, High Production = Just Right
After WWI: Lower Demand, High Production = Over Supply

As farmers sought help from the federal government, the response was to reduce supply with the goal to increase income for farmers. The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 paid farmers to destroy surplus stocks of crops and livestock along with not farming on some of their land. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) was in charge of this. As the crisis resolved, the focus shifted away from managing the supply to finding more sources of demand. This occurred in different ways, both nationally, through commodity aid programs and food stamps, and internationally, through sales and donations of food. Soil and land conservation evolved out of efforts to have farmers not farm some of their land.

The 1973 Agriculture and Consumer Protection Act solidified the view of demand management. The increases of technology and fewer farmers naturally led to larger farms. A primary goal became focused on lowering food prices for those who eat the food. Whereas the support on commodities was originally on the subsidizing higher prices, the change was to only pay farmers if prices dropped below a certain point. Farm production continued to rapidly expand. Explicit support of conservation appeared in the 1985 Farm Bill due to this over-expansion. Various experiments were made to completely remove commodity supply supporting programs, even providing direct payments to farmers completely removed from the price fluctuations in the 1996 Farm Bill. However, this was quickly changed and resulted in the current policy of crop insurance subsidies.

In the 2000s, biofuels gained momentum due to a combination of pursuing renewable energy and seeking more demand for some commodity crops. In the past decade, more focus has been on continued reform of the commodity programs as well as contention with the nutrition programs. The supply of food is no longer a pressing concern; however, navigating the domain of the limits of food demand while supporting farmers and rural communities are still central questions.

In 2018

Support for sustainable agriculture and for non-commodity agriculture such as fruits or vegetables continues to expand. Also recognition and support for new or disadvantaged farmers is continuing to grow!

How does the Farm Bill actually come together?

The Farm Bill starts off as two separate bills, one in the Senate and one in the House of Representatives. In the Senate, the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry is primarily in charge; in the House, the Committee on Agriculture is in charge. Once a bill is able to come out of a committee, it is debated, often via amendments to the bill, until a vote is reached. Both the House and the Senate can pass their own versions of a Farm Bill, but the bills eventually need to be reconciled and voted upon again by the House and Senate before a single bill is sent to the President to sign. The Farm Bill is not just a single piece of legislation, but actually comprises of many smaller bills.

The following terms are helpful to define:

  • Temporary law: A that has a set expiration date
  • Permanent law: A law that that does not

Most of the time, Farm Bills just update and amend permanent laws through temporary laws. Sometimes, it is only updating the expiration date! The actual bill can be very difficult to read, since it is mostly a list of changes to previous laws. The last farm bills that were permanent were passed in 1949, so if a temporary law expires without a new one, the old bills than become law again.

Explore the Farm Bill by Titles

Resources

Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, H.R. 2, 115th Cong. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr2/text

Johnson, R., & Monke, J. (2014). What Is the Farm Bill? Congressional Research Service.

Lehrer, N. (2010). U.S. farm bills and policy reforms: ideological conflicts over world trade, renewable energy, and sustainable agriculture. Amherst, N.Y: Cambria Press.