Why 2026 could see the end of the Farm Bill era of American agriculture policy |
With Congress back in session, legislators will take up a set of issues they haven’t comprehensively addressed since 2018 – the year the last farm bill passed.
Farm bills are massive pieces of legislation that address a diverse constellation of topics, including agricultural commodities, conservation, trade, nutrition, rural development, energy, forestry and more. Because of their complexity, farm bills are difficult to negotiate in any political environment. And as the topics have expanded since the first iteration in 1933, Congress has generally agreed to take the whole thing up once every five years or so.
However, the most recent farm bill’s provisions expired in 2023. They have been renewed one year at a time ever since, but without the comprehensive overhaul that used to accompany farm bills.
As former federal employees handling agriculture policy who now study that topic, it’s unclear to us whether a comprehensive, five-year farm bill can be passed in 2026, or ever again.
The July 2025 enactment of the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” the Trump administration’s budget priorities in the tax and spending bill, revised funding levels for many programs that were historically handled in the farm bill. For instance, that law included a 20% cut in funding to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, which helps low-income families buy food. And it doubled support for the largest farm subsidy programs.
Those changes and current divisions in Congress mean the nation’s food and agriculture policy may remain stuck in limbo for yet another year.
For decades, political conventional wisdom has held that sweeping federal farm bills are able to pass only because farmers seeking subsidies and anti-hunger advocates wanting increased SNAP dollars recognize the mutual advantage in working together. That’s how to build a broad, bipartisan consensus strong enough to garner the 60 votes in the U.S.........