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Karina Jones is a real-life ranch wife in the Nebraska Sandhills, former Field Director for R-CalfUSA and one of the most highly sought-after speakers in the cattle industry nationwide!
Heading into the new year there is no doubt that farm and ranch country will have their eye on Washington DC pressing their lawmakers to finish the task at hand, the next Farm Bill. But that may be too tall of a challenge given the current political climate.
Let’s first look at the “baseline funding” that Congress designates for the Farm Bill over a 10 period. The current 2018 Farm Bill authorized $860 billion over ten years, from 2018 to 2027, with 76 percent going to nutrition, 9 percent to crop insurance, 7 percent each to commodity programs and conservation, and less than one percent to all other Titles.
According to Farm Forum, “The initial “baseline funding for the new Farm Bill proposed $1.3 trillion over ten years, from 2023 to 2032, with 84 percent for Nutrition, 6 percent for conservation, 5 percent for crop insurance, 4 percent for commodity programs, and less than one percent for the other Titles.”
What does this get our country? Really not much. We get a population growing on government subsidy to raise food and to buy it. We have a shrinking population of independent farmers and ranchers being crushed under the weight of inflation, interest rates and corporate consolidation. We get a rural America floundering in debt and small towns drying up. We get a bloating population being served by nutrition assistance programs in order to afford the food being offered by some of the same corporations that are swallowing rural America. And we watch the trend of throwing more American taxpayers money at problems that are not being solved by this Farm Bill. But on the other hand, we have benefactors of the Farm Bill, which is really a Nutrition Assistance, insurance and growing conservation bill desperate for the band aid that the Farm Bill provides and willing to ride the status quo for another 5 years.
With the recent extension of the current Farm Bill, some of the urgency in Congress to pass a new Farm Bill seems to have dimmed. As we end the year, no formal legislation has been proposed for a new Farm Bill by either chamber of Congress. We are now heading into thin slivers of time in 2024 where we might see some legislation make to the light of day. It can be presumed that Senator Stabenow will be pushing to get one last Farm Bill with her signature mark on it before she heads into retirement. However, Congress will have most of January booked up with trying to get the budget back on track and agreed upon by both sides of the aisle. Global crisis also tends to take the air out of the room and steal the thunder for the Farm Bill. If we don’t see something out of both chambers be early June, we will be doomed to see the Farm Bill get swept under the election rug.
The political environment surrounding the 2024 election year casts some doubt on Congress reaching agreement on a new Farm Bill in the coming year. Given the political division that currently exists in Congress, an additional one-year extension of the current Farm Bill into 2025 certainly has to be considered an unfortunate possibility.
Join me right back here next week as I bring you more ag news from our nation’s capital.
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Karina ranches with her husband, Marty, and 4 children near Broken Bow, NE. She grew up in western NE, with roots also in southwest SD. The cattle industry and raising kids is her passion.
Tune in Fridays on The Hot Barn Report, where she deep dives into cattle industry issues and highlights industry reforms or listen to Ranch Raised with Karina Jones a slice of daily life on the Jones Ranch.
