Will Congress Let the Farm Bill Expire?
With your Southeast Regional Ag News, I’m Haylie Shipp. This is the Ag Information Network.
The current Farm Bill is slated to expire September 30 of 2023 and while this should have come as no surprise to anyone in Washington, D.C., I’ve already been seeing headlines pop up defending the stance that it won’t be a big deal if the deadline is missed.
Last week, I had a chance to ask U.S. Senator for the State of Montana, Jon Tester, about this hypothetical game of kick the can…
“Well I think last week when we didn’t default and they put forth an agreement, that was a giant first step. Because I’m going to tell you, I don’t sit on the Ag Committee, but I visit with Stabenow and Boozman regularly, the Chairman and Ranking Member of that committee and they weren’t doing anything on it. They were just waiting to see what was going to happen. Now they should be going full speed ahead. I think they can still get a bill out by the end of September.”
Senator Tester told me that he isn’t expecting to see changes in the SNAP program. That brings along the important note that the Farm Bill includes within it a massive nutrition title. In the most recent farm bill, nutrition accounted for over 75% of the funding.
