Big Money in Farm Bill Lobbying

With your Southeast Regional Ag News, I am Haylie Shipp. This is the Ag Information Network.

Well if you’re talking about lobbying the farm bill, you’re talking about big money.

A new report from The Hill says that pharmaceutical, manufacturing, and agriculture interests have combined to spend over $400 million lobbying Congress on a new farm bill. The Union for Concerned Scientists says that’s more than four times the amount of money spent by the public sector and civil society. The report also found that between 2019 and 2023, giant agribusinesses, food and agriculture industry associations, and other interest groups reported a combined $523 million in federal lobby expenditures on disclosure reports that listed ‘farm bill’ among the specific lobbying issues.

“Lobbying by the agribusiness sector has steadily increased,” the report says. “In just the last five years, the agribusiness sector’s annual lobbying expenditures have risen 22 percent, totaling more on federal lobbying than the oil and gas industry and the defense sector.”

Top lobbying spenders included the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Farm Bureau Federation, and Koch Industries.