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On September 9, 2024, Congress will be back in session in Washington, DC for the first time since early August. Yet, their return will be short lived. In an election year, Members of Congress spend all of October and early November in their states and Congressional districts. In total, Congress will be in session for three full weeks before adjourning on September 27.

During those three weeks, there are two major items on Congress’s to-do list. By October 1, Congress will need to fund the government for Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 and determine how to extend (again) the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (2018 Farm Bill). Failure to complete either or both of these tasks will likely impact farmers, ranchers, and food system stakeholders nationwide who utilize federal programs. This post examines where both tasks stand as September begins.

Only six months ago, Congress passed and the President signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024 (CAA), which funds the government through September 30. The complicated and unique FY2024 appropriations process was a product of the times. As we have noted before, Congress has developed an increasing inability to enact appropriations legislation on time. In 2023, Congress also struck a deal to raise the federal debt-ceiling by setting a cap on FY2024 and FY2025 defense and non-defense discretionary (NDD) spending. Commonly referred to as the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA, P.L. 118-5), the deal applied an NDD spending cap of $703.65 billion for FY2024 and $710.68 billion for FY2025. In addition to the caps, Congressional agriculture appropriators in the House and Senate also had the unique challenge of meeting a higher-than-originally-anticipated funding need for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC.

This unique process resulted in a delayed conclusion to the FY2024 appropriations process and a final FY2024 agriculture funding bill that included numerous painful cuts. Importantly, the bill contained some bright spots and rejected harmful policy riders, including those that would have stifled fair competition and hampered the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) ability to respond to emergent agricultural needs. Nonetheless, cuts to many programs critical to sustainable agriculture were deeply disappointing.

Since the CAA was signed into law in March 2024, Congress has slowly inched forward its FY2025 appropriations bills, including for USDA. On July 11, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved their FY2025 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations bill with unanimous, bipartisan agreement. This outcome in the Senate stands in sharp contrast to what transpired in the House Appropriations Committee just a day earlier: a roughly two-hour-long Committee markup that resulted in the approval of the House’s FY25 Agriculture spending bill along strict party lines. However, since these Committee markups in July, neither the House nor Senate versions of the FY2025 agriculture spending bill have moved forward. 

So where do things go from here? 

Instead of finishing individual FY2025 appropriations bills, Congress will pass a Continuing Resolution (CR) this September to fund the government, including USDA and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), beyond September 30. The CR will in all likelihood run through sometime in December 2024, at which point Congress will reconvene after the election to fund the government on a longer-term basis.

For farmers, ranchers, and food system stakeholders who utilize federal programs, the instability and cuts resulting from the FY2024 and FY2025 appropriations processes are significant. Cuts to research, conservation, and local and regional food programs in the final FY2024 agriculture appropriations bill are again reflected in the House’s FY2025 proposal. Furthermore, the House’s FY2025 proposal again insists on harmful policy riders that would prevent the implementation of rules designed to promote fair competition for livestock and poultry producers under the Packers and Stockyards Act and prevent any funding for efforts at USDA to advance racial equity and support for underserved communities. 

In November 2023, the five-year 2018 Farm Bill was extended for nearly a full year, through September 30, 2024. Now just weeks away from the expiration of that extension, Congress has been unable to reach an agreement on how to move forward on a final, new farm bill. Unfortunately, the prospects for a new farm bill this year – much less by September 30 – remain uncertain at best. As a result, one of the most important things that Congress can and should do this September is to again extend the 2018 Farm Bill.

There are three primary ways in which a program might be negatively impacted – or “stranded” – if the 2018 Farm Bill is allowed to expire on October 1, 2024. First, a program may lack funding beyond that date. Second, a program may lack the legal authority to continue operating beyond that same date absent a farm bill extension. And third, a program could have no funding and no legal authority. What follows is an assessment of several key programs for NSAC members and how they may be impacted without an extension of the 2018 Farm Bill by October 1, 2024.

• Local Agriculture Market Program (LAMP) – Despite permanent mandatory funding for LAMP, the authority for the grant program will lapse on October 1, 2024. Without an extension or reauthorization, the grant cycle may be interrupted.
• Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) – CRP’s statutory authorization will end on September 30, and consequently, no new work would likely be able to occur within that program without action from Congress. However, because CRP is at or very near its cap of 27 million acres, the impact on the program without a farm bill extension will be somewhat lessened. Nonetheless, without an extension effective as of October 1st:
  • FSA will not approve CRP contracts for any signup types
  • FSA will not process offers for enrollment in CRP for all signup types
  • FSA will not authorize any CRP contract revisions or corrections
• Conservation Reserve Program Transition Incentive Program (CRP-TIP) – although this program is not considered one of the “stranded” programs, it has continued to rely on a shrinking amount of money from the 2018 Farm Bill. A farm bill extension that fails to include additional funding for CRP-TIP is likely to result in a listless program.
• National Organic Certification Cost Share Program (OCCSP) – OCCSP does not have ‘permanent baseline’ funding and therefore without a provision that specifically offers continued funding and authorization for OCCSP, the cost share program will expire, potentially leaving thousands of organic farmers with a huge net increase in their annual certification costs. 
• The Organic Production and Market Data Initiatives (ODI) and Scholarships for 1890s Institutions both lack permanent baseline funding and will also need dedicated funding in any farm bill extension.
• Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Program (OREI) – Despite mandatory funding for the program, the authority for the grant program ends after 2024. Without an extension or reauthorization, the next grant cycle may be interrupted.
• Farming Opportunities Training and Outreach Program (FOTO) – Despite mandatory funding for the program, the legal authority for the grant program lapses on October 1, 2024. Therefore, like LAMP and OREI discussed above, absent an extension or reauthorization, the next grant cycle may be interrupted.

By and large, the farm safety net – ranging from credit to crop insurance and commodity programs – will continue to operate with little interruption through the end of 2024. If, however, the farm bill is not reauthorized or extended by January 1, 2025, commodity programs will begin to be replaced with “permanent law,” or non-expiring provisions established in the 1938 and 1949 Farm Bills. The first commodity to be impacted is dairy. Congress has maintained but suspended permanent law in each farm bill since the 1960s as a force-function to reauthorize the farm bill, lest the temporary suspension expires and force USDA to implement antiquated farm intervention programs.

At the time of publishing, it is unclear whether Congress will adequately address these issues in a farm bill extension by September 30, 2024, leaving the door open to mounting impacts nationwide.

The post Government Funding and Farm Bill’s Future Top Congress’ September To-Do List appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.