Why the Farm Bill Is Delayed — And Why the Real Problem Is Bigger Than That

The farm bill process has changed. Here's what that means for farmers, rural communities, and nearly every American. 

Will there be a new Farm Bill? According to Tara Smith — one of Washington's most experienced agricultural policy insiders — it's a coin flip. And yes, it matters. A lot. Not just for farmers. For nearly every American. 

Tara has worked on six farm bills. She served as senior professional staff on the Senate Agriculture Committee during a critical overhaul of the farm safety net. She was Director of Government Affairs for the American Farm Bureau Federation. She has spent 30 years navigating agricultural policy in Washington, D.C. 

She joined this month's Clearing the Air on Agricultural Policy — a series by The Flinchbaugh Center in partnership with the Smoke and Mirrors podcast — alongside Mark Edelman of Iowa State University, Brad Lubben of the University of Nebraska, and Jennifer Ifft of Kansas State University, hosted by Eric Atkinson, also of Kansas State. 

What emerged from that conversation goes beyond the question of whether a bill passes. Here is what you need to know. 

This Isn't Just a Farm Issue 

Most people hear "Farm Bill" and think farmers. But the Farm Bill is also a nutrition bill, a research bill, a conservation bill, and a rural development bill. At some point, in some way, it touches virtually everyone in the country — whether they realize it or not. 

Rural wastewater systems. Food assistance programs. Agricultural research that affects what ends up on grocery store shelves. Forestry policy. Crop insurance that stabilizes the food supply. The Farm Bill funds and governs all of it. 

Understanding why the farm bill process has broken down matters to anyone who eats, lives in a rural community, or depends on a stable agricultural economy — which is to say, nearly all Americans. 

The Real Problem Isn't Delay 

The most common frame for the Farm Bill story is timing. How many extensions has Congress passed? When will it finally move? Who is holding it up? 

Those are fair questions. But they miss the more important one: why has the farm bill process changed, and what does that mean for the quality of policy it produces? 

The Farm Bill used to move through what Washington calls "normal order." Committees held hearings. Bills were marked up in both chambers. They passed through floor votes. Differences between the House and Senate versions were resolved in a public conference committee — a formal process where members from both chambers negotiated in the open, with stakeholders able to follow and engage at every step. 

That process was never smooth. It involved fights, compromises, and what insiders call "sausage making." But it was transparent. Everyone who needed to weigh in — farmers, nutritionists, conservation groups, rural development advocates — knew how and when to do it. 

There hasn't been a real conference committee for the Farm Bill since 2014. In recent years, legislation has been negotiated by small leadership groups behind closed doors. Less transparent. Less predictable. Fewer entry points for the farmers, researchers, and rural communities the bill is supposed to serve. 

Why Reconciliation Is Not a Substitute for the Farm Bill 

When the farm bill process stalls, budget reconciliation has increasingly filled the gap. Reconciliation is a powerful legislative tool — but it has strict limits that make it a poor substitute for a comprehensive farm bill. 

Reconciliation can move money. It can increase or decrease spending on existing programs. What it cannot do is create new policy, restructure programs, or address the full range of issues a farm bill covers — unless those changes are directly tied to revenue or spending levels. 

The last Farm Bill ran roughly 550 pages. The reconciliation package that addressed farm programs ran 40. As Tara Smith put it: you can't replace 500 pages of legislation with 40 without leaving a lot of good stuff on the cutting room floor. 

Research programs. Conservation program structures. Rural development frameworks. Agricultural labor policy. Biofuel provisions. These are the kinds of substantive policy questions that require a real farm bill — and that keep getting deferred when reconciliation substitutes for one. 

The Farm Bill Safety Net Is Harder to Define Than It Looks 

One of the most important and least understood consequences of the farm bill delay is what it has done to the agricultural safety net. 

The safety net now operates as three overlapping systems: permanent programs like crop insurance that exist regardless of whether there is a farm bill, commodity programs authorized by the farm bill itself, and a growing layer of emergency ad hoc assistance paid out through executive action when economic or weather conditions deteriorate. 

Since 2018, emergency farm payments have run $14-15 billion a year. When that figure exceeds what the formal safety net pays out, it is a signal the system needs a hard look. 

Emergency payments are also blunt instruments. Getting money out fast requires simple formulas. Simple formulas are imprecise. Some farmers already covered by crop insurance and commodity programs receive checks. Others who genuinely need help don't. 

There is a second-order effect worth understanding. Large payment announcements have a way of getting built into cash rents almost immediately. Farmers have reported negotiating lower rents, nearly closing deals, and watching landlords raise the price the day emergency payments were announced. Ad hoc assistance intended for farmers doesn't always stay with farmers. 

Why Farm Policy Is Falling Behind Real Conditions 

The five-year reauthorization cycle that has governed the Farm Bill since the 1930s exists for a reason. Agricultural conditions change. Input costs shift. New technologies emerge. Trade relationships evolve. The policy framework needs to be revisited regularly to remain relevant. 

The programs currently in place were designed in 2018. They are outdated. 

Since then: input costs have spiked dramatically. Trade uncertainty — including significant tariff volatility — has created risks that existing commodity programs were never designed to address. Biological inputs and biostimulants have emerged as meaningful agricultural tools that barely existed as a policy consideration when the last bill was written. E-15 ethanol policy remains unresolved after more than a decade of debate. Agricultural labor challenges have grown more acute with no clear legislative resolution. 

As Tara Smith put it: we're basically pretending like it's still 2018. And it's not 2018. 

When the reauthorization cycle breaks down, the reassessment doesn't happen. Policy falls further behind conditions. And the gap between what farmers actually need and what the policy framework provides keeps growing. 

Why Bipartisanship Isn't Optional 

The Farm Bill has always passed because of a coalition — farm-state members of both parties, urban members who prioritize nutrition programs, and conservation advocates who span ideological lines. That coalition is not incidental to the Farm Bill. It is structural. Without it, the math doesn't work. 

The process of recent years has put that coalition under real strain. Using reconciliation to rewrite farm and nutrition programs — a partisan process by design — generates hard feelings that make subsequent bipartisan negotiation harder. Members who felt their priorities were cut through reconciliation are less willing to vote for a farm bill that asks them to set those feelings aside. 

With a House majority measured in single digits, losing votes from members who oppose spending while also losing votes from members who oppose nutrition cuts leaves very little room. The math requires bipartisan support. The process has made bipartisan support harder to build. 

What a Reset Could Look Like 

A new Farm Bill could do more than update programs. It could return the process to something more deliberate, more transparent, and more capable of addressing the conditions farmers and rural communities are actually facing today. 

That means revisiting whether the current safety net structure — permanent programs, Farm Bill programs, and ad hoc assistance — is actually serving the people it is designed to serve, or whether the layers have become so overlapping and imprecise that a fundamental redesign is overdue. 

It means addressing the policy questions that have been deferred for years — agricultural labor, biofuels, biologicals, research funding — through a process that allows for genuine deliberation rather than emergency patches. 

And it means rebuilding the bipartisan coalition that has always made comprehensive agricultural policy possible, at a moment when that coalition is under more strain than it has been in decades. 

Whether the current moment produces that reset is still genuinely uncertain. But there is more momentum right now than there has been in three years. 

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About Clearing the Air 

Clearing the Air is a monthly podcast brought to you by The Flinchbaugh Center in partnership with the Smoke and Mirrors podcast. Hosted by Eric Atkinson, the show offers thoughtful, fact‑driven conversations for anyone interested in the intersection of agricultural economics, policy, and real‑world decision‑making. Each episode features insights from Jennifer Ifft, Mark Edelman, and Brad Lubben, along with a rotating monthly guest.