With just a day to go before several government agencies, including USDA, run out of money, ag leaders are looking for progress to keep the department running.
The House passed a smaller spending package including the ag department, and now it is up to the Senate. The American Farm Bureau says a shutdown would affect everyone from cities to farms.
“We clearly do not benefit from a shutdown. Farmers wouldn’t be able to take out loans including mortgage loans, and crop loans. It would impact disaster payments, USDA offices across the country would be hit. So, we want to see the government funded. We want to move past fiscal year 2024 appropriations so that we can move forward on other pieces of legislation like the Farm Bill,” said Emily Buckman.
While the Farm Bill is currently running on a one-year extension of the 2018 legislation, some lawmakers have said they are worried not enough progress is being made on the new one. Ag policy pros at Texas A&M previously said it is going to be very challenging to get new legislation passed in an election year.
“I don’t expect it to be done in ’24 unless something wild happens after the election, and even then, if House or Senate flips, it’s going to be enough change that I don’t think it will happen early in ’25, either,” said Joe Outlaw.
Outlaw says he would not be surprised if it took until next summer for a new Farm Bill to get passed, but there are still a lot of variables when it comes to getting the new bill written and signed into law.
