The 2018 Farm Bill faced months of delays that left the nation without farm bill programs from the expiration of the 2014 Farm Bill on September 30, 2018, until the bill was finally passed and signed by then-President Donald Trump in December 2018. The 2018 Farm Bill is set to expire next year and work is getting underway on the 2023 Farm Bill.
“We’ve had full committee and subcommittee hearings to review the 2018 farm bill so we could get the stakeholders’ perspectives,” Congressman David Scott (D-GA) said during the 2022 AgriPulse Ag and Food Policy Summit.
Representative Scott is the chair of the House Agriculture Committee. He says things are on track for the next farm bill to be passed on time.
“I want to make clear that our timeline for the next farm bill is well within the standard timeline. In fact, our hearing with (Agriculture) Secretary Tom Vilsack happened earlier in the process than the same hearing for the 2018 Farm Bill,” he said. “We’ve had public hearings and they’re just one piece of the puzzle for our progress. We are also working closely with Tom and the USDA and our other stakeholders to host briefings and meetings with our members of the committee and their staffs throughout the process.”
However, Representative Glenn “G.T.” Thompson (R-PA) says the committee is behind as far as holding hearings on the contents of the bill.
“We are picking up which is really good, but we are way behind at this point,” Thompson said. “That reauthorization is so important because this is where we find out from the people who work the fields and manage the livestock, and the people of rural America, what’s working, what’s not working, and what needs to be refined with this next farm bill. So (I’m) excited that we have finally pulled the trigger and started that. We just have a lot of work ahead of us.”
The current farm bill expires in September of 2023.
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Sabrina Halvorson
National Correspondent / AgNet Media, Inc.
Sabrina Halvorson is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, and public speaker who specializes in agriculture. She primarily reports on legislative issues and hosts The AgNet Weekly podcast. Sabrina is a native of California’s agriculture-rich Central Valley.