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Farm and food groups have urged Congress for years to act on a full five-year farm bill, in hopes of providing more certainty to the U.S. food system. Farm bill discussions resumed in Congress last week, but experts say the existing proposals won’t address the complex challenges facing farmers and rural communities.

The House Agriculture Committee advanced a proposed farm bill last week—a set of legislative proposals that have traditionally balanced the social safety net around food with the needs of farmers and other food producers. Although a farm bill is typically passed every five years, Congress has failed to pass a new package since the last farm bill expired, in 2023.

Last year, some of the largest programs that are usually included in the farm bill were instead rolled into the Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB). The House’s new farm bill largely includes provisions from a 2024 draft that were left out of the OBBB—and that have bipartisan support.

“The fundamental changes needed to fix what’s broken in American agriculture—reining in corporate consolidation, building true safety nets, and investing in local communities—still need to be made.”

The latest bill must still be debated in the full House, though Republican leadership has not set a specific timeline. And while some farm groups are celebrating the new proposal, others have noted the bill does not go far enough in addressing major challenges facing farmers.

Much of the House bill is dedicated to commodity crops, though it does provide some boosts to specialty crops—or crops outside large commodities like fruits, vegetables, and legumes. The new bill would require the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to create the first emergency assistance framework for specialty crops, which streamlines disaster aid for producers.

That would mean some of the “most significant enhancements” to specialty crop programs in years, the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance said in a statement.

In general, though, the bill does not directly provide new investments to farm programs and maintains much of the status quo, Mike Lavender, policy director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, told Civil Eats.

This does not match the need among farmers, especially given 2025’s instability, stemming from contract cancellations, funding freezes, shifts in trade policy, and more, Lavender said.

“It’s got to be a farm bill that rises to the occasion and meets farmers where they are,” he said. “I don’t know why anyone would accept a farm bill that doesn’t have any new investments … particularly in a moment like this.”

Maintaining the Status Quo

Since most recent farm bills have been budget neutral, lawmakers must shift funding around to support any new programs, rather than spending more money on farm bill programs. In the proposed House farm bill, that included funding for popular conservation programs.

To create a new subprogram for states and tribes to improve soil health, lawmakers added it under the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP). This would pull $100 million from the program, which is popular among farmers, Lavender said.

In last week’s committee debate, lawmakers disagreed over the reallocation of more than $1 billion over the next several years from the Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) to other conservation programs. An aide to House Agriculture Committee Republicans pointed out that the long-term funding outlook for EQIP is still strong, and the proposed funding is higher than previous years.

In last week’s committee debate, lawmakers disagreed over the reallocation of more than $1 billion over the next several years from the Environmental Quality Incentive Program.

But conservation experts note that EQIP is oversubscribed, meaning more farmers are applying for the program than funding allows. Short-term cuts to EQIP funding could hit farmers at a time when they are already facing economic stressors from tariffs and high costs, Jonathan Coppess, a former administrator of the Farm Service Agency, said ahead of the House markup.

“It is significant for an oversubscribed program in the middle of an economically difficult time,” Coppess said of the proposal.

The bill’s conservation and research section also boosts precision agriculture technologies, by adding it as a qualifying practice for popular conservation programs.

But because these practices are often more expensive than other conservation methods and don’t apply to all farming operations, Lavender said, the proposal gives “too much priority to something that doesn’t have the chance to benefit everyone.”

Partisan Rifts Over Food Programs

While seven Democrats backed the bill in committee, it’s not clear whether it has enough bipartisan support to pass a full House vote. Even Democrats that wound up voting for the bill criticized it for its nutrition title.

The biggest issues with the proposal among Democrats were the previous cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the OBBB. Throughout the debate, members introduced amendments to roll back some of the policy changes in the OBBB, including cost-shifts to the states and additional work requirements, but the committee rejected these amendments.

“Every member of the House Agriculture Committee represents families with low incomes who need SNAP to afford groceries, and it is deeply disappointing to see all Republicans and some Democratic members of the House Agriculture Committee vote to advance a bill that fails to deliver for these constituents,” Ty Jones Cox, vice president for food assistance at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said in a statement.

Contentious Provisions and ‘Poison Pills’

Other “poison pill” sections made it into the final version of the farm bill that Ranking Member Angie Craig (D-Minnesota) said made the package unpalatable.

That includes language in the bill that will make it harder for individuals to sue pesticide companies with claims their products cause cancer or other illnesses. Instead, the new bill would create a uniform national pesticide label, preempting state or local mandates for stricter labeling. This could protect pesticide manufacturers from lawsuits related to labeling, even as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear a case over warning labels on the weedkiller Roundup.

The committee rejected an amendment from Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) that would have stripped this language from the bill.

Another clash during the markup focused on language that would preempt state laws focused on animal welfare requirements, such as California’s Proposition 12.

Representative Jim Costa (D-California) introduced an amendment to strip out this language, saying that because California producers have already made investments to come into compliance with animal welfare laws like Proposition 12, the farm bill language would “invalidate” those, along with the intention of California voters.

Costa later withdrew his amendment, saying he would continue working on the issue with Senate counterparts, and the proposal ultimately made it into the House farm bill.

Restrictions on Federal Incentives for Solar Energy

The new farm bill reflects the Trump administration’s efforts to curb solar installations. It limits USDA incentives for projects that install large solar panels on prime farmland.

Last year, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the agency would block agency dollars from being used to build solar panels on viable farmland. This plan largely targets the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), a program that helps farmers lower energy costs through different technologies.

In recent years, solar has been the most popular type of REAP project, and many of these would lose funding under the USDA’s new directive and the farm bill language. When Rollins announced the policy last year, experts said this could create more uncertainty around the program.

On top of the incentive limits, the draft farm bill would require the USDA to study the impacts of solar installations on prime farmland.

While an amendment to remove the solar provision of the bill was withdrawn, it sparked debate among lawmakers over the role of solar on farmland. Republicans defended the restrictions on solar, arguing that large-scale solar is taking prime farmland out of production. They also noted that the language does not prohibit solar on farmland, but removes federal incentives for this transition.

Representative Nikki Budzinski (D-Illinois), who introduced an amendment on this provision, rebuffed these claims and said solar projects only account for 3 percent of agricultural land loss.

Other Democrats pointed out that farmers are already struggling with overall high costs, including energy prices. They argued this provision would limit the choices of farmers and rural communities and their ability to lower costs.

Senate Agriculture Committee leaders have said they will debate their own version of the farm bill in coming months. Lavender said groups like NSAC will continue to work with lawmakers to ensure they understand the full scope of needs in farm country and put adequate money behind programs.

But given the upcoming midterms, razor-thin margins in Congress, other legislative priorities, and now a conflict with Iran, it’s unclear how much legislative attention will focus on the farm bill.

“I know we have folks on both sides of Congress, on both sides of the aisle who are eager to get one done,” Lavender said. “But there’s no fooling that there’s a long way to go.”

The post House Farm Bill Doesn’t Address Farm Challenges, Critics Warn appeared first on Civil Eats.

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