By RACHEL LANE

D.C. Correspondent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The 2018 farm bill has passed, and there will be no disruption in services from expiration of the last bill on Sept. 30, if President Trump signs the new bill this week, as was expected at press time. It will be the first farm bill passed in the same year that the former farm bill expires, since 1990.

The Senate passed the bill 87-13 on Dec. 11 and the House passed it the following day by 369-47 votes. It took five months for the differences in the two bills to be reconciled, and two years’ worth of meetings with industry experts to discuss every title in the bill and what needed to be changed.

The final draft is 807 pages long. While the core of the farm bill remains in place, there have been changes.

The 2014 farm bill was written when the farm economy was doing well, but even before it passed, income on farms had decreased and it has not increased to pre-2014 levels. The 2018 farm bill tries to take into account the new economic environment farmers face.

The dairy industry was not helped by the 2014 farm bill, according to various affected parties. While changes have been made outside of the farm bill program to offer more protections to dairy farmers, the new bill will provide the Dairy Margin Coverage program, which is expected to be more effective for small-scale producers.

Changes in the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) and Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) programs will allow farmers to use the average yields per acre from 2013-17 to update crop payment yields.

More than 30 “orphan” programs expired with the farm bill in September. Unlike the farm bill, the funding for those programs did not continue. Many of those have been added to different titles within the 2018 bill, including the Local Agriculture Market Program and the National Organic Certification Cost-Share Program.

While some of changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, were in the final version of the bill, the controversial work requirement was cut from the legislation. Democrats were opposed to the requirement because it did not allow any flexibility; none voted in favor of the House bill this summer, as a result.

House Agriculture Committee Chair Mike Conaway (R-Texas) said while the work requirements didn’t make it into the bill, 18 of the changes to SNAP in the House version did. Some of those focus on allowing participants to have a savings account and a car worth $12,000 without being penalized. Another change is focused on eliminating people from receiving benefits in two states.

The conservation programs, another area of the farm bill that face controversy, remained relatively unchanged. The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) will remain two separate programs. Conservation Reserve Program acreage will be increased.

Not accepted into the bill were provisions to ease restrictions on pesticides.

After requests for years from the industry, a foot-and-mouth disease vaccine bank has been added to the farm bill, as well as $300 million in permanent mandatory baseline funding for new animal health programs.

Another big change in this farm bill is expanded approval, with restrictions, for hemp research, cultivation and production. It removes the plant from the federal Controlled Substances Act.

During an interview last week, Conway said the changes to the farm bill, once signed, are effective immediately, but will take some time to actually implement and get into place. The vaccine bank, for example, still has many questions that need to be answered, such as what to do with vaccinations that are about to expire.

Conaway said the House vote to approve was the highest for any farm bill; the previous record was 319. “I’m proud of the work. I made compromises and (the Senate) made compromises,” he said.

House Ag Ranking Member Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) said the bill provides certainty to farmers and ranchers.

“The bill will provide expanded, affordable coverage options and more flexibility for dairy farmers. It also provides permanent mandatory funding for several of the programs,” he said. “These include the Local Food & Farmers Market Promotion Program, value-added producer grants, the BFRDP (Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development) program, organic research and the Section 2501 Outreach Program.”

As a result of the midterm elections in November, Peterson will become the new chair of the committee in January, a position he has held in the past as well.

In the meantime, Conaway said he thinks farm-related work is done for the year – passing the farm bill was likely his last official act as chair of the committee.