OAK BROOK, Ill. – The chances of Congress passing a 2023 farm bill in the near term are complicated in part by different priorities for Republicans and Democrats, and some disagreement among Republicans, according to a speaker during the latest Farm Foundation Forum.

It typically takes more than one year and one Congress to get a farm bill done, said Jonathan Coppess, director of the Gardner Agriculture Policy Program, and associate professor of law and policy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He joined several speakers during the Sept. 26 forum to discuss what to expect from the 2023 farm bill.

The outlook for the farm bill remains cloudy, he said, adding, “the prospects of which (for a bill) are in serious doubt. We also don’t quite know what’s over the edge. That could be a very steep cliff or just a little drop off.”

On the House side, a far right-faction of legislators, particularly in the Republican caucus, is holding things up, he explained. They’re holding up appropriations bills and are currently threatening the continuing resolution, Coppess stated. This goes back to the debt limit fight in the spring, he said.

In the Senate, he said there’s a more contained set of issues within the agricultural committee and within the farm policy sector. The real question is around price triggered payment programs to farmers known as the price loss coverage program, and those fixed reference prices that are in the statute, he said. When prices fall below it, those trigger a payment.

There’s been some demand for increasing those reference prices. “That comes with a significant cost and a significant set of political challenges under current budgeting rules,” Coppess said. “That is largely due to the requirement that the committees reauthorize the farm bill within the 10-year budget projections the Congressional Budget Office provides. If they increase spending in any area, they have to cut something, they have to reduce spending elsewhere to offset those increases.”

The 2018 farm bill programs and authorities generally expired at the end of fiscal year 2023, which was Sept. 30, 2023, said Emily Pliscott, economist with the U.S. House of Representatives agriculture committee for ranking member David Scott (D-Ga.). The authority for Title I crop commodity and dairy support programs runs out with the 2023 crop year, which ends Dec. 31, 2023.

Title II conservation programs were extended through fiscal year 2031 as a part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), she said. Even without the passage of a new farm bill by Sept. 30, those programs will continue to run as normal, Pliscott stated.

The Federal Crop Insurance Act has a permanent authorization and funding, and does not expire, she said. The Food and Nutrition Act, which authorizes SNAP, was authorized through fiscal year 2023, but the funding for SNAP is considered a mandatory appropriation, Pliscott said. If there is an appropriations bill, either full year or a continuing resolution, in place, the program will continue to operate, she said.

The IRA added more than $18 billion in funding for existing farm bill conservation programs, she said. The act added $8.45 billion to the Environmental Quality Incentives Program; $4.95 billion to the Regional Conservation Partnership Program; $3.25 billion to the Conservation Stewardship Program; and $1.4 billion to the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program.

“While we’re having conversations about the possibility of injecting that IRA funding into Title II of the farm bill to establish permanent baseline and be able to turn a one-time investment into something longer term, our members are also very determined and drawing a red line in the sand that this funding needs to stay in the conservation space,” Pliscott said.

Inflation on farm production expenses is one of the top concerns farmers mentioned during farm bill listening sessions across the country, said John Newton, chief economist with the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry for ranking member John Boozman (R-Ark.).

Since the last farm bill, farm production expenses have increased by $114 billion, Newton noted.

“It’s every single category that farmers are paying,” he explained. “They’re paying more for fertilizer (up 59 percent), paying more for livestock feed (55 percent), paying more for diesel fuel (40 percent), paying more for labor (23 percent), paying more for pesticides (38 percent). Interest rates are going up at a rapid rate right now. That impacts farmers, impacts their cost of borrowing.”

Farmers are saying that farm production expenses are very burdensome, Newton said, adding that while input costs remain high, commodity prices are falling.

The first farm bill as we recognize it was the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, Coppess said.

“One of the main political strengths of any farm bill is really this coalition that is formed over time,” he noted. “We’re looking at 90 years of history around this and experience around this. I think that’s probably an important point to keep in mind. It’s not always been smooth sailing but it certainly has been an impressive historical run.”

The coalition was built over several decades, Coppess said. Farm interest groups came together in the 1920s. By the 1960s and 1970s, the food assistance side was added. The coalition was complete in 1985 by making permanent authorizations for conservation programs, he said.