12/19/24 UPDATE: It is being reported that the bipartisan funding bill has fallen through, creating a major hurdle to reaching 12/20/24 deadline to pass a spending bill. If Congress doesn’t agree on a new spending bill before Friday evening, the federal government will likely shutdown beginning on Saturday.
On December 17th, House leaders shared that they have struck a stopgap spending deal to fund the federal government through March 14, 2025. House voting will take place at 5pm ET on December 18th. Over the weekend, conversations had broken down over economic aid for our nation’s farmers and conservation funding for climate. Fortunately, the deal reportedly includes an extension of the Farm Bill through the current fiscal year ending September 30, 2025, as well as $10 billion in agricultural aid, and $100 billion in disaster aid, including for communities impacted by hurricanes Helene and Milton.
The National Young Farmers Coalition (Young Farmers) is calling on lawmakers to include critical funding for climate mitigation and disaster relief, conservation programs, and necessary land access provisions to keep land in farming. Further, we urge drafters to ensure economic aid for farmers is based upon revenue and available to small, medium, and diversified operations.
We are eager to see Congress take action this week to lessen widespread economic harm across our food and agriculture systems and in disaster-affected areas. At the same time, crisis legislation is generally temporary and inadequately matched to systemic problems with long histories. Further, we are deeply disappointed as this congressional cycle comes to a close, and as we look to the many imminent changes in leadership, that Congress has collectively failed to rise to the moment to meaningfully address critical needs for secure land access and tenure for young farmers.
This new generation of farmers and ranchers have so consistently and persuasively called for a Farm Bill that invests in the success and wellness of our food and agriculture systems and the people who power them. We won’t see a bill like that on the floor this year.
“We sincerely hope that Congress will find a path to passage and enactment of a year-end bill to stabilize our government and agricultural sector and to bring aid to those desperately in need of it,” said David Howard, Policy Development Director at Young Farmers. “We also look forward to working with leaders in Congress and the incoming administration to creatively and meaningfully address the needs of the people stewarding our farm and food systems and strengthening the security of those systems and thus our national security.”
Farm Bill and annual budget discussions have generally been bound by austere budgeting strategies and challenging political dynamics, which means that those negotiations have never matched the scope and cost of the foundational climate, land, and credit access challenges confronting this new generation of farmers. While there are many voices across our food and farming systems, it is hard to find anyone who doesn’t acknowledge the real and compounding impacts of land, credit, and climate challenges. Yet we are again faced with austere choices between the most critical and overdue macro economic needs for relief and certainty, and thoughtful and systemic investment in ensuring the future of American agriculture.
“Without meaningfully addressing the hurdles young farmers face in reaching secure land ownership through the next Farm Bill, any spending package will only be a bandage over a deep economic farm crisis looming,” said Erin Foster West, Policy Campaigns Director at Young Farmers.
Congress has an opportunity right now to include $14 billion in Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) climate conservation funding in the Farm Bill budget, and to retain the climate sideboards of the IRA, in order to support farmers and ranchers in implementing solutions to the climate emergency. Farmers desperately need Congress to invest in rebuilding efforts following this year’s record breaking hurricane season and other natural disasters which have intensified due to climate change. Farms of all sizes need immediate support to recover from the impacts of recent natural disasters and to implement much needed climate solutions, and Congress must meet this need by offering revenue-based assistance options.
Congress must act now to prioritize the funding needs of young farmers in order to ensure the safety and viability of the future of agriculture.