Republicans know they have to do something for farmers, both financially and politically. But the traditional way of delivering that relief — through a bipartisan farm bill — is running into some new partisan obstacles.
For decades, the farm bill has relied on a simple bargain: Republicans get aid for the farmers they largely represent, and Democrats get nutrition assistance for the voters who send them to Congress. That alliance — oversimplified as it may be — has helped the two parties resolve their differences and pass a farm bill every five years or so.
But now, the GOP is reckoning with the possibility that last year’s massive cuts to food assistance have fractured that coalition — and their attempts to deliver agricultural aid through reconciliation may be removing some of the political pressure to pass a long-awaited farm bill ahead of the midterms.
Farmer advocacy groups warn the result could be a farm bill that is simultaneously more urgent for the agricultural industry and more difficult for Congress to pass.
“The reconciliation bill last year did that big steep cut to nutrition programs, and it made boosts to the farm safety net — that pitted nutrition interests against farm interests in a way that we haven’t seen,” Mike Stranz, the vice president of advocacy at the National Farmers Union, told MS NOW. “It also took some of the wind out of the sails, it seems, for getting the overall full farm bill.”
Republicans want to supply $12 billion in direct relief for farmers through a third reconciliation bill, which only needs a simple majority to pass. But Stranz said separating out that money from the farm bill has undermined “the political drive” to pass legislation that includes long-sought policy reforms, like allowing permanent year-round sales of biodiesel fuel and country of origin labeling for beef.
As one Iowa farmer, John Clayton, put it to MS NOW, the payouts offered in reconciliation are just a Band-Aid for problems that the farm bill is supposed to address more permanently.
“You give some money to the farmers today — what about tomorrow?” Clayton said. “We’re still stuck in the same dilemma. You’ve temporarily helped us, but you haven’t solved the problem.”
The push to deliver the farm bill comes as Republicans are feeling increased political pressure ahead of the midterms. Farmers are facing higher costs and smaller profits across much of the country. A recent Fox News poll found that the president’s approval rating among rural voters — nearly two-thirds of whom voted for President Donald Trump in 2024 — had fallen to 44%, seven points lower than in June.
Although many farmers were struggling before Trump’s second term, the war in Iran has only made things harder, increasing the cost of fuel and fertilizer. Foreign tariffs have also reduced exports and imported beef has put additional pressure on cattle ranchers. Farm bankruptcies surged nearly 46% last year and hit a six-year high in April.
“This system — the current farm program system — has failed the American farmer, and it’s failing the American people,” Joe Maxwell, co–founder of nonpartisan agricultural watchdog Farm Action, told MS NOW.
The political bargain that once helped move the farm bill is now threatening to sink it — and congressional Democrats don’t intend to let Republicans forget it.
The decision in the 1960s to lump agriculture and nutrition programs together was intended to motivate Democrats to engage with the farm bill. During last year’s reconciliation debate, however, Republicans cut Democrats out of the conversation when they slashed $187 billion in federal spending from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — a program that’s usually handled in the farm bill.
Since last year’s reconciliation made changes to eligibility requirements, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that SNAP enrollment has fallen by more than 4.5 million people.
“We want to support the farm bill. I certainly do,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said during an Aug. 6 markup of the bill. “But I want to make sure that I’m fair to my state and fair to the people who are receiving SNAP benefits who are being disadvantaged.”
Democrats want to give states with high error rates — a measurement of improper payments — two years to fix how they administer their SNAP programs before they are forced to absorb costs or cut benefits altogether. And with Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., missing from the committee, Democrats have some leverage to demand policy changes if Republicans want to advance the bill to the floor.
While Republicans could always add another Republican to the Agriculture Committee, the GOP needs 60 votes to pass the farm bill on the Senate floor anyway.
Senate Agriculture Chairman John Boozman, R-Ark., has therefore offered Democrats a compromise: a one-year delay to some of the error rate cuts.
“I want to be clear: a two-year delay does not have the support of the majority in Congress or of the White House,” Boozman said at the Aug. 6 markup. “The offer before you is the best, and it’s the final offer.”
But Democrats didn’t bite. They blocked the bill from advancing — at least until the committee takes it up again in September.
According to Boozman, Democrats are “holding hostage our farm community.”
But Democrats appear to see little upside to supporting this version of the farm bill, particularly if Republicans intend on delivering aid to farmers in another reconciliation bill anyway.
As the two parties try to find a compromise that can earn approval from both chambers and the White House, farmers are suffering.
And with dwindling prospects of passing a farm bill, Republicans are even more determined to pass direct aid in their latest reconciliation package.
In June, the House passed its framework for a third reconciliation bill, which included $12 billion in agricultural assistance. But that money is also tied to $73 billion in funding for the Iran war and a $10 billion fund to incentivize aspects of the SAVE America Act — a controversial election security bill that President Trump has demanded GOP leaders find a way to pass.
There are plenty of doubts that the GOP can actually pass a third reconciliation bill — a package which lawmakers acknowledge doesn’t do enough for farmers on its own.
Rep. Annie Craig, D-Minn., the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, wrote in an op-ed for MS NOW that Republicans are “scrambling to pass Trump’s remaining policy priorities” and the monetary aid “doesn’t scratch the surface” of addressing the larger economic problems farmers are facing. She said producers are growing frustrated.
“They are tired of the whiplash — of being undercut and then offered relief branded as a donation from the federal government,” Craig wrote. “Farmers don’t want handouts. They want markets. They want healthcare. They want long-term solutions — and so do most Americans.”
Meanwhile, the more intent Republicans become to deliver farm aid through reconciliation, the harder it’s becoming to recreate the political urgency usually needed to pass a farm bill.
“Separate efforts can kind of undermine some of the political oomph — the political drive to get that done,” Stranz said. “We’re seeing that as a problem right now.”
Of course, even if the farm bill were to pass out of the Senate, Maxwell told MS NOW that the current version fails to address the problems farmers have faced since Trump re-entered the Oval Office.
“These farm bills, whether it’s the House version or the Senate version, are really the definition of insanity,” Maxwell told MS NOW. “It’s doing the same thing, preserving the status quo over and over again, expecting a different result.”
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