A recent CRS report examining farm bill reauthorization reveals a historic fracture in how Congress legislates agricultural policy, with profound implications for farming communities, nutrition assistance recipients, and the administration's ability to advance a comprehensive food and agriculture agenda.

Why It Matters

The farm bill is a comprehensive omnibus law covering agricultural commodities, nutrition assistance, crop insurance, conservation, trade, rural development, and other food and agriculture programs. Congress typically reauthorizes it approximately every five years, but the current reauthorization period is the longest on record. The administration's decision to embed major farm policy changes in a 2025 budget reconciliation law has upended the traditional legislative process and fractured a coalition that has held since 1977.

The reconciliation law locked in $187 billion in SNAP cuts through 2031 before the 2026 farm bill was finalized. This breaks the historical bipartisan coalition between farm-state commodity interests and urban nutrition advocates that has underpinned every farm bill since 1977. The 2026 Farm Bill does not reverse these cuts, cementing a new baseline that fundamentally reshapes the legislative landscape.

The Big Picture

In 2025, Congress used the FY2025 budget reconciliation process to amend selected farm bill programs with mandatory spending, including farm commodities, nutrition, crop insurance, and conservation, covering crop years 2025 through 2031. Reconciliation rules prohibited changes to programs without a direct mandatory spending budgetary effect, leaving many farm bill programs funded through discretionary appropriations unaddressed and facing expiration.

The Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 was introduced on February 13, 2026 and passed the House on April 30, 2026. The Senate Agriculture Committee has not marked up a farm bill during the 119th Congress, and no Senate floor action on a farm bill has occurred. The Senate Agriculture Committee chairman released a discussion draft titled "Farm Bill 2.0" on June 23.

The current farm bill reauthorization is the first partially completed by using budget reconciliation. By embedding farm policy in reconciliation outside the traditional farm bill process, the administration has set a novel and potentially destabilizing precedent, as prior administrations consistently used the farm bill vehicle itself for these policy decisions. Policy for crop years 2026-2031 is partially covered by a 2025 budget reconciliation law.

The 2026 Farm Bill moves Food for Peace from USAID to USDA and requires that at least 50 percent of Food for Peace funds go to U.S. commodities and U.S.-flagged ocean transport. It also doubles Market Access Program funding to over $400 million annually and extends the Conservation Reserve Program through 2031, expanding enrollment eligibility in the process.

The Bottom Line

The Senate has not acted, meaning the administration faces a divided legislative path with the House having moved forward while the Senate remains at the discussion-draft stage. Discretionary programs left out of reconciliation remain expired or at risk, creating pressure on the administration and Congress to complete a full farm bill reauthorization. Extensions of farm bills do not update programs for inflation, changing conditions, or evolving policy needs. When a farm bill expires without replacement or extension, permanent law—inactive, pre-1950s statutes—automatically reverts, with dairy the first commodity affected as its crop year begins January 1.

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