Lessons for the 119th Congress as They Inherit an Unfinished Farm Bill

The 118th Congress spent the final weeks of 2024 up against yet another farm bill count down. After weeks of “will they-won’t they” speculation as to whether Congress would hammer out a new farm bill authorization, lawmakers opted to pass an extension through the end of 2025.

The farm bill extension was tacked on to a year-end government funding deal, but the process was far from smooth. Contending with opposition from Elon Musk and several eleventh hour demands from President elect Donald Trump, Republicans in Congress abandoned a bipartisan deal for the farm bill extension that would have shored up funding for key agricultural research programs, like the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, for the next year. This funding, among other previously negotiated priorities, was ultimately cut from the deal as another round of negotiations ensued.

The pared down final agreement extended the bulk of farm programs, provided $10 billion in economic assistance for farmers, and avoided a looming ‘dairy cliff.’ However, the extension did little to address calls from farm groups, agricultural research supporters, anti-hunger organizations, and environmental advocates to authorize a new farm bill that actually improves, rather than extends, existing U.S. food and agriculture policy.

The farm bill is a 5-year package of legislation that has historically relied on a bipartisan coalition in Congress to set national farm and nutrition policy. The 2018 farm bill, signed by then-President Donald Trump, expired in 2023. As 2023 came to a close, neither the House or Senate Agriculture Committees had put pen to paper yet on new farm bill drafts. In need of more time for committee negotiations, floor time for votes, and eventual conferencing between the Republican-controlled House and Democrat-controlled Senate, Congress passed a one-year farm bill extension to kick the deadline into 2024.

Months passed and farm bill priorities for both parties began to take shape. The House passed their version of a new farm bill out of the Agriculture Committee with support from Republican Committee members, as well as a few Democrats. Meanwhile, Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow released a comprehensive framework outlining her vision for the next farm bill. Months later, Stabenow released the full 1,000+ page bill with so little time left on the Congressional calendar in 2024 that it could hardly be considered a meaningful step toward compromise. Given persistent disagreement on issues like conservation program funding for climate-smart practices, the cost of raising reference prices, and cost-saving measures that influence nutrition programs like SNAP, there was little chance a farm bill would get done in 2024.

The 119th Congress is expected to hit the ground running with a slew of legislative priorities, including funding the government and using reconciliation to extend the 2017 tax cuts before they expire. Farm bill negotiations are likely to move to the back burner, giving the agriculture committees, lawmakers, and advocates the opportunity to reset, react to the Trump administration’s emerging agriculture priorities, and chart a path forward for a new farm bill in a Republican-controlled Congress.

While Republicans hold the majority, both chambers will still need a handful of Democrats to pass legislation, including a new farm bill. With this in mind, lawmakers should focus their attention on advancing bipartisan farm bill priorities that will be durable enough to survive future shifts in political power. These include bolstering federal research investments and targeted efforts to better deploy technology-driven innovations.

Spend Now, Save Later

Increasing funding for agricultural innovation and R&D remains crucial. As negotiations move forward into next year, lawmakers must heavily weigh the importance of funding a robust research title in the next farm bill.

One significant opportunity Congress has to invest in agricultural R&D in the farm bill is to increase funding for the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR). FFAR is a vital source of funding for research and development in food and agriculture. Over the last 10 years since its establishment, FFAR has leveraged $385 million allocated by Congress for more than $750 million in agricultural research project investments. By using a public-private partnership model, FFAR brings in matching private sector dollars for every dollar of federal investment.

With most other agricultural research programs at USDA garnering funding through the annual appropriations process, a significant investment in FFAR is the next Congress’ single biggest opportunity to reverse the concerning downward trends in federal research spending. Public agricultural R&D spending is at a 20-year low and producers are facing increased global competition and new threats, such as climate change, geopolitical risk, and supply chain crises.

Taxpayers are paying for these emerging threats as farmers struggle to cope. Along with the one-year farm bill extension, Congress passed a one-time $31 billion in disaster aid and economic assistance assistance for farmers at the close of 2024. Through research programs like FFAR and the yet-to-be-stood-up Advanced Research and Development Authority at USDA, the federal government can equip farmers with new innovations that lower operational costs, improve productivity, and improve resilience in the face of increasingly volatile weather conditions, sudden supply chain disruptions, or new pest and disease pressures.

Doubling research investments is expected to increase U.S. crop and livestock output by 70%, significantly more than the 50% expected with existing R&D investments. This could result in significant government cost savings in the future, reducing the need for ad hoc disaster and economic assistance payouts like those issued in this farm bill extension or during the trade war under the last Trump administration.

Biotech-Enabled American agriculture

The next Congress should lean into bipartisan interest in advancing the American bioeconomy and biomanufacturing sector, including efforts to improve and streamline biotechnology regulations.

The private sector has a strong incentive to invest in research, scale-up, and commercialization of biotechnology technologies and products, as these innovations are designed to introduce novel traits and characteristics favored by producers, processors, and consumers. Investing in a food system where biotechnology techniques, such as genetic modification and gene editing, are widely used to produce agricultural and food products will reap benefits for farmers, consumers, workers, animals, and the environment. However, federal research programs and regulatory pathways play a vital role in enabling these innovations to be developed, marketed, adopted, and ultimately, to generate widespread benefits.

To support the commercialization of biotechnology products with environmental, social, and economic benefits, Congress should pass a farm bill that includes several of the proposals put forward by the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB), including the Agricultural Biotechnology Coordination Act and the Biotechnology Oversight Coordination Act. These bipartisan bills are poised to help to improve the regulation of biotechnology products by reducing duplicative efforts between USDA, EPA, and FDA and by clarifying the regulatory path for smaller biotechnology developers that don’t have experience navigating the regulatory system.

The federal agencies that regulate biotechnology—USDA, EPA, and FDA—have been charged with modernizing the regulatory system for biotechnology and improving coordination thanks to a series of Executive Orders made by President Trump and President Biden. However, establishing a statutory pathway for these improvements could both increase momentum for change as well as ensure this issue remains a permanent priority for future administrations.

Furthermore, authorizing, funding, and establishing a National Synthetic Biology Center, as proposed in another bill endorsed by NSCEB, would accelerate research on several underfunded research areas related to climate mitigation and agricultural productivity. The proposed focus areas of the Center include building on the Agricultural Genome to Phenome Initiative, developing new crop varieties with increased disease and pest resistance, and investing in advanced manufacturing sciences and infrastructure for the use of microorganisms to produce food and agricultural products.

Global Competition and Countering China

Ensuring American agriculture can leverage biotechnology-enabled innovations to address growing challenges facing the farm economy will play a key role in enabling U.S. agriculture to remain competitive in global markets.

Foreign adversaries like China are continually outspending the U.S. when it comes to investing in innovation with potential to shore up food security for a growing population despite limitations of their access to arable land and other natural resources. In 2021, China spent approximately $6.6 billion agricultural R&D, roughly double U.S. public expenditures.

The U.S. remains the world’s top food exporter but other countries are not far behind. Failing to invest in our country’s research efforts will put the country at risk of losing ground to competitors like Brazil, China, and Russia, potentially ceding its $170 billion in annual exports from the farm sector. Brazil, for instance, has quadrupled its soybean exports over the last two decades while U.S. soybean exports have plateaued.

If Republicans are serious about countering China’s influence over global food supply chains and improving the profitability of U.S. farming, Congress needs to place agricultural productivity at the core of the next farm bill. Farm bill investments that enable agricultural research to catalyze the development and adoption of new technologies will prove crucial to maintaining American agricultural leadership on the global stage.