The once-every-five-year Farm Bill will likely be extended to six years this time around, as Congress seems months away from finding a path forward.
The legislation governs an array of agricultural and food programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP, which Democrats typically want to expand and Republicans want to trim.
Aaron Shier, director of government relations for the National Farmers Union, said SNAP is the nation's most significant anti-hunger program, and the union is eager for Congress to pass a bill to protects and strengthen the program.
"It's very much about those nutrition programs, making sure those nutrition programs remain strong," Shier explained. "The Farm Bill's been described as a 'Swiss Army knife;' there are many different tools to address many different challenges."
Nearly 16% of Illinois's 12.7 million residents are enrolled in SNAP. The current Farm Bill lapsed in October, but most lawmakers consider Jan. 1 as the last possible date for approving a new one. Congress also missed the scheduled Farm Bill approval date in 2012, leading to an extension.
The Farm Bill also encompasses commodities, or basic goods and materials, as well as farm credit, rural development and conservation. Two decades ago, Congress embraced the Conservation Stewardship Program to pay farmers for making soil and water conservation part of their daily operations. In recent farm bills, funding has been cut significantly.
Nonetheless, Shier pointed out his members consider conservation essential to agriculture because at its core, farming is about stewardship.
"That's of our environment, of our climate -- most farmers are great stewards -- they want to be better," Shier stressed. "They need those conservation programs to make sure those conservation measures are affordable."
Environmental advocates want the bill to include more money for climate-smart farming to tackle wide-scale changes caused by global warming, while the GOP is focused on increasing subsidies for three specific Southern crops: peanuts, cotton and rice.
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A group of farmers says government policies need to change to support farms in West Virginia and elsewhere in cultivating foods that will improve Americans' health.
A report from President Donald Trump's "Make America Healthy Again" Commission blames a poor diet as one of the leading causes of childhood chronic disease. However, Joe Maxwell, president of the nonpartisan ag watchdog group Farm Action Fund, said the government's policies are a major contributor to the problem.
"They could shift government food procurement towards healthier foods," he said, "using government dollars and purchasing power to shift the agriculture and food system."
The "MAHA" report cites toxic materials, medical treatments, lifestyle, environment, government policies and food-production techniques as some of the many possible factors that cause chronic childhood diseases.
Farm Action believes ending support for big, corporate agriculture would help other farmers produce healthier foods.
Maxwell said he wants the Trump administration to confront the current system -- in which he said the profits of foreign-owned conglomerates are routinely prioritized over the interests of American farmers and families.
"The president could renegotiate the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement," he said, "and make sure that all beef and pork is labeled as 'Product of the USA.'"
Farm Action is also asking the government to shift subsidies toward healthy food crops such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains and to invest in local and regional food systems to strengthen rural economies and improve access to fresh food.
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By Olivia Herken for the Wisconsin Independent.
Broadcast version by Judith Ruiz-Branch for Wisconsin News Connection reporting for the Wisconsin Independent-Public News Service Collaboration
Every spring, Kat Becker is busy at her farm in north-central Wisconsin, delivering radishes and preparing for the busy vegetable-harvesting months ahead. But ever since President Donald Trump cut funding for a program that connected local farmers with food pantries across the state, she and other Wisconsin farmers have spent this spring being advocates as well.
In March, the Trump administration cut funding for the Wisconsin Local Food Purchase Assistance Program. Launched in 2021 as part of a nationwide effort to support local farmers and address hunger, the program was administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The Wisconsin Farmers Union, the Wisconsin Food Hub Cooperative, and the organic farming nonprofit Marbleseed were partners in the program.
Wisconsin farmers and community leaders said the program was a win-win for all participants, providing stable income to farmers and connecting residents in need with fresh, local produce. It also helped ignite a plan to improve food deserts around the state. Now that the program has been cut, however, it’s leaving farmers and community members who were banking on the funding and food in the lurch.
“It does feel like the momentum around this program is so important to keep going, because everything is planned, and the idea that we would be starting over in a year or two or four is frustrating,” Becker told the Wisconsin Independent.
Terry Parisi runs a small family farm in Stoughton where she raises cattle, grows vegetables, milks goats, and has a flock of chickens, plus a few helpful farm cats and a reliable dog named Joe. Since her husband died, Parisi and her son Franco run the farm. They work hard, but they still need off-farm jobs to make ends meet.
Last year, she received a $10,000 grant from the Local Food Purchase Assistance program in exchange for grass-fed beef. Parisi said selling beef usually involves a lot of hustle and marketing, but this program gave her peace of mind that they had already sold at least half of their herd before the season even started.
“It was very, very sweet to just rest, knowing that I had $10,000 worth of beef sold up front, ordered up front. Because I don’t have a big website and a big marketing tool to sell all of that beef, but we certainly have space to raise it,” Parisi told the Wisconsin Independent.
She was excited about the program because she knows organic food can be expensive, and she felt that it helped their farm connect with the community. “We are so gifted by having this property and feel a really huge responsibility to take care of it in a way that’s going to benefit the environment as well as feed people. So being able to be connected with, even then, just programs that are reaching the kind of community that we want to reach with our beef was really beneficial,” she said.
This year, Parisi couldn’t afford to buy as many cattle, but, after talking with the program partners, she decided to grow and sell sweet potatoes for the food pantries instead. She doubled her order of sweet potato slips over the winter. Then they found out the program had been cancelled.
Parisi was able to cancel her order of seedlings, but not every farmer involved in the program was able to adjust as quickly.
In rural Viola, Rufus Haucke was ready to plant winter squash, kale and peppers, just as he did in 2024 for the LFPA program. Keewaydin Farms, his family’s farm, which he converted from a dairy operation into an organic vegetable farm about 21 years ago, received a $20,000 grant from the program last year that he said contributed to his farm’s growth.
He said he expected the program to be cut after Trump was reelected, so he had been trying to prepare and find ways to pivot.
“We’re still planting some of those same crops, and there’s other markets we can send them into, probably. But we’re just not as certain, I guess. There’s just a level of uncertainty related to where those sales are going to come from,” Haucke said while picking asparagus during a phone interview with the Wisconsin Independent.
Becker had been planning to hire another staff member this year, but decided not to because of the unpredictability. Other farms, she said, planned to invest their grant money in infrastructure projects. Federal policy can be volatile for farmers, Becker said, and it can be hard to run a business and make confident decisions.
While the program provided farmers with stable income, it also benefited their communities, especially rural ones where there is often less access to fresh and healthy food. This year, the LFPA program was about to spark a stronger initiative to improve those food deserts. In previous years, the Wisconsin Food Hub Cooperative distributed all of the produce for the LFPA across the state, but this year, it was going to have local farmers help distribute in their communities, which it hoped would strengthen local relationships between farmers and food banks, schools and grocery stores.
Haucke was slated to be one of the distributors in southwest Wisconsin; between that work and the money he was set to receive for his vegetables, he expected to receive roughly $50,000 from the program, which would have equaled roughly a quarter of his 2024 sales. Without the delivery trucks the groups running the program had rented to distribute produce, he said, farms too small to do their own distribution will be at risk of closing.
“I think it’s hard to describe how significant it is, but this was a major shift in how food pantries were preparing food, and it was a direct economic benefit to these small farms that were in these neighborhoods,” Haucke said. “Even if it was just $20,000 from my farm, I’m still spending that $20,000 in La Farge, in Viola, in these small areas. You can’t state how important that is. Every single penny is important out here.”
Juneau County ranks third in the state in food insecurity, according to Dustin Ladd, a conservationist for the county. He helped the county apply for an LFPA grant, and last year, it received $180,000 to purchase food from 13 local farms, which it distributed to residents at pop-up markets and through at-home meal delivery services.
The program was helping, Ladd said. Over 70% of the food recipients were over 50, and some of their events would draw over 100 families. The program also provided a less-stigmatized option for residents to access free food and gave them more options for fresh foods over the nonperishable options that often fill food pantry shelves.
“It’s a pretty big deal for those families to not have that option,” Ladd said. Testimonials from residents that Gina Laack, director of the Juneau County Aging and Disability Resource Center, shared with the Wisconsin Independent detailed how families used the program to stretch their monthly budgets and include more vegetables and quality meats in their meals.
Farmers and advocates are pushing for other funding to keep the program running. Becker said there are efforts to try to fund it locally or at the state level. She was recently in Washington advocating for food security programs, and Haucke said he’s been reaching out to his representatives. Gov. Tony Evers included funding for a version of the program in his 2025-27 state budget proposal, but Republican state lawmakers cut it in May.
Parisi said programs like LFPA have shown her how important it is to feed people, and without them, families will be left hurting.
“The little tiny bit of money compared to all the rest of the money that gets spent on so much stuff, I feel like it’s a huge disservice to a certain population in our culture that is really going to lose out on this,” she said.
Olivia Herken wrote this article for the Wisconsin Independent.
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A joint effort is helping Wisconsin farmers protect water quality in their communities by learning more about how to prevent manure and fertilizer spills and runoff.
"Nutrient Management Farmer Education" is a collaboration across six counties in northern Wisconsin, with partners from the University of Wisconsin, technical colleges and the Department of Agriculture. It helps farmers properly manage manure and fertilizer applications to optimize crop growth while protecting water sources.
Wayne Gajewski, a dairy farmer in Athens, said one of the biggest benefits is the collaborative aspect, where farmers learn as much from each other as they do from the instructors.
"I think it's a 'win-win'. It's good for farmers, it's good for the environment and it's good for the public in general," Gajewski explained. "Because farmers are trying to be as efficient as they can and without polluting or doing any harm to the environment."
State law requires farmers to develop and follow nutrient management plans to minimize their environmental impact. Gajewski noted the training enables them to create plans independently, reducing reliance on potentially costly external services.
Kirk Langfoss, analyst for the Conservation Planning and Zoning Department in Marathon County, said the program is unique in how it standardizes training in the region, educating about 60 farmers a year and covering about 22,000 acres. He pointed out grants allow them to offer incentives to farmers and help cover their tuition.
"They can get up to $750 reimbursement on soil testing, they can get payments to do manure testing, they commit to between eight and 12 hours a year when it comes to the class," Langfoss outlined. "It reimburses them for their time and makes it worth it."
Agriculture spills have been prevalent across Wisconsin, with one reported last month in Monroe County.
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