By Seth Millstein for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Farah Siddiqi for Ohio News Connection reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration

In case you missed it amidst the New Year's revelry, Congress failed again last year to pass a new Farm Bill, the critical piece of ongoing legislation that facilitates American farming and agriculture. Unable to agree on a full five-year Farm Bill, Congress instead passed yet another short-term extension of the previous bill in the waning hours of 2024. Now, Congress has nine months to hash out the next Farm Bill - but how will Republican control over the government impact the negotiations?

With majorities in both chambers of Congress, Republicans may be "feeling more emboldened to take a hard-line stance" on their favored Farm Bill policies," Dan Jasper, senior policy advisor at the climate nonprofit Project Drawdown, tells Sentient. But Jasper also says that regardless of what the next Farm Bill includes, Congress's repeated inability to agree on one is a major concern in and of itself, as it throws into question the government's ability to ensure the smooth functioning of America's farming sector.

"Anybody who's connected to this bill has been left in extreme uncertainty," Jasper says. "In a moment of rising prices, inputs are getting more expensive as well, and it just leaves [farmers and producers] in a moment of like, 'can our government even deliver on the most basic things?'"

In other words, the stakes of a new Farm Bill are very high in a number of ways, some of which are more immediately apparent than others.

Why the Farm Bill Matters

The Farm Bill is an enormous package of legislation that undergirds America's farming sector. It touches on a wide variety of different policies relating to food, including the federal food stamps program (SNAP), crop insurance, farm subsidies, USDA conservation programs, animal health, disaster preparedness and more.

In theory, the Farm Bill is renewed every five years. In practice, lawmakers often miss that deadline, and have to pass short-term extensions while they hammer out a long-term bill that enough of them agree on.

The last time Congress passed a full, five-year Farm Bill was in 2018. That bill expired in 2023, but Democrats and Republicans couldn't agree on a new one before it did, and so they passed a temporary extension of the 2018 bill in November 2023, and another in the last month of last year.

These Farm Bill extensions last for a year...sort of. Lawmakers and the media have both referred to them as a "one-year extension," but it's actually more complicated than that, because some provisions of the Farm Bill expire earlier than others, and some don't really expire at all. But more on that later. For now, Republicans control both chambers of Congress and the White House, and that will have an impact on the negotiations.

What Happens Next With the Farm Bill?

The optimal scenario would be for lawmakers to pass a new Farm Bill in 2025 that lasts for the next five years. This would be good for lawmakers, as it means they wouldn't have to negotiate another Farm Bill until 2030, and for farmers, as it would provide them with a sense of consistency over the next five years.

This is a point Jasper returned to several times; the amount of sheer uncertainty farmers face when the Farm Bill is stuck in purgatory like this. Farmers rely on a host of government services to run their businesses, from crop insurance and conservation programs to price supports and research grants, and if they aren't sure how or when these programs will continue, it becomes more difficult for them to plan for the future.

"It just leaves them in a moment of like, 'Can our government even deliver on the most basic things?'" Jasper tells Sentient. Even with an extension, he says, "it's still going to lead farmers in limbo, and it's really going to further erode trust in our government. Which is already a problem, but when it comes to farmers, and basic food security, that's a huge problem."

How Will the Last Election Impact the Next Farm Bill?

Republicans captured both the White House and the Senate in the 2024 election, giving them full control of the government in 2025.

Though the exact impact on Farm Bill negotiations is unclear, the next session will see Congressional Republicans with greater freedom to include their own favored policies, and fewer checks on their ability to do so.

This doesn't necessarily mean they'll have carte blanche to do whatever they want, however. Republicans have a razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives, so they can only afford to lose a few of their own members' votes before having to rely on Democrats to pass legislation.

This dynamic, which was true during the last session of Congress as well, means that Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the previous House minority leader, has an unusual amount of power in the chamber - so much so that he's been referred to as "the shadow Speaker" and "the most powerful person in Congress."

Moreover, Republicans don't agree on everything. For instance, there's significant disagreement in the GOP regarding Proposition 12, the California law that forbids the sale of certain animal products that were produced using extreme confinement. While many Republicans want to repeal Proposition 12 through the Farm Bill, there are a handful of Republican holdouts in the House who, if they held firm, could single-handedly torpedo any attempt to scrap the law.

Similarly, any Farm Bill will also need the approval of President-elect Donald Trump, who largely hasn't indicated which Farm Bill policies he supports or opposes.

Jasper also believes the next Farm Bill could - and should - contain some small modifications.

"It would probably need some updates to provide adequate support at this point," Jasper tells Sentient. "Given that they've had so much time here, they're basically on borrowed time. [USDA programs] need updates."

For instance, a lot of the USDA's programs are too popular, meaning that more farmers want to enroll in them than funding will allow for. Jasper cites conservation management programs, which have been chronically underfunded since at least 2010, and include the new climate-smart initiatives funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, as an example.

"The demand is growing increasingly, and the supply just isn't there," Jasper says. "There's a lot of interest in those programs, and so my guess is that some of those updates would need at least a nominal increase to keep up with inflation, and that kind of stuff."

Failing to Pass a Farm Bill Would Bring Chaos

One of the stranger aspects of the Farm Bill is that, in addition to funding policies that people do want, it also suspends the implementation of policies that people don't want.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Congress passed several farm-related policies to address economic uncertainty in the wake of the Great Depression and World War II. These policies, which are often referred to as "permanent law," were meant to stabilize farmers' income when commodity prices dropped below a certain level. Because they were based on pre-1920s information, they're now hopelessly obsolete.

Rather than repeal these laws entirely, however, Congress simply suspends them every five years in the Farm Bill. If Congress were to let the Farm Bill expire without passing a new version or an extension, these policies would suddenly kick in - and wreak economic havoc on the agriculture sector if enacted today, according to USDA analyses.

Congress defused this threat in the short-term when it passed a second extension of the 2018 bill in December 2024. But the threat will return in September, when this most recent extension is set to expire.

On the flipside, there are a couple of major policies in the Farm Bill that won't expire even if the Farm Bill does. SNAP funding, crop insurance and a handful of disaster programs will remain in place regardless of what happens with the Farm Bill.

To be clear, that doesn't mean they'll be functioning at full capacity. The American economy has changed dramatically since 2018, and the current funding levels for these programs doesn't reflect that. A new Farm Bill would be required to increase their funding, but not to simply keep them running.

The Bottom Line

In Jasper's eyes, the stakes of the Farm Bill extend beyond one specific program or initiative. For better or worse, the production of food in America is inextricably intertwined with federal policy, and when the continued functioning of those policies is destabilized, so are our food systems themselves. It's not a big leap from that to food insecurity, and Jasper says that high levels of food insecurity should worry everyone.

"Typically, if people are already malnourished and food security worsens, conflict doesn't erupt, because it's hard to fight on an empty belly," Jasper says. "But when people are in the middle, and food security starts to drop, that's when you get conflict."

Jasper's observation echoes that of political theorist Eric Hoffer, who noted that people living in extreme poverty rarely join violent revolutions, as they're too preoccupied with finding their next meal. It's when people are in a transitional period between security and insecurity that they become susceptible to extremism, which is already on the rise in the U.S.

"It relates to the political divisions that we're seeing," Jasper says. "It relates to some of the violence that we're now seeing erupt. This is important, and it's important in a big way that people do not understand."


Seth Millstein wrote this article for Sentient.


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As Florida emergency response officials conduct their annual statewide hurricane preparedness exercise this week, emergency managers are grappling with shifting federal disaster recovery policies and uncertainty about the future of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

David Richardson, FEMA's acting chief, said he intends to move more disaster-recovery responsibilities to the states, while President Donald Trump has floated "getting rid of" FEMA altogether.

David Merrick, emergency management program director at Florida State University, said it leaves a lot of uncertainty around support and rapid response.

"We don't know exactly what it's going to look like," Merrick acknowledged. "In places like Florida that has such a well-developed emergency management enterprise at all levels of government, I think we're going to be in a better shape than maybe some other states or territories, maybe. That's the only silver lining for us at this point."

This week's tabletop exercises and drills, which run ahead of the June 1 start of hurricane season, bring together state and local agencies to practice response coordination. This year, discussions are shadowed by federal proposals to overhaul disaster recovery, leaving officials focused on shoring up state and local resources.

Merrick takes comfort in a quote he often hears: FEMA has long held disaster response is "locally executed, state managed and federally supported."

"Which means the responsibility is at the local and then the state level to do everything and the federal role is really just support that with funding and grants and resources that we can't get access to," Merrick outlined. "No one believes that the federal support is going to vanish overnight. "

Florida still depends heavily on FEMA resources, from disaster declarations unlocking federal funds to covering 75% of recovery project costs. The timing is critical, with forecasters predicting 17 or more named storms this season.


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Congress is set to claw back $6.5 billion in climate-related Inflation Reduction Act investments to help pay for the Trump administration's priorities, including tax cuts and mass deportations but critics said the move would cost jobs and blunt the administration's goal of energy dominance by reducing domestic energy sources.

Saul Levin, campaigns and political director for the Green New Deal Network, said if passed, $580 million in funding would disappear from Colorado's 4th district, represented by Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.

"In the 3rd District, which is represented by (Republican) Jeff Hurd, there's an estimated $1 billion that has been invested through the IRA," Levin pointed out. "Regardless of people's exact politics, most people don't want that money to be pulled out."

The House Ways and Means panel plans to revoke tax credits for electric vehicle purchases and home energy efficiency improvements, according to Reuters. The House Energy panel's plan would cut funding for limiting methane emissions at oil and gas facilities, reporting greenhouse gas emissions, reducing air pollution near schools and expanding electric grids to bring wind and solar power to homes and businesses.

Philip Rossetti, senior energy fellow for the think tank R Street Institute, believes the subsidies for clean energy were too costly but did reduce climate pollution. He added the investments will need better transmission infrastructure to be effective.

"Princeton University did a study on this, and they estimated that about 80% of the emission benefits in the electric power sector from the IRA subsidies are locked behind additional transmission infrastructure buildout," Rossetti explained.

President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to put an end to the Biden-Harris administration's efforts to mitigate climate change. Levin noted current proposals in Congress do not cut direct subsidies to fossil fuel companies.

"Even though for decades it's been really clear that there's a huge public health risk to using fossil fuels, we're still giving out subsidies to the tune of $170 billion to oil and gas companies and CEOs," Levin emphasized.


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After a devastating tornado ripped through southeastern Kentucky last Friday and Saturday, Gov. Andy Beshear asked for a federal disaster declaration and has spoken to the heads of U.S. Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

At a news conference over the weekend, Beshear said the current death toll in Southern Kentucky is 18, with victims ranging in age from 25-76. Seventeen of the deaths were in Laurel County and one in Pulaski County. He noted he expected the number to rise.

"Among those killed was major Roger Leslie Leatherman of the Laurel County Fire Department," Beshear reported. "The major was in public service for 39 years, and he died doing what first responders do every day, risking his own life for our safety."

Leatherman was fatally injured while responding to the tornado, according to the Laurel County Fire Department. Beshear has declared a state of emergency and activated price-gouging laws to keep costs down during the crisis. People who know of someone who is missing or unaccounted for in the regions hit by the tornado should speak to authorities at Faith Assembly of God Church in London.

Beshear also urged the need for preparedness, recommending Kentuckians equip themselves with emergency weather radios.

"I've now been governor for at least 14 federally-declared disasters, 13 of them weather, and this is one of the worst," Beshear emphasized. "It's one of the worst in terms of the loss of human life. It's one of the worst in terms of damage."

The disaster comes on the heels of nationwide staffing cuts to the National Weather Service, which have left at least four offices, including one in Jackson, Kentucky, without an overnight forecaster. The Weather Service has 122 forecasting offices operating around the clock to track regional weather patterns.

This story is based on original reporting by Liam Niemeyer and Jamie Lucke for the Kentucky Lantern.


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