Editor’s Note: This is the fourth and final post in a four-part blog series analyzing the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026, which was reported out of the House Agriculture Committee on March 5. The first post provides an overview of the markup process and the bill as a whole. The second post provides a deep dive analysis of the bill’s potential impacts on local and regional food systems. The third post offers an analysis of its impacts on the farm safety net, farms’ ability to access land and capital, and fair competition. This post covers conservation, climate resilience, and sustainable and organic research. 

The past eleven years have been the hottest on record, and for American farmers and ranchers, the effects of climate change continue to pose a severe, even existential, threat. Farmers and farmworkers continue to face unprecedented heat and drought, more intense weather from heavy rains to erratic freezes, increasing pest pressures, and rising hospitalizations and fatalities from heat. In the face of these challenges, significant policy improvements and robust financial investments are critical to ensuring successful farms and a resilient agricultural economy for future generations. 

As the weather becomes more volatile, the need to fund technical assistance, conservation projects, and research that supports farmers in preparing for and bouncing back from extreme events is increasingly urgent. While Americans, more than ever before, recognize the impact of extreme weather on farmers, unfortunately, the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 (FFNSA) fails to fully grasp the challenges and consequently falls short. 

The farm bill should seize the moment by prioritizing long-term solutions that build a resilient future. This includes solutions that improve access to on-farm conservation programs for all farmers who steward our environment and serve our communities, and that prioritize investments into diversified farming systems and agroecological approaches that work with our natural resources, such as agroforestry, organic, and regenerative production systems. While the FFNSA includes some policies that head in the right direction, the bill categorically falls short of the moment. Its shortcomings are especially disappointing given the recent abandonment of targeted support to help farmers deal with the impacts of climate change and increasingly severe weather, USDA’s extreme staffing reduction that weakens its ability to deliver conservation assistance, and the administration’s cancellation and disincentivization of climate research. The following analysis is divided into two primary sections addressing:

• Conservation Programs and Funding
• Research, Education, and Extension Programs

Conservation Programs and Funding

Funding

The FFNSA largely maintains recent investments in conservation programs from 2025’s budget reconciliation bill, which moved the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) climate-smart conservation funding into programs’ permanent baseline budgets. There are, however, two major exceptions.

First, FFNSA siphons off $1 billion in Conservation Stewardship Programs (CSP) funding over 10 years for a new grant program supporting states and Tribes administering soil health programs (Section 2303). While the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) has championed providing federal support for state and Tribal soil health programs, the FFNSA’s iteration of that idea is a non-starter. Currently, only about 53% of farmers applying to CSP have been able to secure contracts. It makes little sense to further stretch already limited and clearly popular resources across new purposes and subprograms. Doing so would ensure that farmers interested in CSP continue to get left behind.

Further, CSP is capable of delivering funds to farmers quickly, as was demonstrated by the speed with which IRA investments flowed through the existing CSP infrastructure within nine months of IRA’s passage. Conversely, brand new programs take time to set up and require procedural steps such as rulemaking before the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) can administer them, which can take years. As the agricultural economy writ large continues to struggle and farmers need all available forms of support right now, it would be a poor decision at this moment in history to disinvest in an existing, successful program that can quickly provide producers with five years of financial support for their ongoing conservation efforts to experiment with a new program. Now is not the time to rob a helpful Peter to pay a new Paul.

Placing a state and Tribal soil health assistance program in CSP makes even less sense, given that other conservation programs, such as the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), are already designed to provide federal support for conservation work led by non-federal partners. NSAC hopes that Congress continues to see the wisdom of authorizing state and Tribal soil health programs, either as a new stand-alone program with its own funding source, as proposed in the Agriculture Resilience Act (ARA), or as part of RCPP as proposed in the Rural Prosperity and Food Security Act in the Senate. NSAC opposes diverting CSP funding for subprograms or initiatives.

The second proposed change to funding is in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). The FFNSA proposes reducing EQIP’s budget authority (BA) by just over $1 billion over the first five years of its 10-year implementation window. This means farmers would experience an immediate cut to EQIP funding in the field, since BA is the total amount of money that NRCS is authorized to spend. When NRCS is fully staffed and there are no administrative disruptions to programs, EQIP often obligates all available funding every year. However, since BA was left intact for the final five years of the budget window, or the “out years”, EQIP’s long-term increased baseline was not reduced in the FFNSA. This means that the next time Congress tinkers with EQIP, whether in a farm bill extension, budget reconciliation, or a full farm bill reauthorization, EQIP’s budget will remain as high as it is today. NSAC strongly supports maintaining a strong long term baseline budget for EQIP, though it questions the wisdom of the proposed reductions in near term BA.

This reduction in EQIP BA appears to be paying for two things: a small list of other conservation programs that also needed funding; and policy reforms across FFNSA’s conservation title (Title II) that are projected to increase outlays for a given program, or were “scored as a cost” by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Starting with smaller conservation programs that receive funding, totals are clearly listed in the text of the FFNSA:

• Conservation Reserve Program – Transition Incentive Program – $50 million
• Conservation Reserve Program – Forest Management Incentive Program = $12 million
• Forest Conservation Easement Program = $240 million
• Feral Swine Eradication & Control Program = $150 million  

Total new baseline authority = $452 million 

This accounts for just under half of the lost EQIP BA. For the CRP TIP program in particular, NSAC is glad to see efforts to find funding for one of the primary tools in Title II of the farm bill for improving land access for beginning producers. Access to land remains one of the most significant challenges for new and beginning producers, and Congress should seek to invest in and improve these tools at every opportunity. However, EQIP can also be a useful tool for beginning producers, who may be making major purchases for the first time, such as buying fencing to support a new rotational grazing business. As such, this again seems like an unnecessary instance of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

For the second source of EQIP BA reductions, the picture is less clear. As of posting, there’s no reliable indicator on which specific provisions increased outlays and therefore drove the reduction in EQIP BA, though it is clear that outlays increased. CBO’s summary cost estimate for the FFNSA showed increased outlays for all major conservation programs, indicating that many policy provisions sought in this bill “cost” money that could otherwise be going to farmers interested in the EQIP program as it exists right now. NSAC strongly encourages Congress to be more transparent regarding trade offs like these, so producers and agricultural stakeholders can make informed choices about the trade offs being proposed.

Precision Agriculture

The FFNSA dramatically increases support for precision agriculture technologies in conservation programs (Section 2202, 2204, 2302). While NSAC recognizes that precision agriculture has demonstrable benefits for some operations, it remains a relatively high-cost conservation solution that does not serve all farmers. Conservation program funding is limited, and providing overly robust support for practices unsuitable for all operations leads to a small set of farms consuming an outsized portion of program resources. This is an irresponsible use of limited government funding, especially when there are size- and scale-neutral management alternatives that serve far more farmers and deliver greater environmental benefits per dollar spent. NSAC calls on Congress to consider a fairer and more balanced approach to supporting precision agriculture in this farm bill.

Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP)

CSP is perhaps the most impactful tool available to address climate change on farms today. The program rewards producers who build holistic conservation systems across their entire operation, investing in new practices and practice permanence over the long term – both of which are necessary to address the climate crisis. CSP is the only conservation program designed to achieve both goals. Unfortunately, the FFNSA proposes some negative changes to CSP.

While proposed diversions of CSP funding are discussed above in the funding section, the FFNSA also proposes creating Supplemental Activity Payments (SAP) for adopting and acquiring precision agriculture technologies through CSP. Currently, CSP only offers SAPs for Resource Conserving Crop Rotations, Improved Resource Conserving Crop Rotations, and Advanced Grazing Management. Each of these three conservation activities represents a holistic approach to improving conservation across an entire operation, either by requiring producers to adopt multiple practice enhancements on the same acres or to pursue ambitious, measurable soil health goals, such as increasing organic matter (OM) over the life of their CSP contract. NRCS offers 150% of a normal activity payment through SAPs for these high level activities because of the increased conservation benefits they create and the additional labor it takes to plan and manage such holistic systems. 

However, purchasing or utilizing precision agriculture technology does not rise to the same level of stewardship as these holistic practices, nor does it require the same level of increased labor. Further, CSP already offers sufficient support for precision agriculture through five separate precision agriculture bundles that compensate producers at 115% of the normal activity payment rate. These bundle payments reflect the value of using precision agriculture technologies in concert with other base conservation practices, and NRCS already has the authority to create additional precision agriculture bundles at any time. Therefore, NSAC opposes FFNSA’s proposal to create additional, outsized payments for precision agriculture in CSP.

Perhaps the most positive change to CSP proposed in the FFNSA, compared to the previous version of the bill, is the codification of a $4,000 minimum payment option. Raising the minimum payment has long been a priority for NSAC to reduce administrative burden and ensure adequate cost share for smaller farms enrolling in the program. NSAC is pleased to see FFNSA adopt our position and create in statute a $4,0000 minimum CSP payment. This mirrors the minimum payment that NRCS began offering to producers in recent years, and would ensure producers will have that option going forward. NSAC strongly supports including this provision in any final farm bill.

Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP)

EQIP is a voluntary conservation program that offers farmers and ranchers financial cost-share and technical assistance to implement conservation practices on working agricultural land. EQIP assistance is available through both a general pool and special initiatives. EQIP’s special initiatives highlight specific practices or natural resources, such as the Organic Initiative, which provides separate funding pools for transitioning and certified organic producers. Beyond the funding reductions discussed above, the FFNSA makes several modifications to EQIP, some of which are deeply concerning.

The most meaningful and problematic changes to EQIP in the FFNSA adjust which practices and farmers stand to gain the most from the program. Once again, the bill plays favorites by offering an excessive cost share – increased to 90% – for acquiring or adopting precision agriculture technology. Current EQIP payments cover 75% of costs associated with planning, design, materials, equipment, installation, labor, management, maintenance, or training needed for conservation activities that involve precision agriculture technologies. Raising the rate to 90% is an unnecessary overinvestment with the potential to exacerbate trends in farmers being turned away from the program due to insufficient funding. Further, individual states can already raise cost share rates for precision agriculture conservation activities if they deem such activities to be among their top 10 priorities for the year (16 USC 3839aa(2)(d)(7)). Therefore, mandating that all states raise cost share rates for precision agriculture to 90% is not only excessive, but it also stands in stark opposition to the locally-led conservation planning process that House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson (R-PA-15) has championed. 

The FFNSA maintains the existing carveout that ensures livestock producers will receive 50% of total EQIP funding during the life of the farm bill. This long standing set aside has led to significant portions of EQIP spending going towards infrastructure practices of questionable environmental value. This is a major loss, as the ARA proposed retargeting two-thirds of this carveout towards sustainable grazing practices, which have been shown to help mitigate climate change and build increased resilience to drought and floods on farms and ranches around the nation.

Additionally, the FFNSA fails to make a series of important improvements to EQIP that were proposed in former Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow’s Rural Prosperity and Food Security Act (RPFSA), leaving in place long standing obstacles barring certain producers and stakeholder groups from meaningful participation in EQIP. The FFNSA fails to create a funding set-aside for small farms, as proposed in the Small Farms Conservation Act (bill #) and the RFPSA, signaling loudly and clearly the FFNSA’s bias toward farmers and ranchers who have amassed a minimum amount of acreage. Similarly, the FFNSA does not add a requirement that NRCS State Technical Advisory Committees consult with Tribes when determining the top 10 priority practices that will receive increased cost share support through EQIP, as proposed in the RPFSA. This leaves in place a barrier for Tribes seeking to ensure EQIP addresses the most pressing natural resource concerns impacting their communities. Finally, FFNSA leaves in place a discriminatory lower payment limit for organic producers accessing EQIP. While it does increase the limit to $200,000, a small step up from the existing $140,000 organic payment limit, the FFNSA still falls well short of providing organic producers with the same payment limit of $450,000 to which all other producers are subject. The RPFSA, on the other hand, would establish equal payment limits for both organic and non-organic producers.

Elsewhere, the FFNSA does make a few changes to EQIP that are not outright harmful. The bill authorizes a producer enrolled in EQIP to receive a loan or loan guarantee through the Conservation Loan Program to cover costs for the same practices on the same land covered by the EQIP contract. Further, FFNSA requires the Secretary to notify producers participating in EQIP that they may be eligible to participate in the Conservation Loan Program. While this policy comes dangerously close to paying for the same conservation practices twice with different pools of public funds, if well implemented, it has the potential to be a more judicious option for providing increased support to producers without building outsized cost share rates into EQIP. NSAC is hopeful that this concept can be refined and improved as the farm bill debate continues.

The FFNSA also addresses the Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) program. CIGs support the development and testing of promising new conservation technologies and approaches with the goal of making them available for use as quickly as possible by farmers and ranchers. In addition to providing funds directly to farmers and ranchers looking to adopt and enhance conservation practices on their land, NRCS also provides CIGs to fund projects that seek to develop and improve access to innovative conservation solutions for farmers and ranchers nationwide through on-farm pilots and demonstration projects. The FFNSA directs the Secretary to use CIGs for the development and evaluation of new and innovative technologies that may be incorporated into Conservation Practice Standards (CPS), including CPS that involve precision agriculture technology. NSAC sees this explicit instruction to use CIGs to improve CPS as positive. It’s a common sense policy that ensures the latest information USDA has on conservation practices is put to use when designing conservation practices on the ground across the country. However, NSAC has reservations about building an overemphasis on precision agriculture technology into conservation programs.

Further, the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (2018 Farm Bill) set aside $37.5 million for each fiscal year for CIG projects that address air quality, an increase from the $25 million annual allocation in the Agricultural Act of 2014 (2014 Farm Bill). The FFNSA preserves this allocation for air quality projects, though NSAC advocated for an increase to $50 million per year. Given the pressing climate crisis, more CIG funds need to be dedicated to addressing air quality concerns, especially if projects will be utilized more consistently to improve CPS under the next farm bill. Such a combination of policies would help build NRCS’ capacity to support farmers in mitigating climate change and building resilience in their operations through all conservation programs offering practice cost share.

Similarly, the 2018 Farm Bill established On-Farm Conservation Innovation Trials (On-Farm Trials), a CIG subprogram, to provide funding directly to partners, who can then offer technical assistance and payments to producers interested in implementing innovative conservation practices on their land. On-Farm Trials support the implementation of innovative approaches that have a positive conservation effect but have not yet been widely adopted by producers. NRCS is authorized to provide $25 million per year for on-farm trials. The FFNSA continues this $25M funding for on-farm conservation innovation trials, a slim silver lining given the need for more funding. On-Farm Trials have their own subprogram, the Soil Health Demonstration Trials, which focuses exclusively on conservation practices and systems that enhance soil health and increase soil carbon. Improving soil health on farms provides producers with a host of environmental and financial benefits, and as such, NSAC has been advocating for at least $50 million in funding each year for this subprogram. As the farm bill debate continues, NSAC hopes Congress will consider increasing funding for these high impact CIG subprograms.

Finally, the FFNSA makes a few meaningful improvements to EQIP. The existing statute allows states to raise the cost share to 90% for up to 10 practices that meet at least one of four broad environmental goals (16 USC 3839aa(2)(d)(7)). The FFNSA adds carbon sequestration and GHG reduction as a new fifth goal that states can seek to address when selecting priority practices that receive 90% cost share. NSAC agrees wholeheartedly with this common sense approach to targeting conservation funds to address the climate crisis, especially since it closely mirrors the program-wide targeting of EQIP funds formerly built into the IRA. NSAC encourages Congress to adopt this change in a final farm bill, as well as similar climate-targeting language for all major conservation programs.

Turning back to the CIG program, the FFNSA adds “perennial production systems, including agroforestry and perennial forages and grain crops” to the scope of CIG On-Farm Conservation Innovation Trials. Perennial systems are among the most powerful agriculture systems for mitigating the climate crisis, building resilience in the landscape, and realizing a host of additional conservation benefits. As such, NSAC strongly supports an explicit focus on perennial systems in the CIG program.

Alternative Manure Management Practices (AMMP)

The FFNSA does not contain a proposal to support AMMP technologies as envisioned in the ARA or the COWS Act. NSAC is disappointed to see this omission, as shifting the technologies used to handle manure on midsized livestock operations is critical to addressing agriculture’s contributions to climate change. As many parts of the country cannot transition fully to year-round, grass-based livestock systems, it is vital to dedicate funding to AMMP technologies to ensure that instances where confinement is likely to continue are as ecologically friendly as can be. NSAC calls on the House and Senate to include the bipartisan COWS Act provisions in a final farm bill.

Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative (GLCI)

The FFNSA maintains the current appropriations authorization of $60 million per year for GLCI. NSAC believes strongly that grazers need dependable access to technical assistance and that such funding should not be subject to the whims of the annual appropriations process. Therefore, GLCI needs a minimum of $50 million per year in mandatory funding to provide sufficient funding to meet the strong demand for technical assistance and ensure such assistance is provided without interruption.

Research, Education, and Extension Programs

In comparison to the enormous opportunity that sustainable agriculture represents for farmers and rural communities, federal investment in sustainable agriculture research, education, and extension has been minuscule. Without robust funding for public research that promotes ecologically-based production systems, scientific and technical innovation is stifled, and U.S. farmers and ranchers are unable to fully participate in and benefit from emerging markets for sustainably-produced foods. At a time when the effects of climate change on farmers are becoming ever more apparent, and the country is losing small and mid-sized family farms at an alarming rate, the FFNSA maintains the status quo. Instead of investing in research and innovation that builds on-farm resilience and moves our food and farm system forward, the bill continues down the same detrimental path for the next five years.

Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program

While FFNSA meets the low bar of reauthorizing popular sustainable and organic research programs like the SARE program (Section 7201) and the Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI) (Section 7205), the bill does not include additional funding for either program. SARE was first created in 1988, and in 1990, Congress authorized the SARE program and determined that it should be funded at no less than $60 million a year, consistent with recommendations by the National Academy of Sciences. However, after nearly 40 years as USDA’s only farmer-driven, sustainable agriculture competitive research grant program, SARE has yet to see an increase in funding authorization. Combined with inflation, level funding for SARE in a new farm bill would effectively amount to a funding cut. 

SARE provides farmers and researchers with vital opportunities to better understand agricultural systems, increase profitability, and build resilience to climate change. Farmers and ranchers have critical insight when it comes to improving their systems. Yet, the demand for farmer-led research continues to outpace federal funding. According to SARE’s 2025-2026 Biannual Report, 60% of eligible farmer/rancher grant proposals go unfunded.

Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI)

OREI is one of a still limited number of research, education, and extension programs that provide focused support for organic systems. Strong investments in research underpin growth in numerous sectors, as all farmers – sustainable, organic, conventional, or otherwise – rely on cutting-edge research to maintain robust and thriving operations. Although FFNSA maintains level funding for OREI, it does not reflect the growth of the organic market since 2018 or the current challenges facing organic farmers. Level funding fails to provide the organic sector with the tools to create thriving businesses in the face of changing weather patterns and shifting markets. 

Organic Transitions Program (ORG)

A long time priority for NSAC has been official authorization for the Organic Transitions Program (ORG), which supports research helping farmers move from conventional to organic production. The program has historically been funded through appropriations, but has never been formally authorized in statute. Amendment 102, introduced by Representative Eugene Vindman (D-VA-07), proposed to formally authorize ORG, renaming it to the Researching the Transition to Organic Program (RTOP) and providing $7.5 million in discretionary funding. NSAC supported this amendment, and it was glad to see it approved by voice vote during markup.

Precision Agriculture

FFNSA’s focus on precision agriculture, automation, and “high risk high priority research” across the research title detracts from much needed investments in farmer-led, scale-appropriate research. Programs like the Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority, a $30 million carve out in the Speciality Crop Research Initiative (SCRI) for mechanization and automation (Section 7305), and a greater emphasis on automation and precision agriculture in the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), demonstrate a continued quest for “silver-bullet” solutions to climate change and other agricultural challenges, and appear to come at the expense of more robust research investments in diversified agriculture.  

While NSAC supports research that directly contributes to “a reduction in, or improved efficiency of, inputs used in crop or livestock production,” it is clear that the prevailing narrative surrounding these types of agriculture research is aimed not at improving diversified systems, but at further enabling large-scale, monoculture agriculture. This approach is misguided given the ample evidence that scale-neutral, management-intensive practices likely yield even greater environmental benefits. USDA funding should be directed toward building an understanding of the ecological aspects of our food and farm systems and integrating the diverse knowledge and practices of agroecological farmers and farm workers, rather than continuing to explore and promote the narrow constraints of monoculture-based systems.

Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI)

NSAC is pleased to see some inclusion of the ARA in FFNSA’s proposal for AFRI. For example, NSAC welcomes the addition of regionally adapted cultivar and breed development, breeding for environmental resilience, and the addition of workforce training and development, including meat and poultry processing in the agriculture economics and rural communities priority area (Section 7305). However, these new additions, alongside several others – like controlled-environment agriculture production and precision agriculture – all come without any additional funding for AFRI, spreading the program across many issue areas, likely resulting in the program’s limited ability to support more agroecologically focused agricultural research.

Farming Opportunities Training and Outreach (FOTO) program

FFNSA reauthorizes FOTO and maintains $50 million in mandatory funding. FOTO was a new initiative established in the 2018 Farm Bill that combined two of USDA’s flagship training and technical assistance programs for historically underserved farmers – the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP) and the Section 2501 program. However, management of BFRDP was kept under the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), while management of 2501 was moved into the newly created Office of Public Partnerships and Engagement (OPPE). In addition to maintaining mandatory funding for FOTO established in the 2018 Farm Bill, FFNSA proposes moving the management of 2501 back to NIFA.

During markup, Representative Brad Finstad (R-MN-01) introduced Amendment 19, which proposed significant changes to FOTO – affecting both 2501 and the BFRDP.  

For 2501, the amendment proposed moving the program to NIFA, altering its priority in making grants and contracts to “organizations that provide training and technical assistance in budgeting, business planning, and similar financial and management skills that focus on the ongoing economic viability of beginning farm and ranch enterprises”, and changing the peer review process by removing the requirement for review panels to include a broad representation of peers and instead include “a broad representation of individuals with demonstrated expertise in farm business management.” 

For BFRDP, similar changes were made to entities prioritized when making agreements and contracts and peer review panels. However, this amendment went one step further with BFRDP, removing prioritization in making contracts and agreements to partnerships and collaborations that are led by or include nongovernmental, community-based organizations and school-based educational organizations with expertise in new agricultural producer training and outreach, and instead prioritizing programs that provide training and technical assistance in budgeting, business planning, and similar financial and management skills that focus on the ongoing economic viability of beginning farm and ranch enterprises. 

While NSAC supports giving NIFA clearer authority to run 2501, the changes to priority areas and peer reviews with FOTO deprioritizes community based organizations, and give USDA greater authority to influence peer review panels, watering down the effectiveness of the program. NSAC opposed this amendment, and it was approved by voice vote.

1890 Land Grant Institutions

NSAC was pleased to see FFNSA provide several important investments in 1890s Institutions, including increasing mandatory funding for the 1890s Scholarship program to $100 million until expended, increasing funding for 1890s Extension from its current 20 percent to no less than 40 percent, and increasing the number of 1890 Centers of Excellence.

National Organic Program (NOP)

FFNSA caps funding for the National Organic Program (NOP) at $24 million annually and does not increase the funding level over the life of the farm bill. In addition, the bill authorizes NOP to provide technical assistance to farmers transitioning to organic, but does not provide any additional funding to support TA.  NOP currently oversees more than 46,000 operations in more than 100 countries, and the organic sector continues to grow.  NOP’s expanded authority, coupled with the growth of the organic sector, signals the need for more, not level funding, to adequately enforce organic regulations, provide TA to transitioning farmers, and tackle fraud in organic supply chains.

The post Unpacking the House Farm Bill: Part 4 appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Editor’s Note: This is the third post in a four-part blog series analyzing the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026, which was reported out of the House Agriculture Committee on March 5. The first post provides an overview of the markup process and the bill as a whole. The second post provides a deep dive analysis of the bill’s potential impacts on local and regional food systems. This post offers an analysis of its impacts on the farm safety net, farms’ ability to access land and capital, and fair competition.  The fourth post covers conservation, climate resilience, and sustainable and organic research. 

The Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 (FFNSA) fails to provide a robust farm safety net for all farmers. 

Many farmers find themselves at an inflection point similar to the farm crisis of the late 1980s. Today, high production costs, unstable markets, and low crop prices driven by uncertain export markets and overproduction have converged to create an economic climate in which farmers’ livelihoods are threatened.

While there are several proposals in FFNSA that the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) believes take steps in the right direction, misguided provisions and the absence of meaningful reforms – coupled with the commodity and crop insurance provisions from 2025’s H.R. 1 – only perpetuate the status quo of inequitable resource distribution in US farming. At a moment when we need to re-envision the farm safety net, FFNSA falls significantly short.

The following analysis is divided into sections addressing changes to disaster assistance, access to land and farm credit, crop insurance, and fair competition.

• Disaster Assistance 
• Access to Land and Farm Credit
• Crop Insurance
• Fair Competition

Disaster Assistance Frameworks

FFNSA includes a few notable changes to the structure of future disaster and economic relief programs. 

In the context of a stable and reliable farm safety net, disaster relief programs should be primarily used to respond to extreme weather or emergency circumstances, and to cover impacts beyond standard crop production losses. However, FFNSA takes a different approach.  Rather than taking necessary steps to strengthen and increase access to existing and permanent safety net programs, the bill moves the future of the farm safety net further in the direction of increased disaster and economic assistance programs delivered through ad hoc spending. 

Ad hoc spending creates a complicated web of programs, applications, timelines, and eligibility criteria that farmers and ranchers need to sift through to receive the support they need. This aid often leaves out a significant number of producers altogether and concentrates funds amongst a smaller number of large operations. Consequently, while NSAC generally agrees that creating consistent criteria for disaster and economic assistance programs would be beneficial, FFNSA would establish criteria that fall short for many farmers while also failing to reform the underlying current safety net – for example, through improvements to the Whole Farm Revenue Protection Program, or re-envisioning commodity programs entirely.

Specialty Crop Assistance Framework

For specialty crop farmers, the bill establishes a permanent framework for future emergency assistance programs in response to an adverse event, including economic crises or market disruptions. The program – which shares some similarities with the Marketing Assistance for Speciality Crops (MASC) program, but is not identical – would calculate payments based on sales from the previous market year, and establish a consistent mechanism and methodology framework to distribute emergency aid for specialty crop producers (Section 1003).

Specialty crop farmers are often left out of assistance programs for a number of reasons. As exemplified through the Assistance for Specialty Crop Farmers (ASCF) program, programs that provide assistance based on acreage for each given crop – a structure that typically works well for commodities – do not work well for specialty crop farmers. While the proposed framework is a step in the right direction, as written, Section 1003 does not adequately provide coverage for specialty crop farmers of all sizes and experience levels. It establishes high payment limits of $900,000 for farmers deriving at least 75% of their income from farming activities, potentially concentrating any limited funds made available to a smaller number of large producers. While specialty crop farmers may need higher payments than commodity growers due to higher costs, payment limits should still be structured to responsibly and equitably deliver program resources. The proposed program would also exclude new producers who were impacted by an adverse event but had no recorded sales in the year prior. The MASC program accounted for this by allowing for certified expected sales for the following year to qualify for payments.

State Disaster Block Grant Authority

FFNSA also gives the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) the authority to administer future disaster programs through state block grants (Section 1004). State administered disaster programs often prove to be a double-edged sword: while they have the potential to offer more tailored support for a state’s unique experience with a disaster, in practice, they often face significant delays in funding disbursement, create inconsistent standards across states, and reduce USDA’s ability to ensure compliance across programs and reduce duplicative payments. Many of these challenges arise from the lack of familiarity State Departments of Agriculture have with USDA disaster programs and vice versa. As written, FFNSA provides few protections to ensure these issues do not hinder relief efforts when administered through state block grants. An amendment offered by Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-CA-24) to address some of these issues by requiring standardization across future block grants – including proportional distribution of funds, consistent eligibility standards, and data reporting requirements, among other provisions – was filed but withdrawn without a vote.

Currently, USDA is in the process of administering nearly a dozen state block grants – first initiated by the American Relief Act in response to extreme weather events – to replace or supplement the Supplemental Disaster Relief Program. Highlighting the challenges of administering these programs, only two of these states have launched their relief programs to date. Virginia completed their program as of November 2025, and Georgia’s supplemental grant program recently opened applications as of March 2026. North Carolina will be next to open applications for part of its program by the end of March. Other programs for Northeastern states and Hawaii, which opted for replacement state block grants in lieu of eligibility through the national SDRP program, have yet to be announced, with no timetable for distributing funds. As a result, some farmers and ranchers who experienced losses as long ago as 2023 are still awaiting aid from USDA. 

Equitable Access to Land and Capital

Farming and ranching are among the hardest careers to pursue due in part to high barriers to entry. This makes it critical for the next farm bill to support farmers’ access to farmland and to finance high startup costs. The FFNSA takes some steps in this direction, and a couple of steps back. 

Notably, the bill raises the limits that any individual borrower may owe to a lender for USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) direct and guaranteed operating and farm ownership loans. NSAC is supportive of increased limits to microloans from $50,000 to $100,000, and recognizes the need to increase direct operating and ownership loans to keep pace with rising costs of inputs and assets. FFNSA would also increase direct operating loans from $400,000 to $750,000, direct farm ownership loans from $600,000 to $850,000, and guaranteed farm ownership loans from $1.75 million to $3.5 million, and guaranteed operating loans from $1.75 million to $3 million. However, there are several considerations and potential consequences to these changes. Increasing such limits without conditions would continue to allow FSA-backed loans to finance the development of new and expanded Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). Further, FFNSA raises these limits without any increase to the total funding authorization of FSA to make these loans, subject to annual appropriations. This could result in bigger loans to fewer farms, and limit available funding for smaller operations (Sections 5105, 5202, 5203, 5402). 

FFNSA would problematically provide sole authority to the Farm Credit Administration to regulate the Farm Credit System (FCS) (Section 5504). This provision would remove any regulatory authority from other entities, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and further erode the CFPB’s demographic reporting requirements in Rule 1071 for loans administered through FCS. This provision would also limit public information regarding who is receiving agricultural loans and inhibit efforts to ensure that all farmers and ranchers have equal access to credit.

NSAC supports the authorization of FSA to restructure distressed guaranteed loans into direct loans for distressed borrowers. However, the provision would require borrowers to already be in monetary default, forcing borrowers to be on the brink of financial crisis before qualifying for this refinancing opportunity. A more expansive refinancing authority, as included in the Fair Credit for Farmers Act (S.3126/H.R. 6169), would provide more tools for farmers and ranchers to solidify their finances before reaching the brink. The FFNSA also leaves out other important protections for farmers and ranchers, such as requiring FSA concurrence prior to any asset liquidation (Section 5103).

The FFNSA does take small steps to streamline access to farm ownership loans for beginning farmers, including reducing the experience requirement to be eligible from three years to two years, with a series of conditions under which USDA may issue loans to farmers with only one year of experience. To help farmers navigate the rapid turnaround of land sales, the FFNSA also directs USDA to establish a pilot program for farmers to receive advanced pre-approval on farm ownership loans, and establishes an expedited approval process for loans under $1 million (Section 5102, 5110, 5111).

Further, while the bill does not include most provisions from the Fair Credit for Farmers Act to reform the imbalanced National Appeals Division (NAD) process, it would at least reform the current standard where individual farmers must carry the burden of proof to challenge their denial by a federal agency. Instead, USDA would need to prove that its decision to deny a loan to a farmer was righteous. That is an important step in the right direction (Section 12203). 

Finally, the bill meets the bare minimum of reauthorizing the Heirs’ Property Intermediary Relending Program, though it positively authorizes USDA to enter into cooperative agreements to provide legal services to underserved heirs (Section 5109).

Crop Insurance 

Unfortunately, FFNSA fails to initiate any meaningful reforms that would alleviate bureaucratic red tape and streamline access to crop insurance for the small, diversified, and direct-to-consumer farmers and ranchers who are too often left behind. With only 13 percent of farms insured against worsening floods, droughts, and other disasters, the next farm bill must take steps to expand access to the federal crop insurance program, rather than exacerbating the program’s structural flaws and incentivizing risky farming behaviors. 

FFNSA requires an annual review of challenges to access Whole-Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP), but does nothing else to improve the program or reduce barriers to accessing this product (Section 11012). The provision is largely unnecessary, as such USDA reviews are already common practice, and the barriers and corresponding solutions to accessing WFRP are well-documented. An amendment to add the Save Our Small Farms Act (H.R.2435, S.1217), which would remove many of the well-established barriers and challenges with WFRP, was offered but rejected on party lines during the committee’s mark up. 

The bill amends the eligibility definitions for the additional crop insurance premium discounts passed in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB, P.L. 119-21), including veteran producers for the premium discounts (Section 11007). While this is an important investment for beginning and veteran producers, it will have minimal impact if not paired with more foundational reforms to streamline paperwork and address the disincentive that agents experience to sell insurance to small and diversified farms. 

The bill also establishes a Specialty Crop Advisory Committee to inform the development and expansion of crop insurance. But without conditions that any of its appointees represent beginning, small, diversified, or organic farmers, it will not reflect the specific needs of the full diversity of American specialty crop farms (Section 11001).

FFNSA also directs several research initiatives to explore new insurance products, including limited weather based index policies, but misses the opportunity to enshrine an index-based policy as comprehensive as found in the WEATHER Act (S.231) and the Save Our Small Farms Act (Sec. 11014). While failing to address barriers or reduce the costs of crop insurance for many uninsured operations, the bill codifies increased reimbursement rates included in OBBB for administrative and operating costs for private Approved Insurance Providers (AIPs) (Section 11009). 

Fair Competition 

The FFNSA fails to include any provisions that would combat consolidation in the food system. 

In fact, there are a series of concerning provisions regarding competition in the meat processing sector (Section 12111). These provisions create an exemption within the Packers and Stockyards Act regulations that allows market agencies – including stockyard owners – to purchase or invest in meatpackers’ operations. While this is ostensibly intended to generate more private investment within western cattle processing operations, this provision could also lead to instances in which the only stockyard owner in the area also has a controlling interest in the only meatpacking operation in the area. This leads to vertical integration and coordination along the processing supply chain. This possibility is concerning, especially considering that the FFNSA sets the size limit for the exemption at the point where plants or companies operating in the top quintile of processing could qualify for it. The FFNSA also includes a provision to restrict a state’s ability to set its own agricultural policies, specifically nullifying state laws such as California’s Proposition 12 (Section 12006). This would significantly harm smaller independent ranchers who have invested in and benefited from such policies for years, and serve to benefit the largest corporations and agribusinesses seeking to remove such regulations.

The post Unpacking the House Farm Bill: Part 3 appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Editor’s Note: This is the second post in a four-part blog series analyzing the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026, which was reported out of the House Agriculture Committee on March 5. The first post provides an overview of the markup process and the bill as a whole. This article provides a deep dive analysis of the bill’s potential impacts on local and regional food systems. The third post offers an analysis of its impacts on the farm safety net, farms’ ability to access land and capital, and fair competition. The fourth post covers conservation, climate resilience, and sustainable and organic research. 

In a moment where families and farmers are facing increased costs, The Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 (FFNSA) takes modest steps to invest in local food supply chains while unfortunately neglecting to address the historically deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program included in 2025’s budget reconciliation bill (H.R. 1). Most notably, the bill would create a permanent – albeit unfunded – program that empowers states to develop their own community nutrition programs that purchase from small and mid-size farms and beginning and veteran farmers to distribute in food insecure communities. At other times, the bill underfunds programs, significantly jeopardizing their success. 

The following analysis is divided into sections addressing local and regional market access and development, supply chain infrastructure and support, and food access:

• Market Access and Development
• Supply Chain Infrastructure and Support
• Food Access

Local Food: Market Access and Development

In 2025, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) unexpectedly terminated two programs that sought to connect producers to new markets via business technical assistance and market access. The March termination came at a time when many farmers had already purchased supplies or expanded operations in anticipation of future sales. Since then, there has been notable support in the House and Senate for a new, permanent program that would invest in reliable state and domestic markets. 

Local Farmers Feeding our Communities

The FFNSA creates a new program, the Local Farmers Feeding our Communities Program, which directs USDA to enter into cooperative agreements with state agencies and Tribal governments to provide them with funding to purchase and distribute local food to communities in need (Section 4306). Nestled in the nutrition title, it is clear that the program would readily provide healthy foods to food insecure communities. However, the primary focus of the program is to expand economic opportunities for small- and mid-sized farms, beginning and veteran farmers, while strengthening regional food networks. In addition to funding for direct food purchases, the new program includes:

• An emphasis on farm-fresh local products, requiring all food purchases to be minimally processed foods; 
• A requirement for at least 25% of the total annual value of products purchased under these agreements to come from small, midsize, beginning, or veteran producers; 
• Funding for administration and technical support that helps producers obtain food safety training and certification; 
• An authorization of appropriations for $200 million annually; 
• A directive that 10% of total funding be allocated first to Tribal nations, with each state then receiving 1% of funds, and all remaining funding to be allocated utilizing the Emergency Food Assistance state allocation formula. 

The inclusion of the Farmers Feeding our Communities Program is an instance of Congress responding to farmers and communities nationwide, celebrating the success of the previous Local Food Purchase Assistance Program while also making pragmatic improvements, such as directing technical assistance for food safety. However, without mandatory funding, the program would not be able to provide reliable market access, limiting program effectiveness and making farmers hesitant to participate. 

Food Safety Outreach Program

Investments in food safety education and equipment or training are essential to meeting ever-evolving market and regulatory food safety requirements. Without sufficient investments, these food safety requirements can prevent many smaller-scale producers from entering new markets. The FFNSA meets the bare minimum of reauthorizing some of the programs that provide these investments – such as the Food Safety Outreach Program (FSOP). FSOP, which funds education on a variety of food safety topics, includes an intentional focus on reaching underserved producer communities. However, FFNSA misses an opportunity to increase funding levels for FSOP, a crucial misstep, especially given the array of food safety regulations increasingly impacting smaller producers. It also makes the misstep of removing a community outreach and grant feedback component that may negatively impact program structure in the future (Sec. 7301).

Local Agriculture Market Program 

The farm bill has a longstanding history of supporting local market development through programs such as the Local Agriculture Market Program.  Yet, FFNSA fails to fully respond to the growing program demand and its proven track record in generating new business revenue and jobs. FFNSA offers program reforms that codify a simplified, turnkey application process, which will support essential activities such as farmers’ market manager time, marketing activities, and special purpose equipment. Unfortunately, it does not offer an increase in appropriations or mandatory funding levels. The combined effect of the changes may generate more demand than the program can support (Section 10102). 

Federal Procurement Reform 

Without a Child Nutrition Reauthorization anywhere on the horizon, the farm bill is the primary opportunity to update federal food procurement policies that respond to the needs of farmers, businesses, school nutrition stakeholders, and communities. FFNSA directs USDA to examine USDA’s food purchasing practices to understand 1) barriers for farmers and businesses to sell nontraditional, culturally relevant, or local and regional products directly to USDA, and 2) the quality of foods being purchased for USDA programs. This assessment would also make administrative, regulatory, and legislative recommendations to address barriers. This is a small but necessary step in updating long term commodity purchasing practices (Section 10106). 

Cooperative Interstate Shipment Program

Meat and poultry processing is a closely regulated industry. Yet, for decades, geographic and funding limitations have frequently prevented Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) personnel from providing food safety education before regulation. These same limitations have also made it challenging for FSIS to cost-effectively regulate smaller processors in many states. As a result, Congress created the Cooperative Interstate Shipment Program (CIS) in the Food Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (2008 Farm Bill) to enable products processed at state-inspected plants to be sold interstate if the state has a Meat and Poultry Inspection program equivalent to the federal inspection program.

CIS has expanded markets and opportunities and encouraged the creation of new products in the small plants it serves. Over time, however, it has become evident that the CIS program requires an expansion of scope and funding in order to serve more small and very small meat processors. The bipartisan Strengthening Local Processing Act (SLPA, H.R. 945) includes changes to the federal and state regulatory authorities’ cost-share model, which could alter the cost-benefit analysis for states that have their own meat and poultry inspection programs, ultimately making for more effective regulation of small and very small meat processors. Those plants will then be able to work more effectively with small and diversified farms that are an essential component of a sustainable and equitable food system. 

Unfortunately, the FFNSA declines to make any changes to the CIS program structure, instead promoting outreach about the program and requiring a report on that outreach each year (Sec 12113). While the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) supports more effective promotion of the CIS program, the failure to include many of the necessary structural and funding improvements means that the FFNSA misses a critical opportunity to expand markets for smaller processors, increase competition in the industry, and help bring more nutritious, locally, and often sustainably raised animal products to market. The FFNSA requires FSIS to provide more publicly available food safety resources designed for small and very small meat processors, including additional widely available validation studies, which small processors can use to support scale-appropriate food safety control techniques. (Section 12112). 

Business Technical Assistance 

Successful local market development programs have included temporary investments in value-chain coordination and business technical assistance that connect producers to scale appropriate market opportunities. These hands-on efforts can provide regionalized, specific support that strengthens local food networks. Two of USDA’s most notable initiatives to support these activities are the Regional Food Business Centers and the Meat and Poultry Processing Capacity Technical Assistance program. Unfortunately, the FFNSA does not authorize either program. It does, however, meet the bare minimum of reauthorizing a number of longstanding rural business development programs, such as the Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program (RMAP), Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (ATTRA), Rural Business Development Grants, and Rural Cooperative Development Grants. Additional program changes to RMAP are noted in the following section. 

Local Food: Supply Chain and Infrastructure Support

USDA’s previous transformative food system initiative focused on improvements across the supply chain, with investments in infrastructure, workforce development, value-chain coordination, and business technical assistance. The FFNSA offers a few new options for infrastructure investments, but does not adequately respond to the needs of rural communities for specialized food workforce training and technical assistance for scaling businesses. Disproportionate investment along the supply chain can lead to supply without adequate markets for producers, or potentially new infrastructure for businesses without sufficient business planning to strategically scale. 

Infrastructure

The FFNSA attempts to sustain some of the meat processing expansion programs created by ARPA, for example, through a “new, mobile, and expanded meat processing and rendering grants” program (Section 6304). This section bears some but not enough resemblance to the original programs (MPPEP, Local MCap, MPIRG) that were developed, in part, based on the proposals in SLPA. 

At only $3 million in authorized appropriations funding, the FFNSA’s Section 6304 grants are insufficiently funded relative to the demand across the US. Furthermore, the bill expands eligible applicants to include land grant universities, state departments of agriculture, and other organizations with existing capacities well beyond the small and very small meat processors for whom this program was intended. Instead of limiting these grants to small and very small processors, the FFNSA only includes it as a priority that the funding goes to small and very small processors. This, combined with the lack of a ‘socially disadvantaged’ priority, means that the FFNSA-created grant program runs the risk of funneling money to processors that already have access to other financial instruments to expand capacity. This fails to meaningfully address the processing bottleneck that smaller-scale producers nationwide experience. 

The FFNSA expands upon the existing business and industry guaranteed loan program by setting aside a portion of its annual funding for a permanent food supply chain guaranteed loan that seeks to support food supply chain capacity by financing projects focused on aggregation, processing, distribution, and manufacturing. Additionally, it caps the guarantee fee institutions pay to USDA to 3%, which has been cited as a barrier for borrowers among a number of lenders. However, there is little specificity of program goals or parameters for business scale or production type. This financial product is unlikely to support emerging food enterprises or small and mid-scale enterprises participating exclusively in regional food supply chains due to the rigorous underwriting standards associated with USDA guaranteed loans (Section 6304, 6412). 

The Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program supports business enterprise development in rural communities by offering affordable loans and relevant ancillary business technical assistance. RMAP is long overdue for program updates to increase the allowable loan sizes and relax restrictions on building renovations, a critical need in many rural spaces. The FFNSA would increase the loan limit to $75,000 and up to 50% of that loan can support costs associated with renovation, construction or other real estate improvement (Section 6422). 

Finally, the bill codifies recent LAMP program updates by allowing the purchase of necessary special purpose equipment (Section 10102).

Workforce Development

Small and very small processors – for whom jobs tend to be more cross functional than in their larger industry competitors – have struggled to recruit and maintain the highly skilled workforce they need. More funding and programs specifically created to support the unique needs of small and very small meat workforce development are important to increase growth in the sector.

Unfortunately, the FFNSA does not offer any new funding or new programs to meet the much needed investment in this sector. The bill does amend the USDA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) to include meat processing workforce development as an area of research. The bill also authorizes the creation of new community college grants oriented towards the development of a broader highly skilled agricultural workforce. While this may include meat processing training, it does not do so explicitly (Section 7123, 7503). 

Local Food: Access

While the Local Farmers Feeding our Communities Program would increase the circulation of farm-fresh foods in American communities, FFNSA does very little to otherwise support access to and affordability of nutritious foods for food insecure families. 

A number of USDA programs incentivize families to use their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance benefits (SNAP) to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables in local food settings by providing matching cash benefits, generating a win for families and farmers. These programs – namely the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program (SFMNP) and the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP) – receive bipartisan support. FFNSA makes common sense reforms to include popular items such as herbs, maple syrup, and tree nuts in the eligible foods for SFMNP (Section 4201). It also updates award criteria for GusNIP grantees by allowing the Secretary to waive the match requirement for applicants from persistent poverty counties and prioritize projects that increase year-round availability for fruits and vegetables (Section 4303). While NSAC is pleased to see efforts to reduce match requirements, the new prioritization stands to weaken the existing priority for direct-marketing settings, leading to potential shifts of spending away from American farmers. Overall, FFNSA does not succeed in meeting the growing needs of food insecure communities with no additional funding to either program in addition to a failure to restore the cuts to SNAP that were initiated by H.R. 1 in 2025. 

Some changes in the FFNSA likely stand to increase local food access in vulnerable communities by increasing the connectivity between farmers and their communities (Section 10003). The bill offers a number of reforms to the Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production that are responsive to the growth of a new office since its initial implementation in 2020. Those changes include: 

• Expanding the responsibilities and improving the services of the Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production (OUAIP) to better support the business and conservation needs of urban and innovative producers; 
• Renewing the Federal Advisory Committee until 2031; 
• Permanently authorizing the FSA Urban County Committees; 
• Directing USDA to increase outreach and technical assistance to producers through cooperative agreements with community experts; 
• Ensuring UAIP grants have broader reach to producers by allowing for awards to farmer cooperatives and subawards to individual farmers.  

Yet, due to the no-cost nature of the bill, the proposed changes will generate increased demand without any increase or guarantee of funding. OUAIP has consistently been underfunded or forgotten in Appropriations Cycles. Therefore, these program improvements stand to be delayed without adequate funding. 

The post Unpacking the House Farm Bill: Part 2 appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Editor’s Note: This is the first post in a four-part blog series analyzing the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026, which was reported out of the House Agriculture Committee on March 5. This post provides an overview of the markup process and the bill as a whole. The second post provides a deep dive analysis of the bill’s potential impacts on local and regional food systems. The third post offers an analysis of its impacts on the farm safety net, farms’ ability to access land and capital, and fair competition. The fourth post covers conservation, climate resilience, and sustainable and organic research. 

In the early morning hours of Thursday, March 5, 2026, the House Committee on Agriculture favorably reported the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 (FFNSA, H.R. 7567) out of committee by a vote of 34-17. FFNSA arrives at an undeniable crossroads for American food and agriculture. 

Across fields and communities nationwide, recent years have brought hardships not seen since perhaps the US farm crisis of the 1980s. Today, high production costs, unstable markets, and low crop prices driven by uncertain export markets and overproduction have converged to create an economic climate that threatens farmers’ livelihoods. Unfortunately, too many of these impacts stem directly and indirectly from actions taken by the current Administration. 

Meanwhile, in the halls of Congress, elected Representatives have been unable to pass a new, bipartisan farm bill. Since at least the mid-1960’s, Congress has reauthorized a new farm bill roughly every five years by bringing together a bipartisan coalition of rural and urban interests and the Members of Congress who represented them. Yet, the most recent full farm bill – the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (2018 Farm Bill, PL 115-334) – was signed into law in December 2018. As of March 2026, we are in uncharted waters – over seven years have passed since the 2018 Farm Bill was signed into law, the longest such stretch in recent memory.

Opportunities to authorize a new, full farm bill during the 118th Congress – in 2023 and 2024 – came and went in both the House and Senate. When the November 2024 election delivered a governing “trifecta” for the Republican Party, they turned to the budget reconciliation process to pass a bill that updated some parts of the farm bill, while leaving most out. This reconciliation bill, commonly referred to as H.R. 1,  took the unprecedented step of cutting nearly $200 billion from one part of the farm bill in order to fund another part of the farm bill, effectively breaking the decades-old bipartisan farm bill coalition.

It is against this backdrop – unprecedented times in farm country and in federal food and agriculture policy – that the House Agriculture Committee introduced FFNSA. 

A single farm bill – as important as it is – cannot solve everything. Yet a single farm bill can set us on a better path. Judged within the inseparable context of this moment, FFNSA includes some promising provisions but ultimately falls short, choosing to double down on an agricultural system that simply is not working, rather than making real strides toward a system that does.

Summarizing the Markup

The FFNSA markup kicked off shortly after 6:00 pm EDT on March 3 and did not conclude until around 1:30 am EDT on March 5 – more than twenty hours in total. The vast majority of the markup focused on the debate of dozens of amendments offered by policymakers from both parties.

To understand the debate around many of the amendments, it’s important to understand that, due to the unique nature of current Congressional budgeting rules, any reauthorized farm bill cannot cost more than the most recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline of the current (in this case, 2018) Farm Bill. This means that to increase funding for one farm bill program, a corresponding amount of funding has to be cut from another farm bill program. Traditionally, this has meant redirecting funding from a program within the same Title (eg, Conservation Title) of the bill. Without such an “offset” for new or increased funding, however, many amendments offered during markup, which would have improved the bill, were rejected because they were not budget-neutral. During markup, several lawmakers from both parties took to deriding CBO – Congress’s nonpartisan official budgetary scorekeeper – when their amendments did not achieve budget-neutrality.

In reality, however, partial blame rests with Congressional leaders who have not been able to  identify and direct outside funding resources into the farm bill, even while Congress has simultaneously managed to move tens of billions in funding for ad hoc assistance programs since 2018. This inability to secure new, outside funding for a farm bill is, in part, why H.R. 1 resorted to slashing billions from nutrition assistance to fuel farm subsidies, and why the new version of FFNSA lacks the resources to set us on a better path. 

In total, just over 150 amendments were filed to FFNSA. 74 amendments received a vote of some sort – 29 of which were roll call votes and 45 of which were voice votes. Of those 74 amendments that received a vote, 44 were approved and incorporated into FFNSA – 3 by roll call vote, and 41 by voice vote. Find the full list of amendments here. Below is a list of amendment votes directly related to the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)’s priorities that were taken during the House Committee on Agriculture’s markup of FFNSA:

• Representative Dusty Johnson’s (R-SD-AL) amendment to expand eligibility for the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) to include larger co-ops, risking crowding out opportunities for individual farmers and rural small businesses. NSAC opposed. Approved by voice vote.
• Rep. Brad Finstad’s (R-MN-1) amendment to make significant changes to the Farming Opportunities Training Outreach program – including 2501 and the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program –  that alters priority areas and how applications are reviewed, ultimately undermining the effectiveness of both programs. NSAC opposed. Approved by voice vote.
• Rep. David Scott’s (D-GA-13) amendment to provide mandatory funding for the Scholarships for Students at 1890s Institutions. NSAC supported. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (27) opposed – all Democrats (24) in favor.
• Rep. Jahana Hayes’s (D-CT-5) amendment to improve the Whole-Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP) Program and Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) by establishing a simplified, revenue-based option within NAP, creating an “on-ramp” for producers to transition from NAP to WFRP, adding incentives for insurance agents selling WFRP policies, and authorizing the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to pilot new projects within NAP to develop innovative crop insurance options for RMA, among other changes. NSAC supported.  Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (27) opposed – all Democrats (24) in favor.
• Rep. Chellie Pingree’s (D-ME-1) amendment to remove harmful pesticide preemption language in FFNSA, thereby restoring the ability of communities to protect themselves from chemical exposure. NSAC supported. Failed by roll call vote, 28 opposed – 22 in favor.
• Rep. Nikki Budzinski’s (D-IL-13) amendment to restore full funding to the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) – a popular and oversubscribed conservation program – after hundreds of millions of dollars were siphoned off to other programs. NSAC supported. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (27) opposed – all Democrats (24) in favor.
• Rep. Sharice Davids’ (D-KS-3) amendment to ensure that farmers have access to local USDA offices by preventing their closure, and requiring USDA to rehire qualified employees who have been terminated since January 2025. NSAC supported. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (27) opposed – all Democrats (24) in favor.
• Rep. Shomari Figures’ (D-AL-2) amendment to strengthen land-grant universities’ ability to provide heirs’ property education and succession planning. NSAC supported. Approved by voice vote.
• Rep. Alma Adams’ (D-NC-12) amendment to increase funding for 1890’s Centers of Excellence. NSAC supported. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (27) opposed – all Democrats (24) in favor.
• Rep. Alma Adams’ (D-NC-12) amendment to ensure a reliable and accurate assessment of the prevalence of food insecurity among families, seniors, and children across the country by requiring USDA to continue its implementation of the Annual Household Food Security Survey. NSAC supported. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (27) opposed – all Democrats (24) in favor.
• Rep. Eugene Vindman’s (D-VA-7) amendment to authorize the Organic Transitions Program (ORG), which supports highly innovative research, education, and extension projects that help producers overcome barriers in undertaking the transition to become successful USDA certified organic farms. NSAC supported. Approved by voice vote.
• Rep. Eric Sorensen’s (D-IL-17) amendment to direct USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service to develop a standardized Soil Carbon Monitoring methodology and develop a Soil Carbon Monitoring Network. NSAC supported. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (27) opposed – all Democrats (24) in favor.
• Rep. Shri Thanedar’s (D-MI-13) amendment to restore the unexpected, unjustified cuts to nutrition education programs that connect low-income communities to nutritious foods by funding SNAP-Ed at $500 million annually in mandatory funding. NSAC supported. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (27) opposed – all Democrats (24) in favor. 
• Rep. Gabe Vasquez’s (D-NM-6) amendment to support wildlife habitat connectivity and migration corridors, increase payment limits for private land owners, and provide technical support for voluntary practices that improve landscape resilience. NSAC supported. Approved by voice vote.
• Rep. Jill Tokuda’s (D-HI-2) amendment to return rescinded funding that would bring farm-fresh food to students’ plates in schools and childcare centers by funding a local food purchasing program with $660,100,000 annually. NSAC supported. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (27) opposed – all Democrats (24) in favor.
• Vote on the final House Committee on Agriculture passage of the FFNSA. NSAC opposed. Approved by roll call vote 34 in favor – 17 in opposition.

In addition to the amendments listed above, numerous amendments that would have improved the bill were offered but did not receive a vote, including amendments that would have: removed the WFRP expansion limit (Salinas); created a New Producer Economic Security Program to support beginning farmers and ranchers (Budzinski); relocated the state assistance for soil health (SASH) program to the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (Tokuda); provided $50 million in mandatory annual funding for the Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production (Thanedar); and increased funding for the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Incentive Program (Rouzer).

Where to from Here

Ultimately, the Committee markup resulted in some changes to FFNSA, but none meaningful enough to make it worthy of support. The remainder of this blog series reveals the extent to which key NSAC farm bill priorities are impacted by FFNSA’s proposals, or lack thereof.

As of posting, there are no concrete and immediately available details about the next steps for FFNSA. While movement on the House floor and in the Senate appears possible, it remains far from guaranteed. For any farm bill to find a legitimate path to becoming law this year, at least two factors will need to be present. First, any farm bill will have to make robust, new investments. The scattered policy improvements included in FFNSA ring hollow without the resources to fuel them. Second, the threshold to pass a farm bill in the Senate requires 60 votes, and thus, the path to a farm bill remains through a true bipartisan process.

More than 7 years removed from the 2018 Farm Bill, farmers, families, and communities still deserve – now more than ever – a new full, bipartisan farm bill that rises to the occasion. As always, NSAC will continue to steadfastly engage with lawmakers as the farm bill meanders its way through the 119th Congress.

The post Unpacking the House Farm Bill: Part 1 appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Contact: Laura Zaks

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

press@sustainableagriculture.net

Tel. 347.563.6408

Comment: Without Investments and Reforms, House Bill Rings Hollow

Washington, DC, March 5, 2026 – The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) released the following statement attributable to Mike Lavender, NSAC Policy Director, following the House Agriculture Committee’s 34-17 passage of the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026.

“Almost any farmer will tell you that farm policy is fundamentally broken – but instead of taking real strides toward a better future, the House farm bill doubles down on a system that simply isn’t working. The bill offers unfunded authorizations and more status quo instead of meaningful reforms or bold investments in infrastructure, markets, and proven programs for farmers. We appreciate lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who offered amendments to rectify the shortcomings of the bill. But for the countless farmers struggling to make ends meet, the scattered policy improvements in this bill ring hollow without the resources to fuel them. 

The path to a farm bill remains through a true bipartisan process. More than seven years removed from the last farm bill, NSAC encourages Senate and House policymakers to work together toward delivering a new farm bill that invests in healthy communities, levels the playing field for small and mid-sized farmers, equips farmers with the tools and resources they need to build resilient and viable operations, and fosters the next generation of farmers and ranchers.“

Stay tuned to the NSAC blog in the days ahead for deeper analysis of the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026.

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The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more and get involved at: https://sustainableagriculture.net

The post Comment: Without Investments and Reforms, House Bill Rings Hollow appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

On Friday, February 13, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-PA-15) released the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 (FFNSA).

The introduction of the bill comes amidst an historic moment in federal food and agriculture policy. More than seven years removed from the enactment of the 2018 Farm Bill, farmers and ranchers are in a moment of crisis, with countless farms on the brink of foreclosure. The past year has also brought unprecedented instability in federal partnerships: farmers have experienced unexpected contract cuts and unpredictable, abrupt trade policy shifts, and the impact of a severely reduced federal workforce. In January 2025, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) began freezing and even terminating the lawfully held contracts of farmers and farmer-serving organizations, disrupting planning for the 2025 planting season. The past year also included a budget reconciliation bill that slashed hundreds of billions of dollars from nutrition assistance for seniors, children, and veterans and directly reinvested $50 billion of that to further increase farm subsidies, abandoning the decades-long bipartisan farm bill coalition in the process. FFNSA should not and cannot be viewed outside of this context – to do so would be a rejection of reality.

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) appreciates the inclusion of improvements to local and regional food systems and the removal of a particularly harmful provision that would have fundamentally altered the Conservation Reserve Program for the worse. Yet in the context of propelling American agriculture forward – and when considering everything farmers and ranchers have endured for the past year – FFNSA falls woefully short.

FFNSA does nothing to stabilize USDA. It does not prevent the USDA reorganization from undermining services for farmers; it does not reverse USDA’s shameful ongoing attack on programs that seek to increase opportunity across the food system; and it does not appear to meaningfully support staffing levels so that farmers can access federal programs. Furthermore, in the shadow of a budget reconciliation bill that managed to provide guaranteed funding for tens of billions in new farm subsidies, FFNSA refuses to cobble together guaranteed funding for vital programs or to increase funding for programs that have been at the same level since 2018. Any program in FFNSA that receives flat funding is effectively cut by roughly 20% due to seven years of inflation. 

The following are select provisions based on NSAC’s initial analysis of the full text of the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026. 

Title 1 – Commodities

While many of the Title I programs – including the Price Loss Coverage and Agriculture Risk Coverage programs – were addressed in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB, P.L. 119-21), FFNSA includes a few notable changes for specialty crop support and disaster relief programs. First, the bill establishes a permanent framework for future emergency assistance that is specifically designed to support specialty crop producers based on adverse events, including economic crises or market disruptions. The program – which shares some similarities with the Marketing Assistance for Speciality Crops programs, but is not identical – would calculate payments based on sales from the previous market year, and establish a consistent mechanism and methodology framework to distribute emergency aid for specialty crop producers (Section 1003).

While it is vital to ensure specialty crop producers receive necessary aid during an emergency, this provision, as written, does not ensure specialty crop producers of all sizes receive adequate support. The bill includes high payment limits of no less than $900,000 for those deriving at least 75% of their income from farming activities, potentially concentrating any limited funds made available to a smaller number of large producers. The proposed program also fails to provide support to new producers who were impacted by an adverse event but had no recorded sales in the year prior.

FFNSA also gives USDA the authority to administer future disaster programs through state block grants (Section 1004). State administered programs have the potential to offer more tailored support for a state’s unique experience with a disaster. However, in practice, these programs often face significant delays in getting funds into farmers’ hands, establish inconsistent standards across states, and reduce USDA’s ability to ensure compliance across programs and reduce duplicative payments. As written, FFNSA provides few protections to ensure these issues do not hinder relief efforts when administered through state block grants.

Disaster relief programs are often necessary to effectively respond to an unusually damaging event. However, creating additional permanent disaster programs to distribute future ad hoc spending is not a sustainable solution to an insufficient farm safety net. Without proper investments to expand access to and improve risk management tools for the majority of producers, which are absent from FFNSA, farmers and ranchers will continue to struggle with an inadequate farm safety net. 

Title 2 – Conservation 

FFNSA’s conservation title presents a decidedly mixed bag, with several modest positive policy changes alongside some provisions that act as barriers for farmers trying to access popular federal conservation programs.

The bill codifies a minimum Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) payment of $4,000, guaranteeing that producers of all sizes receive a solid baseline level of support when enrolling in CSP (Section 2301). This is an improvement over the $2,500 minimum payment proposed in the last House Farm Bill and in line with NSAC priorities for CSP.

However, FFNSA also siphons off CSP’s limited – and consistently oversubscribed – funding for a new grant program supporting states and Tribes administering soil health programs (Section 2302). While NSAC has championed providing federal support for state and tribal soil health programs, pulling funds from a popular, effective conservation program and thereby limiting farmer access is a non-starter. Currently, only 30% of farmers applying to CSP can secure contracts. It makes little sense to stretch limited resources within such a popular program across new purposes and subprograms. Doing so would only ensure that farmers interested in CSP continue to get left behind. Placing a state and tribal soil health assistance program in CSP makes even less sense, given that other conservation programs, such as the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), are already designed to provide federal support for conservation work led by non-federal partners. NSAC opposes using CSP as the home for this new grant program and encourages Congress to see the wisdom of funding state and tribal soil health programs through RCPP instead. 

Across both the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and CSP, the FFNSA significantly increases support for precision agriculture technologies. NSAC recognizes that precision agriculture has demonstrable benefits for some operations; however, it remains a relatively high-cost conservation solution that does not serve all farmers. Conservation program funding is limited, and providing overly robust support for practices unsuitable for all operations leads to a small set of farms consuming an outsized portion of program resources. This is an irresponsible use of limited public funding, especially when there are size- and scale-neutral management alternatives that serve far more farmers and deliver greater environmental benefits per dollar spent. We were pleased to see Congress recognize the high conservation potential of perennial production systems by including them in the Conservation Innovation Grants program, and these systems, which provide holistic conservation outcomes and are more accessible to a wider range of producers, deserve just as much attention and investment (Section 2204). NSAC calls on Congress to consider a fairer and more balanced approach to supporting precision agriculture in this farm bill.

As a positive change to the cost share offered at the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), the FFNSA adds greenhouse gas reduction as a purpose to EQIP’s top ten priority practices authority. This authority allows states to select 10 priority practices that receive 90% cost share, as opposed to the standard 75%, focusing more resources on those practices that both work in that state and address the most pressing environmental challenges producers are facing. Adding greenhouse gas reduction as a purpose that these practices can address makes it clear that states can choose to focus EQIP resources on addressing climate change and provide increased support to the producers eager to do that work within their operation.

The FFNSA appears to cut $1.055 billion dollars from EQIPs first five fiscal years of the 10 year budget window. Although the total baseline for the program should remain the same long term, this means that EQIP – and the farmers who depend on it – will lose money in the near term, hampering access to funds that support viability, resilience, and the ability to reduce input costs. Some of these EQIP funds are clearly redistributed to smaller conservation programs, including the Conservation Reserve Programs Transition Incentives Program; however, it is not clear at the time of publishing where all of the funds removed from EQIP have gone, or if they remain part of Title II’s budget authority.

The bill meets the standard, bare minimum of reauthorizing five year payment limits in both EQIP and CSP, at $450,000 and $200,000, respectively. This is a necessary update that has been ignored in recent Farm Bill extensions. NSAC is relieved to see its inclusion here, as payment limits are one of the key tools that help ensure finite program resources are spread around to a larger number of farms, especially smaller and mid-sized operations. However, FFNSA fails to eliminate the separate and lower payment limit in EQIP for producers accessing the Organic Initiative. While it raises the limit from $140,000 to $200,000, continuing to maintain a significantly lower limit for organic perpetuates an unnecessary institutional bias against organic producers. NSAC opposes this separate and lower limit, as organic production has inherent conservation value, and EQIP should not penalize the efforts of producers seeking certification.

FFNSA provides a long overdue, full reauthorization of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), including new funding for the Transition Incentives Program (TIP). The flagship conservation program of the Farm Service Agency (FSA), CRP, has not received the same attention as other conservation programs in major legislation in recent years, leading to uncertainty and programmatic delays. NSAC strongly supports fully reauthorizing CRP and providing funding for TIP, ensuring these tools are available to producers each year. Further, the FFNSA strips problematic reforms to CRP’s eligibility requirements proposed in the previous version of the bill.

Title 4 – Nutrition

Growing bipartisan support for the Local Farmers Feeding our Communities Act embodies the historical collaboration of agricultural committees responding to the needs of both the farm and food coalition. FFNSA draws from this bipartisan proposal to authorize a new food assistance program that builds upon the success of the previous Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) program. Its primary focus remains on building reliable markets for small, mid-sized, beginning, and veteran farmers and strengthening local and regional food systems. It accomplishes this by investing directly into states, Tribes, and territories, and it makes improvements to LFPA by directing explicit technical support to producers to obtain food safety training and certification. 

Codification of this program could catalyze long term growth in local and regional markets; however, the success of the program is severely at risk with an authorization of appropriations set only at $200 million. Recent history has demonstrated a limited capacity to sufficiently fund programs such as these through the annual appropriations process, making this provision more mirage than reality. The success of LFPA in providing economic opportunity for small and mid-sized farmers cannot be understated, and has demonstrated sufficient proof of concept to warrant mandatory funding as laid out in the Local Farmers Feeding our Communities Act. 

Title 5 – Credit

FFNSA includes limited improvements to the farm loan programs and access to credit, but leaves out many important changes to protect borrowers and includes detrimental regulatory changes that would inhibit transparency in agricultural lending.

FFNSA would problematically provide sole authority to the Farm Credit Administration to regulate the Farm Credit System (FCS). This provision would remove any regulatory authority from other entities, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and further erode the CFPB’s demographic reporting requirements in Rule 1071 for loans administered through FCS. 

However, FFNSA also includes several provisions that would help producers access capital, including: authorization for USDA to restructure guaranteed loan debt; a reduced experience requirement; a pre-approval pilot for farm ownership loans; an expedited approval process for loans under $1 million; and shifting the burden of proof from farmers onto USDA when appealing a loan denial. It also increases the limits for direct operating, farm ownership, and microloans. It does not, however, raise the total funding authorization that would create room for USDA to make and guarantee these bigger loans, nor does it place guardrails on lending to protect farmers and ranchers from over-collateralization or prevent concentration of funds among fewer large operations. 

Title 6 – Rural Development

FFNSA authorizes a new grant program, the New, Mobile, and Expanded Meat Processing and Rendering Grant Program, which is, in broad purposes, similar to the Processing Resilience Grant Program within the bipartisan Strengthening Local Processing Act. However, FFNSA’s version of the program provides very limited funding – only $3 million in appropriations authorization – for those grants, smaller than many state budget allocations for a similar purpose (Section 6304). The already limited funding is made even less accessible by including state departments of agriculture and public land grant universities as eligible entities, despite these entities often already having these facilities or the budgetary capacity to pursue them.

FFNSA authorizes the Food Supply Chain Guaranteed Loan Program, a valuable resource for needed investments in aggregation, processing, storage, and distribution (Section 6303). Yet, without defined priorities or target recipients, the program may inevitably lend itself to financing large-scale operations rather than serve as a new capital product for small, scaling, or new local operations. 

Finally, FFNSA includes a standard, bare minimum reauthorization of longstanding rural business development programs, such as the Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program (RMAP), Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (ATTRA), Rural Business Development Grants, and Rural Cooperative Development Grants. The bill also expands the focus of ATTRA to provide tailored assistance to veterans and improves loan options within RMAP. It falls short by not increasing program funding. 

Title 7 – Research

In the past year, farmers and stakeholders alike experienced significant disruptions in research, education, and extension under USDA, including grant terminations in the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP) and the Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI); significantly delayed funding for the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program; no Request for Applications (RFA) for widely popular USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) competitive grants programs like OREI, BFRDP, 2501, the Food Safety Outreach Program (FSOP); and several memorandums from US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins that have significantly impeded agriculture research at colleges and universities nationwide. While farmers, ranchers, and researchers across the country continue to face uncertainty and disruptions at USDA, FFNSA offers no solutions to get American agricultural research back on track. 

The Food Safety Outreach Program (FSOP), of critical importance to providing training to small and diversified growers constantly contending with new food safety regulations, receives a reauthorization, though without an increase in authorization level; this flat funding ultimately represents a decrease every passing year due to inflation. 

While FFNSA meets the low bar of reauthorizing popular sustainable and organic research programs like the SARE program and OREI, FFNSA does not include additional funding or improvements for either program. Strong investments in research underpin growth in any sector, as all farmers – sustainable, organic, conventional, or otherwise – rely on cutting-edge research to maintain robust and thriving operations.

It is also concerning that the focus on precision agriculture, digital agriculture, and automation across the research title detracts from much needed investments in farmer-led, scale-appropriate research. As noted above, precision agriculture benefits only a limited number of farmers. 

A few bright spots in the research title include:

• Meaningful investments in 1890 land grant universities. The bill increases the authorization of appropriations for extension at 1890 institutions from 20% to an amount not less than 40% of appropriations for the Smith Lever Act and increases the authorization of appropriations for agricultural research at 1890 institutions from 30% to an amount not less than 40% of appropriations for the Hatch Act of 1887. FFNSA also applies some oversight to state governments regarding their matching funds requirement to 1890 institutions.
• Updated Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) priority areas to include language around regionally adapted cultivars and breeding for environmental resilience.

Ultimately, the research title underwhelms, failing to provide the kinds of research investments that farmers need to build viable businesses that can withstand disruption of all kinds.

Title 9 – Energy 

Agrivoltaic systems, where land is used simultaneously for agriculture and solar energy production, offer an important opportunity to reduce farm energy costs while generating additional on-farm benefits. FFNSA directs USDA to study the effects of solar on farmland, including best practices for shared solar and agricultural production, which could provide key insights for advancing agrivoltaic projects. Sections in this bill, however, also limit USDA funding for solar projects that convert prime farmland with narrow exceptions for smaller acreage and prohibit USDA funding for solar components from foreign countries of concern, similar to Secretary Rollins’ August 2025 memo on changes to the Rural Energy for America Program. At a time of high energy costs, these restrictions, as written, may further limit farmers and ranchers’ ability to access solutions that can protect farmland and work for their operations.

Title 10 – Horticulture

Under an Administration where a number of NSAC priorities have been threatened by program termination or significant changes, the new and improved programs set forth in this title of FFNSA are not insignificant. 

In particular, the bill is responsive to the programmatic needs of stakeholders regarding the Local Agriculture Market Program. The turnkey grant opportunities have been extremely popular since their implementation in 2023; however, they have not been available for popular and unmet needs, such as farmers market manager staff time or special purpose equipment. FFNSA creates permanent turnkey grants and expands the allowed activities, yet falls short of eliminating barriers for participation, such as the match requirements. 

FFNSA takes modest steps in strengthening the Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production by directing additional support to producers and tailoring technical assistance for urban production. However, it does not include mandatory funding for the Office, which has been a key NSAC priority in the previous few years, given the challenges of sustaining, let alone increasing, funding for this popular program through the appropriations process. The bill’s most significant support for urban agriculture is directing the Farm Service Agency to permanently implement urban county committees beyond their pilot status from the 2018 farm bill, which ensures USDA services and representation in urban areas.  

The bill directs USDA to examine the ways USDA purchases food for nutrition programs to understand barriers for farmers and businesses selling nontraditional, culturally relevant, or local and regional products directly to USDA, and make administrative, regulatory, and legislative recommendations to address barriers. This level of formal assessment is long overdue and a welcome element to the bill. 

With the early sunsetting of the Transition to Organic Partnership Program (TOPP), this bill is inadequate overall for organic agriculture, despite some elements of TOPP being included. Giving the National Organic Program (NOP) the authority to provide technical assistance to support transition with no additional funding for TA will increase the burden on an already underfunded program. Additional funding to provide technical assistance, education, and outreach to certified organic farmers and farmers transitioning to organic certification is critical for the continued growth of organic systems that emphasize soil health.

Title 11 – Crop Insurance

Unfortunately, FFNSA fails to meet the moment with any meaningful reforms that would alleviate bureaucratic red tape and streamline access to crop insurance for the small, diversified, and direct-to-consumer farmers and ranchers who are left behind. It requires an annual review of challenges to access Whole-Farm Revenue Protection, but those barriers and corresponding solutions are already well-documented. The bill amends the eligibility definitions for the additional crop insurance premium discounts passed in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB, P.L. 119-21), including veteran producers for the additional premium discounts. While this is an important investment for beginning and veteran producers, it will have minimal impact if it is not paired with more foundational reforms to streamline paperwork and address the disincentive that agents experience to sell insurance to small and diversified farms.

FFNSA also directs several research initiatives to explore new insurance products, including limited weather based index policies, but few that would benefit producers currently unable to effectively or affordably insure their operations. While failing to address barriers or reduce the costs of crop insurance for many uninsured operations, the bill provides for increased reimbursement rates for administrative and operating costs for private Approved Insurance Providers (AIPs). 

Title 12 – Miscellaneous 

The Miscellaneous Title includes a wide range of provisions; here, we focus on several pertinent to expanding meat processing resources and capacity.

With the decline of avenues for small and very small plants to offer feedback to the Administration and receive guidance (for example, due to a decision to disband the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection (NACMPI)), the inclusion of statutory requirements for further resources in the form of model Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) plans and validation studies for these processors is welcome (Section 12112). 

While FFNSA does provide for further outreach to state departments of agriculture regarding the Cooperative Interstate Shipping Program, it does not change the federal cost share for that program or the state meat and poultry inspection programs – both of which are key changes needed for the federal food safety regulations to better work with and regulate small and very small meat processors. It also includes a reporting requirement to Congress (Section 12113) 

FFNSA also opens new, potentially anti-competitive methods of ownership that might directly counteract the benefits of other investments in the bill. For example, including the A-Plus Act (Section 12111) would likely create more vertically integrated markets, where the stockyard is also the only meat processing operation in an area.

The post At a Crossroads, House Farm Bill Falls Unmistakably Short appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Contact: Laura Zaks

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

press@sustainableagriculture.net

Comment: In Moment of Need, House Farm Bill Underdelivers with Empty Promises

Washington, DC, February 14, 2026 – The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) released the following statement attributable to Mike Lavender, NSAC Policy Director, in response to the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026, House Agriculture Committee Republican’s draft farm bill text released yesterday:

“More than seven years since the last farm bill, and in a moment of need for farmers, the Farm, Food, and National Security Act lacks the robust investments and reforms necessary to propel American agriculture forward. The bill takes no meaningful steps toward building a fair, responsible, and accessible farm safety net while needlessly siphoning funding away from popular and effective conservation programs. 

It does, however, create opportunities for important steps forward, particularly for local and regional food systems – by connecting local farmers to nearby communities and expanding meat processing capacity. Unfortunately, these investments lack mandatory funding, severely stunting their potential to improve farmer viability and community health.

Moreover, dozens of critical programs, including those that support beginning farmers and ranchers, organic agriculture, and vital farmer-driven research, are both unimproved and level-funded, representing a roughly twenty percent cut due to seven years of inflation. NSAC will continue its review of legislative text in the days ahead. Farmers deserve a farm bill that delivers a fair farm safety net, builds climate resilience, and invests in strong local supply chains – anything less would fall short of what American agriculture actually needs.”

Stay tuned to NSAC’s blog for deeper analysis and coverage of the farm bill reauthorization, including the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026.

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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. 

Learn more and get involved at: https://sustainableagriculture.net

The post Comment: In Moment of Need, House Farm Bill Underdelivers with Empty Promises appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

The transition from one fiscal year to the next is not something that typically dominates headlines. In fact, as the calendar turns from September 30 to October 1 – when the federal government begins a new fiscal year – the less attention the better. Yet when Congress and the President are unable to reach an agreement on government funding, the start of a new fiscal year can bring with it tremendous impacts.

During a government shutdown some federal services will remain in operation, while others may go dark, and the longer the shutdown lasts, the more severe the disruptions become. This year, Congress and President Trump failed to reach an agreement to fund the government beyond September 30, 2025 – and as a result the government has largely closed. The President and Congressional Republicans have proposed to fund the government beyond September 30 with what’s known as a “clean” continuing resolution (CR) – simply put, to continue funding the government at the same level (H.R.5371). Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, have called for a CR that funds the government and extends Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies to prevent healthcare costs from skyrocketing for millions of Americans later this year (S.2882).

Access to critical services – such as reliable internet – can be challenging or even nonexistent in many parts of rural America. Unfortunately, this also extends to access to reliable and affordable health care. On average, individuals – including farmers – living in rural households are more likely to be uninsured. Yet the rate of uninsured adults under 65 in rural areas has dropped by nearly half since 2010, when the ACA was passed, and there’s reason to believe uninsured rates may have fallen even more steeply for farmers since the ACA’s enactment. Healthy, thriving farmers, families, and rural communities are a foundational component of a sustainable, just food and farm system – and ensuring that all Americans can access quality, affordable healthcare is a critical part of reaching that goal.

In addition to the government shutdown, the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 – otherwise known as the 2018 Farm Bill – expired with the new fiscal year, bringing with it an additional set of uncertainties. The rest of this blog post explores the impacts of the government shutdown and the expiration of the 2018 Farm Bill on farmers and food system stakeholders nationwide.

Government Shutdown

Whether you realize it or not, federal programs and services are a part of many peoples’ daily lives. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA), with employees around the country currently totaling around 80,000, offers hundreds of programs in communities nationwide that support farmers and ranchers, rural businesses, and other food system stakeholders. With roughly half of USDA’s staff furloughed as a result of the shutdown, the impacts are sure to be felt widely.  However, these shutdown impacts cannot be viewed in isolation. In fact, for the nine months prior to the government shutdown, many of the programs and services that USDA offers have been under threat as funding has been frozen and abruptly – actions resulting in devastating consequences for farmers and rural communities. As with anything, context is important.

USDA has dramatically reduced its staff in recent months. Since January 2025, the Department has already lost at least 18,000 employees. More than 15,000 USDA employees left the department through the “Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)”’s so-called Deferred Resignation Program (DRP). The DRP offered federal employees fully paid administrative leave through September 2025 if employees voluntarily resigned from their positions. Approximately 3,876 USDA employees accepted DOGE’s first round DRP offer, and an additional 11,298 USDA employees resigned in the second round of DRP. Many of these employees have years of experience and irreplaceable expertise. The staff losses are impacting research, conservation, the farm safety net, and more.  

Beyond staff losses, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced this summer a proposed USDA reorganization. This proposed reorganization was drafted without any consultation with farmers or other stakeholders. While the reorganization plan does not directly include planned layoffs or reductions in force (RIF), it would in all likelihood result in the loss of thousands more staff if office relocations and consolidations are carried out. Recent history shows that staffing losses directly reduce and delay USDA’s services to stakeholders. As of posting, the reorganization remains a proposal that has yet to be finalized or implemented. But if it is implemented as proposed, the impacts are likely to be severe, lasting long after the shutdown ceases. Find NSAC’s in depth comment on the reorganization here.

Finally, just prior to the start of the current government shutdown, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) distributed a memo to federal agencies encouraging them to consider firing employees during the government shutdown by specifically targeting staff who work on programs that were out of alignment with the President’s priorities. The memo was swiftly met with multiple legal challenges and as of posting, no RIFs have taken place during the current government shutdown. 

So, against the backdrop of broken funding agreements, staff firings, a reorganization proposal, and the spectre of more firings – all of which have either reduced USDA’s capacity to serve its stakeholders or threatened to do so – the federal government has shut down. This post looks at what that means for agricultural conservation, the farm safety net, nutrition, research, local and regional food systems, and food safety.

Broadly speaking, federal staff are only allowed to continue working during a shutdown if they are “excepted” – either they are somehow essential to the operations and mission of the agency, or their job is funded through a non-lapsed funding source. On September 30, 2025, USDA published its Lapse of Funding Plan, which details agency-by-agency shutdown plans, from furloughed staff to services that will lapse – and is the basis for our analysis below. 

Conservation

Roughly 99% of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) staff is located outside the National Capitol Region (NCR), which means they are overwhelmingly state-based to provide technical assistance directly to producers. Further, a significant portion – roughly a third – of the NRCS budget for that technical assistance comes from mandatory funding for conservation programs. In theory, this means producers should still have some limited access to NRCS staff and the financial assistance provided by conservation programs at this time. However, shutdown plans provided by the agency, and early reports from our members in the field, indicate the reality is far less clear. According to NRCS’ shutdown plan:

• 95.799% of the remaining 9,237 employees are furloughed. It’s worth noting that, prior to the shutdown, nearly 1 in 4 NRCS employees left the agency this year.
• Services continuing during a shutdown:
  • NRCS will continue agency operations using available funding, including fiscal year (FY) 2026 mandatory farm bill programs funds, as well as prior year carryover discretionary and mandatory funding, to implement NRCS services and programs at USDA service centers and offices.
• Services stopping during a shutdown:
  • Key operational activities such as processing of contract payments to farmers and ranchers, conservation planning activities, ongoing collaborative projects with key soil and conservation partners, and processing of payments for outstanding contracts and agreements 
  • Advancing Markets for Producers (AMP) amendments in process of being signed are now further delayed.

The shutdown plan presents an inherent contradiction. It correctly claims NRCS has the needed mandatory resources to continue providing some level of service to producers, but furloughs nearly every single employee, making it impossible to do so. As a result, farmers will likely (or may have already) go without a planned annual payment, a reimbursement for work already completed, or certainty from NRCS on how to complete fall field work to remain in compliance with existing contracts. This approach is needlessly disruptive and burdensome for farmers who are facing the same dismal economy as their neighbors, but have elected to do the hard work of improving conservation efforts within their operation anyway.

Farm Safety Net

The Farm Service Agency (FSA) – the primary agency responsible for administering farm safety net programs – is broadly impacted by the shutdown with a majority of its staff furloughed. Staff in county offices around the country will be largely unavailable for farmers seeking to access loans, commodity and other program payments, and disaster assistance. At a moment when producers across the country are facing significant financial challenges, many programs designed to provide such economic relief will be inaccessible due to the shutdown. 

• 67% of FSA staff are furloughed
• Services Continuing During a Shutdown:
  • After 10 days of a shutdown, each county office will have one loan employee and one farm program employee on call to complete certain loan processing items: continuing liens, protective advances, and bankruptcy notification responses. 
• Services Lapsing During a Shutdown:
  • All disaster assistance payments, including remaining Supplemental Disaster Assistance programs
  • Processing annual CRP payments
  • Processing annual ARC/PLC payments 
  • Accepting and processing of new loans
  • Other credit or loan activities, including providing advance funds, obligating or closing direct loans previously approved, processing or approving debt settlement applications, processing guaranteed loss claims, and loan restructuring. 

Nutrition 

More than 40 million people and 29 million students rely on USDA nutrition programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), and child nutrition programs. These essential nutrition resources will remain available during a shutdown, subject to the availability of funding. In this case, families will still have access to their SNAP benefits and schools will have access to foods through entitlement offerings; however, funding for WIC benefits is expected to run out very soon, impacting roughly 6 million pregnant people and parents with young children. 

• 91.7% of USDA’s Food and Nutrition (FNS) staff have been furloughed. 
• Services continuing during a shutdown:
  • FNS will designate staff to manage program administration of SNAP benefits between state agencies, but the number of staff available is unclear. 
  • School menus and purchases are largely planned before the school year begins. Schools should continue to have access to USDA foods and meal reimbursements since these funds are made available through a transfer of funds from Section 32, which can be drawn at any time. 
  • While it is reassuring that the majority of nutrition benefits will continue to be available for families and children, the extent to which these programs will run smoothly with so many staff furloughed is still unknown.
• Services lapsing during a shutdown:
  • While existing authorized vendors will be able to accept and benefit from SNAP benefits, USDA will not process any new applications for vendors seeking to accept SNAP or WIC applications. 
  • Additional technical assistance or support services, such as offering webinars, will not continue during a shutdown. This is particularly relevant for current Patrick Leahy Farm to School Grant applications that are due in early December. 

Research 

The shutdown not only impacts the work USDA does that directly serves producers, but also the research that underpins every aspect of farm viability and success. USDA’s Research, Education, and Economics mission area – which houses the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), Economic Research Service (ERS), National Agricultural Statistics Survey (NASS), and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) – is tasked with providing reliable scientific research, data, and analysis for America’s farmers, ranchers, rural communities, and other stakeholders. These research staff and sites provide the human capital and infrastructure for agricultural research, as well as data collection and analysis for commodities and rural communities. 

Many competitive grant programs within NIFA, like the Organic Research and Extension Initiative, Food Safety Outreach Program, and the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program, are already running nearly a full year behind their normal grant cycle even prior to the shutdown. The shutdown will further delay the agencies in opening up funding opportunities for these programs, exacerbating uncertainty for farmers and researchers who are already reeling from frozen and terminated funding agreements since the start of this Administration.

• 69% of ARS Staff Furloughed
  • Services continuing during a shutdown:
    • Protection of human and animal life as well as research property and data where significant damage could result
    • Research on Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, New World Screwworm, and other vital research needs that are essential to protecting public health and safety
  • Services stopping during a shutdown:
    • Citrus Greening
    • Animal/crop production and protection projects and food safety research 

• 94% ERS Staff Furloughed
  • No public facing work at ERS will continue during shutdown
  • ERS will suspend almost all program activities. ERS publications, website updates, and data products, will be suspended during a lapse in appropriations

• 95.6% NIFA Staff Furloughed
  • Continuing: financial and grants management support as needed
  • All program activity will cease

In addition, 91% of NASS employees and the entire Office of the Chief Scientist, except for the Chief Scientist themselves, are furloughed, along with a suspension of all NASS data releases. 

Local and Regional Food Systems 

Unlike other agencies within USDA, staff and operations at the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) – one of the primary agencies that supports local food system efforts – are largely funded by associated program fees and mandatory farm bill funding. As a result, many AMS programs and functions can continue during a shutdown. The status of other programs utilizing funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) remain unclear. 

However, this is not the case for Rural Development (RD). While the RD budget is small in comparison to AMS, it runs a number of impactful business development programs with staff located in every state. This includes the Meat and Poultry Processing Expansion Plant grant Program and the Value-Added Producer Grant program, among others. 

• 8.72% of AMS staff are furloughed.  
• Services continuing during a shutdown:
  • A number of activities that allow for products to reach markets, such as food product grading and specialty crop inspections, will continue uninterrupted. 
  • Commodity and food purchases, directed by FNS and other agencies, will continue. 
  • There are a number of Farm Bill programs that have mandatory funding, such as the Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Programs, that should be unaffected.
• Services lapsing during a shutdown include:
  • Grant programs funded by annual appropriation
  • National Organic Program; Country of Origin Labeling; Packers and Stockyards Program; Pesticide Data Program; National Bioengineered Food Disclosure  
  • Other programs not funded by mandatory funds may also halt such as the Meat and Poultry Processing Technical Assistance program or the Local Meat Capacity grant program 
• 83% of Rural Development (RD) staff have been furloughed. 
• Services continuing during a shutdown:
  • The extent of activities that will continue will be those focused on protecting government assets or property. In this case, that includes home and farm loan programs, in which the government has a vested interest in collecting payments from borrowers. 
• Services lapsing during a shutdown:
  • Although RD programs are authorized by the farm bill, the majority of business development RD activities are funded through annual appropriations and as a result will stop during a shutdown. These include programs such as the Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program, Rural Business Development Grants, and Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (ATTRA). 
  • Meat and Poultry Processing Expansion Program (MPPEP) grants that have not been fully paid out are likely paused.

Food Safety

A large portion of USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s staff, with their core missions of food safety, are exempted or excepted from the shutdown. However, even within this core mission, many of their services are reduced, defaulting to a more reactive position. Across both agencies, non-mandatory policy initiatives – such as those that provide extra guidance to small farms or small processors – will be paused. While these activities are not mandatory, they are of critical importance to those small businesses that rely on them. 

Across both agencies, state cost-share funding will follow the model of federal activities and  narrow in on key inspection activities as well. It is unclear from the contingency plans of both FDA’s Human Foods Program and FSIS whether the overall payment of these state cost shares will cease, though the FSIS contingency plan does mention the potential for this to happen whereas the FDA does not. 

The lapse in support for services and programs that benefit small farmers and processors means that parts of the industry often most in need of tailored support may feel the impacts of the shutdown disproportionately, further delaying needed progress in food safety improvements. 

• 7% of FSIS staff are furloughed.
• Services continuing during shutdown:
  • FSIS will continue to perform mission-essential food safety operations required to protect life and property, including statutorily required inspection of meat, poultry, and egg products, investigations necessary to protect public health (outbreaks, recalls, etc.), laboratory work essential to identifying public health concerns and threats, emergency preparedness, and minimum levels of other support functions necessary to maintain these activities. Additionally, mandatory administrative work related to the shutdown will also continue. 
• Services stopping during the shutdown: All functions not required to directly or indirectly support the protection of life and property will cease. This includes non-essential administrative tasks, training other than mandatory training for frontline inspectors, and other support activities.
  • Cooperative Agreements for Inspection Services: States may run out of funds to perform key inspection services. A total of 29 states run Meat and Poultry Inspection (MPI) programs. 
  • Policy initiatives, including those that impact small and very small plants, are stalled.

According to FDA’s lapse plan, 13,872 (86%) of FDA staff will be retained, including 10,740 (66%) who are exempt from furlough because their activities or position are already funded or otherwise exempted and 3,132 (19%) who are excepted because their activities are deemed necessary by implication or for the safety of human life or protection of property).

• Services continuing during shutdown:
  • All FDA activities related to imminent threats to the safety of human life or protection of property would continue. This includes detecting and responding to public health emergencies and continuing to address existing critical public health challenges by managing recalls, mitigating drug shortages, and responding to outbreaks related to foodborne illness and infectious diseases. It also includes surveillance of adverse event reports for issues that could cause human harm, the review of import entries to determine potential risks to human health, conducting for cause and certain surveillance inspections of regulated facilities, and related regulatory testing activities, and criminal enforcement work and certain civil investigations.
• Services stopping during shutdown:
  • Food safety efforts within FDA’s Human Foods Program (HFP) are reduced to safety surveillance and emergency responses. Longer-term food safety initiatives, including policy work to help prevent foodborne illnesses and diet-related diseases, would be halted, jeopardizing public health.
  • FDA will be limited in the number and type of inspections to be conducted, unless the inspections are for cause or otherwise necessary to detect and address imminent threats to the safety of human life, or can be conducted with carryover user fee funding.

Office of Hearing and Appeals – National Appeals Division

USDA’s National Appeals Division (NAD) is an independent office that presides over appeals of adverse decisions stemming from the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Farm Service Agency, the Risk Management Agency, and Rural Development. When a farmer or other stakeholder disputes a decision made by one of those agencies, they generally may appeal the decision to NAD for review and potential reversal. 

During the shutdown, 100% of Office of Hearing and Appeals (OHA) staff are furloughed and all NAD proceedings are postponed. Given first the funding freeze and then the unprecedented and abrupt cancellation of countless agreements between the USDA and farmer-serving organizations under this Administration, the shutdown will further delay farmers and other stakeholders from obtaining the relief they seek. When the government reopens, there will likely be additional delay resuming postponed proceedings given how many appeals have been filed under the Administration challenging the lawfulness of recent decisions, on top of NAD’s regular docket.

Farm Bill Expiration

Amidst all of the uncertainty outlined above, it would be understandable if you lost track of the farm bill’s status. While the 2025 budget reconciliation bill (OBBB, P.L. 119-21) reauthorized some programs from the traditional farm bill, it excluded the vast majority of farm bill programs, leaving them to an uncertain future. Consequently, on October 1, 2025, the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 – more commonly known as the 2018 Farm Bill – expired.

Close observers of federal food and agriculture policy will be familiar with the oft-repeated albeit misleading message that the impacts of an expired farm bill don’t really kick in until January 2026, with the start of the new crop year. While it is true that there are new and significant impacts beginning in the new year, the consequences of allowing the 2018 Farm Bill to expire without a replacement begin immediately.

Note: the farm bill expiration impacts discussed below are anticipated impacts when the government is funded and open. During a government shutdown, the impacts in this section are superseded by and in addition to the impacts of a government shutdown.

Conservation

With one major exception, key USDA conservation programs – Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), Agriculture Conservation Easement Program (ACEP), and the Regional Conservation Program (RCPP) – should remain largely unaffected by the expiration of the farm bill. This is a direct result of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which invested in and reauthorized these programs through 2031. However, the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is not so lucky. 

Administered by the Farm Service Agency (FSA), CRP conserves and improves soil, protects water quality, and provides wildlife habitat by establishing long-term cover on highly erodible land or land in need of conservation buffers that has previously been in row crop production. In exchange for cost-share and rental payments, farmers remove environmentally sensitive land from production and plant resource-conserving land cover to protect soil, water, and wildlife habitat.

CRP’s statutory authorization lapsed along with the rest of the farm bill on September 30, and therefore no new work can occur within that program without action from Congress to extend the prior or reauthorize a new farm bill. Effective as of October 1, 2025: 

• FSA will not approve new CRP contracts for any signup types
• FSA will not process offers for enrollment in CRP for all signup types
• FSA will not authorize any CRP contract revisions or corrections
• Contracts that were approved on or before September 30 will receive annual rental and cost-share payments, and signing incentive and practice incentive payments, as applicable.

Local and Regional Food Systems

Due to NSAC member advocacy during the 2018 Farm Bill, many local and regional food system programs now have permanent mandatory baseline funding and therefore should not see a significant interruption following the expiration of the 2018 Farm Bill on October 1, 2025. However, for programs such as the Local Agriculture Market Program (LAMP), that have not yet awarded FY2025 Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program and Regional Food System Partnership Grants, it’s possible that grant cycles could be interrupted during the lapse in authorization. For the Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program (SFMNP), while states should be able to finish programming without interruptions for the remainder of the 2025 season, the programs’ operations could be impacted in calendar year 2026 if there is a significant delay in a farm bill reauthorization or extension.

Organics and Research 

A handful of critical farm bill programs are funded without mandatory “permanent” baseline funding, meaning that without a provision that specifically offers continued funding, funding for the programs would expire when the farm bill expires. Despite its faults, OBBB provided additional funding for several of these formerly “stranded” programs, meaning they will remain funded during a short term lapse in farm bill authority.

One such program is the National Organic Certification Cost Share Program (OCCSP), which supports farmers with their annual certification costs. The Organic Production and Market Data Initiatives (ODI) and Scholarships for 1890s Institutions also both received additional funding through OBBB and should not be impacted by the lapse in authorization. 

Farming Opportunities Training and Outreach

The Farming Opportunities Training and Outreach (FOTO) program, which is a combination of the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development program (BFRDP) and the Outreach and Assistance to Socially Disadvantaged and Veteran Farmers and Ranchers Program (2501), was created in the 2018 Farm Bill in part to secure mandatory baseline funding for both 2501 and BFRDP. Many competitive grant programs within NIFA, like FOTO, are already running nearly a full year behind their normal grant cycle and saw no RFA for the FY25 grant cycle. Despite mandatory funding for the program continuing, the statutory authority for the grant program lapsed on October 1, 2025. Therefore, like LAMP discussed above, absent an extension or reauthorization, the next grant cycle may be interrupted.

Farm Safety Net

By and large, the farm safety net – ranging from credit to crop insurance and commodity programs – should continue to operate with little interruption through the end of 2025. 

The Federal Crop Insurance Program – which is permanently authorized and funded at such sums as necessary in perpetuity by Congress – will continue to function without interruption in the absence of a farm bill reauthorization or extension. Permanent disaster programs, including the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program and programs to support livestock and fruit tree producers, are also authorized to continue. 

The farm bill also permanently authorizes USDA to make and guarantee loans, for which money is allocated by Congress in the annual appropriations process. Failure to reauthorize or extend the farm bill is not likely to impact the availability or servicing of farm loans. 

Several commodity programs – including Price Loss Coverage (PLC), Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC), Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC), and marketing assistance loans – were amended and extended through 2031 in the 2025 budget reconciliation bill. Changes to reference prices in ARC/PLC will be implemented for the 2025 crop year, with payments calculated on these new reference prices set to be administered in Fall 2026. 

However, if the farm bill is not reauthorized or extended by January 1, 2026, these commodity programs will begin to be replaced with “permanent law,” or non-expiring provisions established in the 1938 and 1949 Farm Bills. The first commodity to be impacted is dairy. While the reconciliation bill amended these commodity programs, a suspension of permanent law was not included in the final legislation. Therefore, a reauthorization or extension of the farm bill prior to January 1, 2026, is necessary to prevent these programs from reverting to permanent law.

What’s Next

This year has presented farmers with an unprecedented set of obstacles to navigate. While there is a long way to go, the final months of 2025 nonetheless offer an opportunity to bring much needed stability after months of chaos – by ending the government shutdown, enacting FY2026 agriculture appropriations, and passing a farm bill extension if a strong and fair farm bill cannot be achieved this year.

The post How the Government Shutdown is Impacting Farmers appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Contact: Laura Zaks

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

press@sustainableagriculture.net

Release: Nearly 600 Groups Deliver Joint Letter to Congress Urging a Strong and Fair Farm Bill

Washington, DC, September 22, 2025 – Today, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) and nearly 600 national, state, and local organizations delivered a joint letter to Congressional leaders urging them to aim high toward a farm bill that invests in our mutual prosperity. Addressed to Senate and House leadership as well as Agriculture Committee chairs and ranking members, the letter calls on Congress to address the harmful provisions enacted through the recently passed budget reconciliation bill (P.L. 119-21). Against the backdrop of a dire farm economy, the letter calls for advancing a long overdue farm bill that supports family farmers, rural communities, healthy food access, essential nutrition programs, and more.

“The decisions made in this farm bill will touch every person in this country,” the letter states, “[we] stand together to say we will only support a farm bill that provides adequate and accessible SNAP benefits to families and individuals; makes our food safer, healthier, and more affordable; supports good, family-sustaining jobs for food workers; supports family farmers and their communities; and ensures our food is produced in ways that are consistent with our values.”

The diverse coalition of signatories includes organizations focused on  addressing hunger and nutrition, labor, farm, rural communities, and sustainability. Nearly 80 national organizations joined more than 500 state and local organizations from every region of the country including insular areas.

“As organizations representing millions of individuals, farmers, workers, and families whose lives and livelihoods are impacted by the farm bill, we urge you to aim high toward a farm bill that restores Americans’ trust in the federal government. … A good farm bill would fully address the devastating and ongoing impacts of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s office closures, reorganizations, relocations, as well as the uncertainty exacerbated by funding freezes, award terminations, and staff firings – all of which have weakened the Department’s ability to serve farmers, rural small businesses, and food insecure communities… Anything short of that fails our farmers, our communities, and us all.”

Read the full letter here. 

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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more and get involved at: https://sustainableagriculture.net

The post Release: Nearly 600 Groups Deliver Joint Letter to Congress Urging a Strong and Fair Farm Bill appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

When Congress returned from its August recess, it faced a long to-do list and little time to act.

On the September list is to fund the government by September 30, when current funding expires for the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and across the federal government. A failure to fund the government by September 30 would result in a government shutdown, significantly impacting USDA’s ability to serve farmers, ranchers, and stakeholders nationwide.

Meanwhile, Congress is now nearly 7 years removed from passing a full farm bill. Earlier this year, President Trump signed the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB, P.L. 119-21) into law, which slashed SNAP benefits by nearly $186 billion and directly reinvested more than $50 billion of that to further increase farm subsidies to the largest, wealthiest farmers, while programs that support the vast majority of farmers and rural communities were excluded from the bill entirely. The inclusion of a handful of traditional farm bill programs in budget reconciliation has severely diminished the likelihood that Congress will pass a comprehensive and fair farm bill this year, or at all this Congress.

With all this in mind, this blog post analyzes fiscal year (FY) 2026 agriculture appropriations proposals in both the House and Senate, the prospects of a government shutdown at the end of September, and whether a farm bill may move later this year.

FY2026 Agriculture Appropriations

On June 23, 2025, the House Appropriations Committee approved – in a 35-27 party-line vote – its fiscal year (FY) 2026 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. Meanwhile, on August 1, 2025 the full Senate passed its version of the FY2026 Agriculture Appropriations bill with strong bipartisan support, 87-9.

At a high level, the Senate bill sets FY26 Agriculture spending at just over $27 billion and maintains level funding for numerous NSAC priorities. Meanwhile, the House bill sets FY26 Agriculture spending at $25.5 billion, reducing funding for critical programs that serve farmers and their communities. The House bill also includes harmful policy riders that would prevent implementation of three rules designed to promote fair competition for livestock farmers under the Packers and Stockyards Act, as well as any similar rulemaking effort (Section 729), and prevents any funding for efforts related to Executive Order 13985, which seeks to advance racial equity and support for underserved communities through the USDA (Sec. 755). 

Both the Senate and House bills include language relevant to the proposed USDA reorganization. In Sec. 746 of the House bill and Sec. 750 of the Senate bill, the following language appears:

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no funds available to the Department of Agriculture may be used to move any staff office or any agency from the mission area in which it was located on August 1, 2018, to any other mission area or office within the Department in the absence of the enactment of specific legislation affirming such move.

Separately, during the full Senate’s consideration of its bill, Senators voted on an amendment led by Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) that would have prevented the reorganization until USDA had: collected public input from stakeholders on the reorganization; conducted and made public a benefit-cost analysis; and required a report on how USDA would maintain staff expertise throughout the reorganization. While many members of Congress have spoken out with concerns about the USDA reorganization, the amendment ultimately failed 42-53 along party lines, with the exception of two Senators from Colorado joining all Republicans in opposing the amendment.

Conservation, Energy and Environment

One of the most notable areas where the House and Senate FY26 appropriations bills diverge in funding is for Conservation Technical Assistance. In the Senate, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Conservation Operations account – 85% of which funds NRCS staff capacity and partnerships with third party conservation organizations through the Conservation Technical Assistance (CTA) program – comes in at $895.75 million. The bill reserves $775.495 million of the Conservation Operations funding for CTA. Conservation Operations saw a $26 million cut in overall funding from FY23 to FY24, and the proposed FY25 Senate funding level would bring Conservation Operations funding well above its FY23 levels, but still well below the $1.2 billion that NSAC and dozens of other conservation organizations requested. 

The Senate bill reserves $10 million from the CTA funding pool for the Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative (GLCI), maintaining its current funding level. GLCI – which promotes high quality livestock grazing techniques – was funded at $10 million in FY2024 and FY2025. The Senate’s number of $10 million is an important counter to the House proposal, which has zeroed-out funding for GLCI the past several fiscal years, and NSAC is thrilled to see support for such a valuable program. We hope that continued leadership in the Senate can lead to a restoration of GLCI funding in future years to its historic levels of nearly $30 million.

The House bill, on the other hand, funds Conservation Operations at $850 million, more than $45 million below both current funding levels and the Senate proposal. It also rescinds an additional $50 million of unspent funding allocated in previous fiscal years through a rider (Sec. 765). Funding for CTA in the House bill is $705 million, a nearly $70 million cut from current funding levels, showing that the majority of funding cuts by House appropriators for Conservation Operations are directed at CTA. As noted above, the House continues to attempt to zero out funding for GLCI in FY25, despite the growing popularity of grass-based systems among new farmers and ranchers.

Research and Organics

The House and Senate bills do not differ significantly on sustainable and organic research, though there are noticeable differences in the report language accompanying the bills, including the Senate’s emphasis on the important role sustainable and organic research programs play in building agricultural resilience.   

The Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (SARE) receives $48 million in funding in the Senate’s proposal, level with FY24’s enacted level but still below SARE’s funding of $50 million in FY23. While NSAC is pleased to see no further funding cuts to SARE in the Senate proposal, we are disappointed that the Senate bill did not restore SARE’s funding to FY23 levels. The failure to restore SARE’s funding has a compounding impact as applicants continue to be turned away from the program for lack of sufficient funding. 

SARE provides farmers and researchers with vital opportunities to better understand agricultural systems and increase profitability.The current demand for sustainable agriculture solutions far outweighs available resources. According to SARE’s most recent 2023-2024 Biennial Report From the Field, less than 40% of Farmer Rancher Grant proposals were able to receive funding between 2022-2023. The Committee also included report language on SARE regarding its important work on soil health:

“The Committee appreciates the work SARE has done to improve soil health through cutting edge research, education, and extension on cover crops, diversified rotations, and managed grazing. The Committee expects the funding provided to be focused on increasing agricultural resilience, including, where appropriate, interdisciplinary systems research and education, farmer and rancher research and demonstration grants, and graduate student research grants.”

Elsewhere within the purview of USDA’s Research, Education, and Economics (REE) Mission Area, a number of priorities important to NSAC members received level funding in the Senate bill. The Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI) did not receive any discretionary funding on top of its mandatory authorization level of $50 million, continuing a trend in recent years. The Organic Transitions Program (ORG) received level funding of $7.5 million. The Committee included report language highlighting the importance of organic research and the need for more organic research across USDA REE. 

“Organic Research.—USDA’s National Organic Standards Board [NOSB] has identified key organic research priorities, many of which would help to address challenges that have limited the growth in organic production in this country. The Committee encourages NIFA to give strong consideration to the NOSB organic research priorities when crafting the fiscal year 2026 Request for Applications for AFRI and the Organic Transition Program. Given the growing demand for organic products, the Committee also encourages USDA to increase the number of organic research projects funded under AFRI and the Specialty Crop Research Initiative.”

The Senate bill does not provide any additional discretionary funding for the Farming Opportunities Training and Outreach Grant Program (FOTO), which includes both the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program and Outreach and Assistance for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers (Sec. 2501). While FOTO receives $50 million in mandatory funding that is unaffected by annual appropriations, the program has also received additional discretionary appropriations each year between FY20 – FY23, which NSAC members have strongly supported.

As opposed to the Senate’s approach to mostly level-fund key sustainable and organic research and education programs, NSAC is disappointed to see SARE receive $40 million in funding through the House proposal, an $8 million cut to FY24’s enacted level. Over the past several years the House has continuously worked to cut funding for SARE, despite the program’s wide popularity among farmers and ranchers. In House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Andy Harris’ (R-MD-1) home state of Maryland alone, over 7,000 farmers have participated in SARE since 2020. 

Similar to past years, the House bill attempts to remove funding for USDA’s Climate Hubs. The House bill also treats OREI and ORG the same as the Senate, and includes some report language recognizing the value of organic research:

“Organic Agriculture Research.—The Committee encourages NIFA to consider the USDA National Organic Standards Board organic research priorities when crafting future AFRI Requests for Applications. Given the growing demand for organic products, the Committee also encourages NIFA to continue organic research projects funded under AFRI.

Similar to the Senate, the House bill does not provide any additional funding for FOTO.

Local and Regional Food Systems

The Senate and the House continue to prioritize funding for local and regional food systems at different levels. 

The Local Agriculture Market Program (LAMP), created in the 2018 Farm Bill, is USDA’s primary funding source for local and regional food system initiatives across the country. LAMP is a combination of the Value-Added Producer Grant Program (VAPG), the Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program (FMLFPP), and the Regional Food System Partnership Program. Combined, they invest in processing, distribution, and marketing of local foods. 

The Senate and the House have consistently funded FMLFPP; both provide the maximum authorization of $7.4 million to be split between the two programs, which is level funding from FY25. While the Senate maintains strong support for producer grants, authorizing $11.5 million for VAPG, the House proposes a significantly lower level of $5 million. The House’s sizable proposed cut in funding for the program is a new trend; they proposed the same in FY25. A decrease in funding for VAPG would have a greater impact this year compared to previous due to the increase in popularity of the program. Earlier this year, VAPG implemented a new grant application process that seeks to remove barriers for producer applicants. It is demonstrating initial success; Rural Development staff shared that the number of applicants nearly doubled. 

The Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production (OUAIP) is another impactful program addressing community food security through local producer networks in urban, suburban, and rural communities. Since OUAIP received its first appropriation in 2020, it has invested over $85 million in 199 grants and 146 cooperative agreements to increase the capacity of agricultural production and municipal composting initiatives in local communities across 43 states and Puerto Rico. Yet, the office remains unable to meet its full potential due to Congress continuously underfunding it. While authorized at $25 million annually, the Senate includes only $6 million – a decrease from $7M in FY25; and an even greater decrease from $8.5 in FY23. The House includes $4 million, as a result of Congressman Mark Alford (R-MO-4) including an amendment during markup, after initially being completely left out of the bill with zero funding. These levels are simply insufficient to meet program demand. We recommend significant increases to fund more than 14% of projects – the cumulative award average as of last year.

Government Shutdown

Despite a decent amount of progress – albeit behind schedule – on FY2026 agriculture appropriations, there nevertheless remains a significant possibility of a government shutdown beginning October 1, 2025.

Negotiations on government funding beyond September 30 are developing by the minute and as of posting this blog, it appears possible – though not certain – that the federal government will shutdown for an undetermined period of time beginning October 1. So what, exactly, would a government shutdown mean for agriculture?

Each agency and department throughout the federal government, including USDA, is required to develop a government shutdown contingency plan, available here. 

While USDA will need to keep a number of employees working to handle critical functions, non-essential programs will be forced to a halt. In the past, essential activities have included but were not limited to: food safety inspections, wildfire suppression, nutrition assistance programs, and monitoring imports for pests and diseases. The number of employees that will be furloughed will depend on how long the shutdown lasts. 

In particular, we anticipate that a shutdown would adversely impact farmers and ranchers who rely on county-level USDA offices of the Farm Service Agency and the Natural Resources Conservation Service. These local offices – many of which are already strapped due to the ongoing USDA staffing crisis – would close, and while the impact from the closures may not be felt immediately, the longer the shutdown runs, the more acutely farmers and stakeholders will feel the impact.

Farm Bill

As many of our readers will know, Congress has not passed a full farm bill since December 2018. While OBBB – which was signed into law in July 2025 – included some components of a traditional full farm bill, it excluded many programs that support the vast majority of farmers and rural communities. This calculated move effectively ended a decades-long era in which federal farm bills were passed by coupling nutrition assistance and farm programs, raising legitimate questions of how, or even whether, future farm bills might pass Congress.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “G.T.” Thompson (R-PA-15) has indicated that he would like the House to approve a farm bill this fall, yet there is no clear path to accomplish that goal in the House of Representatives let alone Congress as a whole, nor has there been concrete evidence of a timeline or commitment to enacting a bipartisan farm bill anytime soon. On the other side of the US Capitol, there has yet been no indication that the Senate has the capacity or appetite to advance a new farm bill this fall.

Even amidst this uncertainty, some truths remain constant. Congress must pass an extension of the 2018 Farm Bill by September 30, 2025 or December 31, 2025 at the very latest, in order to prevent critical programs’ lapsing authorization. More broadly, for a farm bill to become law this year, it must meet the high bar of a good farm bill. The bill should move our food and farm system forward by meaningfully supporting family farmers and their communities while addressing OBBB’s impact on families and individuals.

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