GREENWICH, N.Y. — As you may have noticed from my previous two columns, I am a bit of a sports fan. I suspect many others in the agriculture world probably follow sports a little closer than they do the federal government as well. Let’s call it an educated guess that over the past few weeks college basketball has been playing in milk parlors across the country a little more than congressional hearings.
With that obvious affinity for sports amongst the farm community, I hope my comparisons of different farm bill elements to the world of athletics has helped provide some better understanding of what’s going on as the 2023 farm bill process gets into full swing. Let’s keep it going with what will likely be the biggest factor to shape the next version of the farm bill: the budget.
When it comes to describing what the budget means to the farm bill process, there is no better analogy than the impact of the salary cap in professional sports. In most pro sports, the leagues have established an annual salary cap that teams must stay underneath when signing players to salaries. If they sign a player to a really big deal, and it takes them above the salary cap, they then have to make a trade or perhaps cut a player or two to dump salary and get the overall team salary back under the cap.
It is much the same when developing a farm bill. Sometime soon, the House and Senate Budget committees will establish a budget baseline for the farm bill within their respective Houses of Congress. Then it will be up to the House and Senate Agriculture committees to determine how that budget is spent without going over the established baseline amount. If they decide to put more money toward one program, or add a new program, they will then need to cut money from another program, so the end result is a number that stays at or below the established baseline.
While often the established budget baseline is similar between the two Budget committees, it can differ at times, and that could especially be the case this time around with a Republican House and Democratic Senate. If that happens, then the ultimate budget number will be determined when the House and Senate Ag committees have each established their versions of a farm bill, and then come together in conference committee to hammer out the final version.
And just like farmers can get pretty creative with baling twine and duct tape to make miracles happen on the farm, apparently that scrappy ingenuity carries over to the two ag committees when it comes to piecing together a farm bill and keeping it under budget. As one senate staff member apparently once stated, there is no more creative bunch of people with the budget than the Ag committees.
A lot of that scrappiness is likely taking place as this column is written, as Ag committee members and their staffers are likely working hard to influence those on the Budget committees before an official budget number is established. As I was told, there are many things that unite the House and Senate Ag committees during farm bill season, but nothing more than fighting against the Budget committees.
Let’s hope the fight is going well, because the Ag committees may have a lot of great ideas they have either come up with or had shared with them to alter what the next farm bill may look like, but what will most influence what they can do is if the Budget committees hand them a baseline number that is higher, lower or neutral compared to the baseline of the existing farm bill.
“You can have all the great ideas in the world, but the budget is going to drive what you can do in the farm bill,” I was told. “It’s like MMA fighting: it can be no holds barred inside the octagon, but it all has to take place inside the octagon.”
To get some idea of what that budget could look like, in February the Congressional Budget Office established their most recent Baseline for Farm Bill Programs. These projections identify expected outlays for farm program spending, assuming existing programs continue without changes, and adjusting for inflation and other factors. If that were to happen, the cost of the farm bill projected over five years, from FY2024 to FY 2028, would cost roughly $709 billion, with Nutrition (SNAP) accounting for about 82% of that outlay, Federal Crop Insurance 6.6%, Conservation 4.3%, Commodity Programs 4.2% and Miscellaneous (including Trade, Horticulture, Research and Energy) 3.6%.
What the next farm bill will ultimately look like is anyone’s guess at this point. But just like in sports, which direction the salary cap floats will have the greatest influence, and then it’s up to all the general manager wannabes on the House and Senate Agriculture committees to work their magic and piece together the best roster possible for U.S. food and farming have a successful run over the next five years.
Kyle Sharp grew up and lives on his family’s farm near Amanda, Ohio. He is a graduate of The Ohio State University with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in agricultural communication. Twenty years in ag media, 10 years operating the family dairy farm, many experiences through 4-H and FFA, and a family with a keen interest in politics have helped him see many sides of farming life.