A New Farm Bill – For All Practical Purposes – Is Now Virtually Abandoned
Congress has essentially abandoned a new Farm Bill to replace the one that expired 638 days ago, just two months shy of two years ago. Today, it is barely, if ever, mentioned in the halls of Congress. Instead, Congress and the Iowa congressional delegation have chosen to ignore the need to enact new basic farm legislation to chase right-wing ideologies instead.
Two-thirds of Iowa’s congressional delegation serve on the House and Senate Agriculture Committees: Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Joni Ernst (R-IA), and Reps. Zach Nunn (R-3rd IA) and Randy Feenstra (R-4th IA). [Editor’s note: Although this Op-Ed pays particular attention to Iowa, every Republican on these committees has voted lock-step with these Iowans; they pay zero attention to their rural constituents’ needs in their states.]
When it comes to actually passing a new Farm Bill, there is little evidence that those once plum committee assignments for a state like Iowa amount to a tiny hill of beans today.
Little to nothing has been done in the first six months of this Congress to finish the work of writing and enacting a new Farm Bill to replace the one left undone when the old and expired Farm Bill, enacted in 2018, expired on September 30, 2023. Those six months of inaction in 2025 are on top of two years of promises, but no action in the previous Congress and the failure to enact a new Farm Bill before the old one expired in the Congress before that.
In this Congress:
- No House or Senate Ag Committee meetings dedicated to enacting a new Farm Bill so far this year.
- No floor action to enact a new edition of the nation’s fundamental farm policy law so far this year.
- No floor action scheduled in either the House or Senate toward that end so far this year.
- Not even any negotiations to get the legislation moving so far this year.
Nothing. Zilch. Nada.