House Agriculture Chair Glenn “GT” Thompson recently unveiled the full bill text of the 2024 Farm Bill. Lawmakers including Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa have previously said they are uncertain whether Democratic and Republican leaders will be able to pass a bipartisan Bill this year. But food policy expert Eric Kessler argues that the failure to come to an agreement may be preferable to a Farm Bill that compromises on critical programs.
“No Farm Bill is better than a bad Farm Bill,” says Kessler, who founded and previously served as Co-Head of Arabella Advisors. Calling the House version of the Bill “as far from bipartisan as you can get,” he tells Food Tank that it is “a direct attack on anti-hunger and nutrition programs…[and] climate programs.”
The legislative package, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates could cost as much as US$1.5 trillion over 10 years, covers everything from nutrition assistance programs and conservation to commodities and rural development.
The latest House version proposes cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs by almost US$30 billion. It also alters requirements for conservation funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, developed to support more climate-smart agriculture practices.
“I think [Republicans] are cynically looking at their constituency and what they believe their constituencies want and saying: Hey, we can convince them that climate change isn’t real, we can convince them that this money isn’t doing any good and put it into things that support big ag,” Kessler tells Food Tank. But, he says, “the polling doesn’t support that. Americans understand climate change.”
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack recently expressed “deep concerns” about the House Farm Bill stating, “It really is designed not to create a route to passage, but I think it’s designed unfortunately for a route to impasse which will create further delay.”
But Kessler says that even if lawmakers cannot come to an agreement, “the funding is there to continue hunger programs, continue nutrition programs, continue climate programs.” That’s why he tells Food Tank “let’s just keep rolling rather than agree to a bill that actually cuts these programs.”
Listen to the full conversation with Eric Kessler on “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg” to here more about the competing version of the House and Senate Farm Bills, what makes chefs powerful food systems advocates, and why evolving perspectives on investments in food and agriculture sector give him hope.
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Photo courtesy of Zoe Schaeffer, Unsplash
