According to language from the Congressional Research Service, "The farm bill is an omnibus, multi-year law that governs an array of agricultural and food programs." And while that description is relatively simplistic, the bill is anything but.

And with a September 2023 deadline for passage of the next reauthorization of this bill on the horizon, discussions have begun in earnest as ag groups throughout the country work to get their issues heard before the next Congress gets too deep in formulating this piece of legislation.

Kentucky Farm Bureau (KFB) President Mark Haney said the farm bill is the most important law connected to the agriculture industry and rural communities.

"I can't emphasize enough how vital it is to have our voices heard when it comes to what goes into this bill, and what should come out," he told a recent meeting of the KFB Farm Bill Working Committee.

This group was originally created to gather information for the last farm bill known as the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 which passed in December of that year.

The current group consists of KFB advisory committee chairs all of whom are vested in specific commodities that make up the Kentucky ag industry. It is being chaired by KFB First Vice President Eddie Melton.

He said that the provisions contained in the farm bill cover everything from conservation programs to crop insurance when it comes to its direct relationship to the ag industry.

"The rules and regulations that become a part of this bill have a direct effect on the farms across this country, so we have to be diligent and vocal about the contents of the farm bill," he said.

Throughout this first committee meeting, attendees heard from a variety of speakers who spoke about the bill as a whole, and certain aspects of it that will likely get the majority of attention from lawmakers.

Dr. Bart Fischer, Co-Director and AgriLife Assistant Professor, Agricultural and Food Policy Center at Texas A&M University, helped craft the last two farm bills and told the gathering that farm bills are traditionally hard to get accomplished and garner a lot of attention.

"The 2018 farm bill, we got it done in the same calendar year and was the first time since the 1990 farm bill that it was finished in the same year that it was introduced," he said. "Farm bills are a product of who is in leadership and the dynamic at the time and so my biggest question right now is will debt drive the conversation."

Traditionally a more conservation Congress with be sympathetic to the need for a farm bill but will have concerns over spending, and the word on the street right now is, this could be the first trillion-dollar farm bill.  

From a policy perspective, Emily Buckman, director of Congressional Relations with the American Farm Bureau Federation offered the group a look at policy priorities and a set of principles to guide the development of programs in the next farm bill.

Those included: Protecting current farm bill program spending; maintaining a unified farm bill that keeps nutrition programs and farm programs together; any changes to current farm legislation must be an amendment to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 or the Agricultural Act of 1949; prioritize risk management tools and funding for both federal crop insurance and commodity programs, and ensure adequate USDA staffing capacity and technical assistance

The committee also heard from Maeci Oney, the USDA Ag Program Specialist, Farm Service Agency, who discussed the importance of the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) which is administered by USDA's Farm Service Agency (FSA) and provides financial assistance to producers of non-insurable crops to protect against natural disasters that result in lower yields or crop losses or prevents crop planting.

"As Kentucky agriculture has diversified over the last 20 years, programs such as NAP have become extremely valuable to an increasing number of producers who are growing a variety of crops covered by this program," Haney said.

Melton said as it moves forward in the coming months, committee members will be gathering information that will ultimately become part of the message sent to Kentucky's Congressional delegation informing them of agriculture's needs in this next farm bill.

"We want to present a unified message to our government leaders when the time comes to move this bill through Congress," he said. "It has never been more important to bring our concerns to the legislative table to ensure our farms remain sustainable for the benefit of all."