As the 118th Congress enters its final few months of business before election season, the U.S. House and Senate have made some long-overdue progress on reauthorizing the next farm bill. The 2018 Farm Bill, which expired in September 2023 and temporarily extended until September 2024, is a package of legislation reauthorized roughly every five years that shapes almost every aspect of federal agricultural policy.

In early May, Chairwoman Stabenow (D- MI) of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry released a 94-page summary farm bill proposal, titled The Rural Prosperity and Food Security Act of 2024 (RPFSA). Senate Agriculture Committee Republicans also released a much less detailed summary of their proposal. Until a deal can be worked out, the Democrats, who have a slim majority and need 10 Republican votes to overcome a filibuster, are unlikely to attempt advancing a bill.

In late May, the US House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture advanced Chairman Thompson’s (R – PA) approximately $1.5 trillion farm bill proposal, titled The Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024 (FFNSA). The FFNSA passed out of committee with all Republicans and four of the Democrats voting in favor. There are currently no plans for Speaker Mike Johnson (R- LA) to bring the bill to the Floor for a general vote, and if he did, he likely would not have the votes to pass it. 

With only a few business days left in this Congress, it is unlikely that they will pass a final farm bill before the election in November or December. It is becoming increasingly likely that they will postpone it until next year.

In the meantime, it is worthwhile for climate and sustainable agriculture advocates to take a look at what was in both proposals and start thinking about a late-game strategy for securing some wins. Though many existing programs in the Farm Bill are highly relevant to climate change, such as those that assist farmers in adopting soil health practices, the Farm Bill as enacted in law does not explicitly address climate change or greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at all. The House and Senate proposals put forth this year would change that, but most notably the Senate Democrat’s proposal has quite a bit to be excited about. 

This blog will focus on the provisions in the farm bill proposals that are explicitly related to climate change. However, many other issues covered by the farm bill, such as land access, support for historically underserved farmers, organic agriculture, local market development, and farm safety net reform are also central to creating a more climate-friendly and resilient agriculture system.  For a deeper dive into these topics, please see the analysis from our partners at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (Senate summary and House bill parts 1,2, and 3), the National Young Farmers Coalition, and the Native Farm Bill Alliance.

Breaking It Down

Inflation Reduction Act Funds

The biggest climate-related news in this farm bill cycle is centered on the fate of the remainder of the $19.5 billion that was secured in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) for climate-smart agriculture. The IRA infused this funding into existing programs administered by the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) that support farmers in adopting a variety of on-farm conservation practices. Throughout the farm bill debate there have been many legislators, in both chambers, who desired to reallocate this historic funding towards other purposes. CalCAN and our allies worked hard to ensure this did not happen.

That hard work paid off in the Senate Democrats’ proposal, which protects all unobligated IRA funding and moves it into the farm bill’s baseline funding for the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP), and the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) while maintaining the requirement that funds be spent addressing climate change. Increasing the baseline for these programs ensures that they have increased funding moving into the future after all the IRA funding is spent. 

The House bill also rolls the IRA funding into the baseline of NRCS programs, although it disappointingly removes the critical climate change mitigation guardrails. Removing the climate guardrails on IRA funding could drastically slow the adoption of crucial climate-smart agricultural practices in California, leaving the state’s agriculture sector more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Last year, California’s demand for IRA climate-smart agriculture funding was more than three times the available funding. CalCAN will continue to advocate to Congress to ensure that the final Farm Bill includes this funding and maintains the climate mitigation requirements. 

Wins for Climate in the Senate Democrats’ proposal

In a major win for the the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) and its member groups such as CalCAN, our multi-year efforts to uplift the Agricultural Resilience Act as the framework for addressing climate change in the farm bill successfully helped shape Chairwoman Stabenow’s Senate Ag Committee farm bill proposal. 

Improvements to NRCS Programs 

Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP)

The Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) provides comprehensive conservation assistance for farmers and ranchers who enroll their entire operations in the program to achieve higher levels of stewardship through continued improvements. In the Senate proposal, wins for climate in CSP program include:

• Expanded definition of “conservation activities” to include mitigating GHG emissions.
• Authorization for payments for conservation activities related to organic production systems and transitioning to organic production.
• Stronger support for soil testing as part of a CSP contract.

Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP)

The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) is the largest working lands program in the country and provides farmers with financial cost-share assistance and technical assistance to adopt conservation practices ranging from cover crops and prescribed grazing to micro-irrigation and manure management. Many of these practices already have climate benefits, as recognized by the NRCS’s Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry List, but the Senate proposal would help ensure climate is centered in the future of the program. Climate-related wins for EQIP in the proposal include:

• Expansion of EQIP purposes to include: 

1. 1. promoting environmental quality and climate change adaptation and mitigation; 
   2. Assisting producers with complying with local, State, and national regulatory requirements concerning climate change adaptation, mitigation, and resilience; and 
   3. Assistance to producers to install and maintain conservation practices that sustain food and fiber production while sequestering carbon, increasing drought resilience, reducing GHG emissions, and conserving energy.

• Amends the definition of “practice” to include native habitat restoration and planning for reducing GHG emissions.
• Authorizes State technical committees to select high-priority practices that further efforts to implement a State, Tribe, or locality’s climate adaptation and resilience plan.
• Expands the calculation of payments for foregone income to allow the Secretary to accord greater significance to practices that promote GHG emissions reductions as part of air quality improvement.
• Adds language to ensure the program can assist grazers planning agri-voltaics projects within their operations.

Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP)

Through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), NRCS enters into partnerships with state agencies and non-governmental organizations to provide financial and technical assistance to farmers to install conservation activities to tackle priority natural resource concerns in a state or region. In addition to making a variety of tweaks to the program to improve implementation and equitable access, the Senate proposal would create the following climate-related new purposes for the program: 

1. Encouraging the reduction of GHG emissions and adaptation to climate change; 
2. Establishing or implementing the soil health plan or program of a State or Tribal government; and 
3. Facilitating the conversion from concentrated animal feeding operations to climate-friendly agricultural production (including regenerative grazing, agroforestry, organic, and diversified crop and livestock production systems). 

CalCAN’s National Healthy Soils Policy Network has been working to advance the State Assistance for Soil Health Program in the Farm Bill. The success of these efforts is reflected in the second new proposed purpose for RCPP described above. We recently published a blog outlining why this proposal, while lacking dedicated funding, is preferable to the House’s farm bill proposal which would create a state soil health program that takes funding from the oversubscribed Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP).

Other Wins on Climate in the Senate Democrats’ proposal

The Senate proposal includes the Advancing Research on Agriculture Climate Impacts Act, which will direct the NRCS to evaluate the performance of conservation practices with relation to the climate crisis. The Senate proposal would also formally authorize the “Climate Hubs” network at $50 million to serve the USDA in meeting the needs of farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners in integrating climate change into planning and decision-making and providing information, tools and practices to address the causes and consequences of climate change. Davis, California hosts one of these hubs and has produced a variety of useful resources. 

Additionally, the proposal makes several improvements to the grant and loans Rural Energy for America Program, including:

• Adds the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions as a consideration for energy efficiency improvement loan guarantees and grants.
• Creates a new Regional Demonstration Project initiative to demonstrate on-farm carbon emission reduction projects through energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy systems.

Other significant progress related to climate-change can be found in many of the bills, new programs and provisions such as those on organic agriculture, research, and attempts to improve access to crop insurance for diversified farms. While it is promising to see this much recognition in a farm bill proposal of the potential for farmer-driven climate solutions, there is still much more that could have been put on the table, and many major structural barriers to large-scale adoption of climate-friendly practices remain unaddressed, such as the highly restrictive and inequitable federal farm safety net. 

Wins for Climate in the House proposal

Unfortunately, the House Farm Bill lacks similar exciting climate-related news. Other than the aforementioned new State Assistance for Soil Health Program, the House proposal contains only one new provision explicitly related to climate change. Under EQIP, the House proposal would allow states to designate practices that increase carbon sequestration or reduce greenhouse gas emissions as a priority to receive higher cost-shares. This win comes from a proposal in the Agriculture Resilience Act (ARA).  

The House bill also makes a handful of small advancements on important issues like research, credit access, and supply chain development. Hopefully, as negotiations move forward, the House will be able to adopt more of the climate-related proposals outlined in the Senate Proposal and the Agriculture Resilience Act.

Converting Our Waste Sustainably (COWS) Act 

The COWS Act, CalCAN’s top legislative priority for this Farm Bill cycle,was not included in either proposal. The COWS Act would replicate at the federallevel, the highly successful California Alternative Manure Management Program (AMMP) that provides grants to dairy and livestock producers to implement practices that reduce methane emissions by preventing manure from entering wet storage lagoons. Eligible practices would include composting, dry scrape, advanced solids separation, and conversion to or expansion of pasture-based systems. The majority of the federal government’s current efforts to support livestock methane reduction is focused on anaerobic digesters, which mostly benefit large concentrated animal operations. The COWS Act would provide a much-needed alternative for small and mid-sized operations nationwide, while also helping to meet demand in California, where AMMP is oversubscribed.

However, some of the intent of the COWS Act was included in the Senate proposal through a new purpose in the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), “facilitating the conversion from concentrated animal feeding operations to climate-friendly agricultural production (including regenerative grazing, agroforestry, organic, and diversified crop and livestock production systems).”

This commendable use of RCPP should be included in the final farm bill. Many portions of the country cannot transition fully to year-round, grass-based livestock systems, so it is still vital that funding be dedicated to AMMP technologies. CalCAN will continue working with the House and Senate to ensure the inclusion of bipartisan COWS Act provisions.

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Call to Action 

The timeline for the farm bill’s progress is uncertain. While there may be action by the end of the year, many observers believe that Congress will not reach an agreement. It is expected that the new 119th Congress will likely address the bill in 2025, and the final bill may not be passed until 2026. Whether it’s two months or two years until the next farm bill, now is always a good time to contact your member of Congress. It’s important to let them know that the farm bill should prioritize farmer-driven climate solutions and create a resilient, just, and healthy agricultural system.

Find your member of Congress using this directory: https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member.

If you would like help contacting your representative and/or senator or developing talking points, please do not hesitate to contact CalCAN’s Associate Policy Director, Colton Fagundes [colton@calclimateag.org].