Farm Bill Primer: Overview and Status
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Updated December 27, 2024
Farm Bill Primer: Background and Status
The contents of a farm bill can vary and are determined by congressional action. The content is usually areas of overlapping jurisdiction of the agricultural authorizing committees—the House Committee on Agriculture and the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. However, issues outside the jurisdiction of these committees may be included in a farm bill with the approval of other committees of jurisdiction or by certain procedural actions taken on the floors of each chamber. Farm bills have grown in breadth over time to reflect changing priorities and a broader coalition needed to support passage. Traditionally, farm bills were focused on support for a handful of staple field crops and a limited number of other commodities (e.g., corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, dairy, and sugar). These programs are still present in farm bills; however, the legislation has expanded in scope to include other prominent topics such as nutrition, conservation, horticulture, farm loans, research, rural development, forestry, and energy. Much of the breadth of recent farm bills includes changes to policies and programs that were originally enacted in stand-alone acts prior to their inclusion in farm bills. This is what makes the farm bill an omnibus act—compilation of new laws or amendments to existing laws. For information on titles in the farm bill, see CRS Report R47313, Next Farm Bill Primer Series and the text box. For historical information, see CRS Report R45210, Farm Bills: Major Legislative Actions, 1965-2024. Farm bills authorize programs in two spending categories: mandatory and discretionary. See CRS In Focus IF13124, Distinguishing Between Discretionary and Mandatory Spending. Title I, Commodities: Provides support for major commodity crops, including wheat, corn, soybeans, peanuts, rice, dairy, and sugar. Authorizes disaster assistance. Title II, Conservation: Encourages environmental stewardship of farmlands and improved management through land retirement programs, working lands programs, and partnership programs. Title III, Trade: Supports U.S. agricultural export programs and international food assistance programs. Title IV, Nutrition: Provides nutrition assistance for low-income households through programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP. Title V, Credit: Offers direct government loans and guarantees to producers to buy land and operate farms and ranches. Title VI, Rural Development: Supports community facilities, business, and utility programs through grants, loans, and guarantees.The Farm Bill Primer: Overview and Status
Farm Bill Content
Farm Bill Funding
Mandatory Spending
Titles in Recent Farm Bills
is an omnibus, multiyear law that governs an array of agricultural and food programs. It provides an opportunity for policymakers to comprehensively and periodically address agricultural and food issues. The farm bill has typically been renewed about every five years since the 1930s (CRS Report R45210, Farm Bills: Major Legislative Actions, 1965-2024).
What Is in a Farm Bill?
The breadth of the farm bill is optional and determined mostly by the joint jurisdiction of the House and Senate agriculture committees. Initially, farm bills focused on support for a handful of staple commodities—corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, peanuts, dairy, and sugar. Since 1973, farm bills have become increasingly expansive, when a nutrition title was first included. Other prominent additions include formerly stand-alone laws, such as conservation, credit, and research. New topics were added, such as bioenergy and horticulture. In 2024, the farm bill considered by the House committee (H.R. 8467) and introduced in the Senate (S. 5335) contained the same 12 titles as the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (2018 farm bill; P.L. 115-334; see text box).
The omnibus nature of the farm bill can create broad coalitions for policies that individually might not have a majority of support in the legislative process. In recent years, more stakeholders have become involved in the farm bill debate representing conservation, rural development, nutrition, local food systems, and organic production.
When Does the Farm Bill Expire?
The 2018 farm bill was written to cover five years through FY2023 and the 2023 crop year. Congress enacted a one- year extension in November 2023 for 2024 (P.L. 118-22, Division B, §102) and a second one-year extension in December 2024 to cover FY2025 and the 2025 crop year (P.L. 118-158, Division D).
Without reauthorization, some farm bill programs expire and may not continue operations. Most nutrition assistance programs can be continued by providing appropriations. Farm commodity programs need to be reauthorized for future crop years. The farm bill also suspends long- abandoned permanent laws from the 1940s for the farm commodity programs that used supply controls and price regimes that would be costly to implement if their suspension expires. Other programs like crop insurance have permanent authority and do not need reauthorization (CRS Report R47659, Expiration of the 2018 Farm Bill and Extension for 2025).
What Does the Farm Bill Cost?
Farm bills authorize programs in two spending categories: mandatory and discretionary. They authorize mandatory funding for programs based on multiyear budget estimates (baseline) and estimates of what provisions in newly enacted bills cost (scores). Programs authorized for discretionary funding are not funded by the farm bill and depend on future appropriations action. Mandatory programs usually dominate the farm bill debate (CRS In Focus IF12233, Farm Bill Primer: Budget Dynamics).
Farm bills have both 5-year and 10-year budget projections for the programs that operate as entitlements based on formulas and eligibility criteria. The 10-year projection for the 2018 farm bill was $867 billion over FY2019-FY2028 (Table 1). Four titles accounted for 99% of the 2018 farm bill’s mandatory spending: nutrition (primarily the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP), farm commodities, crop insurance, and conservation. Programs in all other farm bill titles accounted for about 1% of mandatory outlays and receive mostly discretionary funds.
Farm Bill Primer: Background and Status
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Titles in Recent Farm Bills
Title I, Commodities: Provides support for major commodity crops, including wheat, corn, soybeans, peanuts, rice, dairy, and sugar. Authorizes disaster assistance.
Title II, Conservation: Encourages environmental stewardship of farmlands and improved management through land retirement programs, working lands programs, or both.
Title III, Trade: Supports U.S. agricultural export programs and international food assistance programs.
Title IV, Nutrition: Provides nutrition assistance for low- income households through programs, including SNAP.
Title V, Credit: Offers direct government loans and guarantees to producers to buy land and operate farms and ranches.
Title VI, Rural Development: Supports rural housing, community facilities, business, and utility programs through grants, loans, and guarantees.
Title VII, Research, Extension, and Related Matters: Supports agricultural research and extension programs to expand academic knowledge and help producers be more productive.
Title VIII, Forestry: Supports forestry management programs run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Forest Service.
Title IX, Energy: Encourages the development of farm and community renewable energy systems through various programs, including grants and loan guarantees.
Title X, Horticulture: Supports the production of specialty crops, USDA-certified organic foods, and locally produced foods and authorizes. Authorizes a regulatory framework for industrial hemp.
Title XI, Crop Insurance: Enhances risk management through the permanently authorized Federal Crop Insurance Program.
Title XII, Miscellaneous: Includes programs and assistance for livestock and poultry production, support for beginning farmers and ranchers, and other miscellaneous and general provisions.
Table 1. Projected Budget for the 2018 Farm Bill, the June 2024 Baseline, and the CBO Score of H.R. 8467 (million dollars, 10-year mandatory outlays)
Title
2018 Farm
Bill at
Enactment
CBO
Baseline
(June 2024)
Changes in
H.R. 8467
(CBO
score)a
FY2019-
FY2028
FY2025-
FY2034
FY2025-
FY2034
Commodities $61,414 $72,511 +$37,027
Conservation 59,748 58,419 +4,521
Trade 4,094 5,430 +2,420
Nutrition 663,828 1,099,396 -27,099
Credit -4,558 —b 0
Rural Dev. -2,362 —b 0
Research 1,219 1,300 +3,493
Forestry 10 —b +0
Energy 737 500 +50
Horticulture 2,047 2,100 +360
Title
2018 Farm
Bill at
Enactment
CBO
Baseline
(June 2024)
Changes in
H.R. 8467
(CBO
score)a
FY2019-
FY2028
FY2025-
FY2034
FY2025-
FY2034
Crop Ins. 77,933 123,468 +4,819
Miscellaneous 3,091 800 +2,495
Total $867,200 $1,363,924 +$28,086
Source: CRS Report R45425, Budget Issues That Shaped the 2018 Farm Bill; CRS analysis of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) June 2024 baseline for SNAP and the USDA Mandatory Farm Programs for the five largest titles and amounts in law for other titles; and CBO, “Estimate of H.R. 8467 Relative to CBO’s June 2024 Baseline Projections,” November 8, 2024. a. The score is the change relative to the June 2024 baseline. CBO has not released a score for S. 5335.
b. Baseline for the credit title is likely negative, indicating payments into the Farm Credit System Insurance fund. The rural development title has no current programs with baseline. Baseline for the forestry title is $10 million or less.
Figure 1. Baseline for Farm Bill Programs, by Title (billion dollars, 10-year mandatory outlays, FY2025-FY2034)
Source: CRS using the CBO June 2024 baseline for the five largest titles and amounts in law for programs in other titles. The June 2024 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline is the latest projection for the major farm bill programs. Table 1 and Figure 1 include these updates and the funding indicated in law for other farm bill programs not included in the CBO projection. The June 2024 baseline has $662 billion over 5 years (FY2025-FY2029) and $1,364 billion over 10 years (FY2025-FY2034).
What Are the Current Issues?
On May 23, 2024, the House Committee on Agriculture ordered reported a farm bill, H.R. 8467, the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024. On November 18, 2024, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry chair introduced a farm bill, S. 5335. The Senate committee took no further action on this bill.
Throughout 2024, budget issues pursuant to achieving various policy goals were leading obstacles in advancing the farm bill. The major policy issues included increasing
Farm Bill Primer: Background and Status
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“reference prices” for the farm commodity programs that would provide greater payments to farmers when market prices fall below a target support level. Both bills would have provided some level of increases. Another policy goal in both bills was to incorporate one-time conservation funding from P.L. 117-169 (referred to as the Inflation Reduction Act) into the permanent farm bill conservation baseline. Both bills increased mandatory funding for export promotion, agricultural research, and animal health programs. Both bills would also have restricted USDA’s ability to use the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) to initiate farm assistance outside the farm bill. In nutrition policy, the House bill would have prevented USDA from reevaluating the market basket for the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP) in SNAP in a way that exceeds the cost of inflation.
The baseline CBO initially used to evaluate H.R. 8467 was the May 2023 baseline, which indicated that the bill would increase mandatory spending by $33.0 billion over nine years (FY2025-FY2033). CBO subsequently scored the bill against the June 2024 baseline, which indicated a smaller increase in spending. Nonetheless, the score remained budget increasing for budget enforcement rules such as pay-
as-you-go (PAYGO), which assume bills should not increase the federal budget deficit. This latest score indicated that H.R. 8467 would increase mandatory spending by $28 billion over 10 years (Table 1). CBO has not released a score of S. 5335.
By policy areas, the major budgetary changes in H.R. 8467 include a net increase of about $37.0 billion over 10 years for commodity support programs, including limiting the CCC; a net increase of $4.5 billion for conservation programs; a net decrease of $27.1 billion for the domestic nutrition programs, including by limiting the TFP; and 10- year increases of $2.4 billion for trade, $3.5 billion for research, $4.8 billion for crop insurance, and $2.5 billion for the miscellaneous title (CRS Report R48167, The 2024 Farm Bill: H.R. 8467 Compared with Current Law).
Jim Monke, Specialist in Agricultural Policy Renée Johnson, Specialist in Agricultural Policy
IF12047
Disclaimer
This document was prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). CRS serves as nonpartisan shared staff to congressional committees and Members of Congress. It operates solely at the behest of and under the direction of Congress. Information in a CRS Report should not be relied upon for purposes other than public understanding of information that has been provided by CRS to Members of Congress in connection with CRS’s institutional role. CRS Reports, as a work of the United States Government, are not subject to copyright protection in the United States. Any CRS Report may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety without permission from CRS. However, as a CRS Report may include copyrighted images or material from a third party, you may need to obtain the permission of the copyright holder if you wish to copy or otherwise use copyrighted material.
Most programs with mandatory spending authority are authorized for a period of years and have multiyear projections of future spending under current law (i.e., baseline). When legislation proposes to change policy, the effects are evaluated as the additional costs or savings from the proposed provisions (i.e., the score of a bill that is relative to the baseline). Mandatory spending programs usually dominate the farm bill debate because the law authorizes outlays at the time of enactment. Mandatory spending is primarily authorized in the commodities, conservation, nutrition, and crop insurance titles. For more information on mandatory spending in farm bills, see CRS In Focus IF12233, Farm Bill Primer: Budget Dynamics.
Discretionary Spending
Programs authorized for discretionary spending are not funded by the farm bill and depend on future appropriations action. Farm bills establish program parameters such as eligibility requirements and program purposes, but do not provide funding for outlays. Most farm bill titles, such as rural development, research, and credit, include programs authorized for discretionary spending. For information on farm bill discretionary spending, see CRS Report R48564, Agriculture and Related Agencies: FY2026 Appropriations.
Cost of a Farm Bill
Under federal budgeting practices, farm bills have 10-year budget projections even though they may be authorized for less than 10 years. The February 2026 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline is the most recent projection. Converting the CBO baseline for various programs into farm bill titles and adding funding indicated in law for other farm bill programs, CRS estimates that the 2026 mandatory spending baseline for all farm bill titles is $1.374 trillion over 10 years (FY2027-FY2036) (Figure 1).Figure 1. Farm Bill Titles with Mandatory Baseline
(billions of dollars, 10-year projected outlays, FY2027-FY2036)
Source: Created by CRS using the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) February 2026 baseline for the five largest titles and amounts indicated in law for programs in other titles.
Status and Recent Congressional Action
The most recent farm bill, the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 (2018 farm bill; P.L. 115-334), expired in 2023. It was extended three times for a year at a time: in November 2023 to cover FY2024 and crop year 2024 (P.L. 118-22, Division B, §102), in December 2024 to cover FY2025 and crop year 2025 (P.L. 118-158, Division D, §4101), and in November 2025 to cover FY2026 (P.L. 119-37, Division E, §5002). Policy for crop years 2026-2031 is partially covered by a budget reconciliation law enacted in 2025, as discussed below.
Other congressional action has amended farm bill programs since the 2018 farm bill, such as the FY2022 budget reconciliation law (P.L. 117-169, Title II) that reauthorized and increased funding for select conservation and forestry programs; and the FY2025 budget reconciliation law (P.L. 119-21, Title I) that amended and reauthorized several programs in the commodities, conservation, nutrition, research, crop insurance, and trade titles. Neither law reauthorized all of the policies present in a typical farm bill.
FY2025 Budget Reconciliation Law
The FY2025 budget reconciliation law amended and reauthorized most of the farm commodity programs through crop year 2031. For conservation, trade, and nutrition programs, the law made changes to funding, eligibility, or benefit calculations but did not completely reauthorize some of those policies. For other policy areas, the law could not reauthorize expired or expiring programs or authorizations because budget reconciliation rules only permit actions that have a budgetary effect on mandatory spending. Many of the policy changes and reauthorizations that Congress typically includes in a farm bill could not be included, such as policies related to farm loans, rural development, and agricultural research. It is these policies and programs, as well as further amendments to other program areas, that Congress may address in a 2026 farm bill. For additional information, see CRS Report R48775, The Farm Bill After FY2025 Budget Reconciliation: Frequently Asked Questions.
Farm Bill Action in the 119th Congress
On March 5, 2026, the House Committee on Agriculture ordered H.R. 7567, the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026, favorably reported to the House. The House amended and passed the bill on April 30, 2026. The bill contains many of the authorizations and reauthorizations that are present in a typical farm bill. Some typical farm bill policies not included reflect the passage of P.L. 119-21 and issues that were previously addressed.
On April 24, 2026, the Congressional Budget Office published a score indicating the bill would increase mandatory spending by $162 million over six years (FY2026-FY2031) and be budget neutral over 11 years (FY2026-FY2036). To date, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry has not marked up a farm bill in the 119th Congress. For additional information on H.R. 7567, see CRS Report R48918, The 2026 Farm Bill (H.R. 7567): Comparison with Current Law.
Expiration
Some farm bill programs have been extended by the laws discussed above or are permanently authorized. Yet there remain several programs that will expire at the end of FY2026 and crop year 2026 if the current extension expires without other action. The timing and consequences of the farm bill expiring vary by program. Additional context is available in CRS Report R48775, The Farm Bill After FY2025 Budget Reconciliation: Frequently Asked Questions. Issues for expiration may include:
- For programs with mandatory spending authority provided by the farm bill that expire at the end of FY2026, authority to operate may cease.
- For programs with a fiscal year authorization that are funded with discretionary appropriations, or for programs with mandatory spending authorized but not appropriated by the farm bill—such as SNAP—an appropriations act or continuing resolution is needed for operations to continue.
- The suspension of an inactive and costly law—commonly called permanent law—would be restored for select farm commodities beginning January 1, 2027 (dairy would be the first commodity affected). Payments would be duplicative with current law.