Farm Bill Primer: Programs Without a Budget Baseline

From a budgetary perspective, many farm bill programs that receive mandatory funding are assumed to continue beyond the end of their authorization. That is, they have a continuing baseline beyond the end of a farm bill that gives them built-in future funding if Congress decides that the programs are to continue. Baseline can be reallocated or used as an offset for deficit reduction. Mandatory spending programs do not need annual discretionary appropriations. Authorizing or reauthorizing mandatory funding for farm bill programs without baseline results in a positive score (cost) and would need to be offset by reductions elsewhere for the bill to remain budget neutral.

In the 2018 farm bill (Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018; P.L. 115-334), 21 programs received $906 million of mandatory funding over five years but did not have a continuing baseline. The first one-year extension for FY2024 (P.L. 118-22, Division B, §102) provided $177 million of funding to 19 of the programs (Figure 1). The second one-year extension for FY2025 (P.L. 118-158) did not provide additional funding for these programs.

Why Some Programs Have Baseline, Others Not

Under budget rules, a program with mandatory spending authority in the last year of its authorization generally may be assumed to continue as if it did not expire and have baseline (2 U.S.C. §907(b)(2)), as explained by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in the annual Budget and Economic Outlook. This is the case for long-standing farm bill programs. Some of the newer, smaller farm bill programs do not continue in the baseline because the authorizing and budget committees did not provide them a baseline to continue.

CBO projects future government spending in its official budget baselines but has not published a list of expiring farm bill programs without a continuing baseline. To compile this list, CRS analyzed the CBO score of the 2018 farm bill, current CBO baseline projections, the statutory text of the farm bill, and the text of the extension acts, looking for programs that received mandatory funding but do not have baseline for reauthorization (Figure 1).

Figure 1. 2018 Farm Bill Programs Without a Budget Baseline, by Title

Source: CRS analysis of P.L. 115-334, P.L. 118-22, P.L. 118-158, and CRS Report R45425, Budget Issues That Shaped the 2018 Farm Bill, Table 3. Notes: Includes 2018 farm bill programs that received mandatory funding but had no baseline beyond FY2023. The first farm bill extension, P.L. 118-22, Division B, §102, provided one year of funding for most programs. The second extension, P.L. 118-158, Division D, §4101(e), did not.

Types of Programs Affected

In the 2018 farm bill, 21 programs across 8 of the 12 titles did not have a baseline, per CRS analysis. They received $906 million of mandatory spending authority in the 2018 farm bill (colored bars in Figure 1). While the subset is small over the entire farm bill ($906 million out of $428 billion), the impact varies by title of the bill. For example, the single program in the rural development title receiving mandatory funding is affected. No programs in the trade, credit, forestry, or crop insurance titles are affected. For the research title, 34% of mandatory funding for the title is affected. By comparison, less than 0.1% of funding in the farm commodities and nutrition titles are affected.

First Extension Provided Funding with an Offset

The farm bill extension for FY2024 (P.L. 118-22, Division B, §102) provided one year of mandatory funding to 19 of the 21 programs without baseline ($177 million; the gray hatched bars in Figure 1). Included programs generally received one-fifth of their five-year allocation that was in the 2018 farm bill. These programs remain without baseline beyond the extension and expired with FY2024.

The extension fully offset the mandatory funding provided to the 19 programs by rescinding unobligated balances in the Biorefinery Assistance account ($177 million) remaining from the 2014 and 2018 farm bills.

Second Extension Provides No Such Funding

The second one-year farm bill extension for FY2025 (P.L. 118-158, Division D) did not provide additional funding for any of the programs without baseline (§4101(e)).

Budget Reconciliation Proposes Reauthorization

The agriculture title of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Title I of House-passed H.R. 1) and the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Budget Reconciliation Text (June 25, 2025) would reauthorize and provide $1.014 billion to 19 agricultural programs without baseline, including 18 of the 21 programs without baseline in the 2018 farm bill and 1 new program, Assistive Technology Program for Farmers with Disabilities. Funding generally covers FY2025-FY2031 and does not provide baseline beyond FY2031. (For a table and figure, see CRS Insight IN12573, Budget Reconciliation: Farm Bill Programs Without a Budget Baseline and Trade Promotion, Research, Horticulture, and Animal Health Programs with a Budget Baseline.)

Comparison with Past Farm Bills

Farm bill programs without a budget baseline have been an issue since the 2008 farm bill. There are fewer programs without a budget baseline than during previous farm bill debates, and they comprise a smaller dollar amount (Table 1).

During past reauthorizations, some affected programs received mandatory funding during the farm bill but not permanent baseline. In other cases, programs received permanent baseline during reauthorization by consolidating them into a larger umbrella program to exceed a $50 million scoring threshold, which required extra funding in the 10-year score.

• Of the 37 programs with no baseline after the 2008 farm bill expired, the 2014 farm bill provided 29 of the programs with $6.2 billion over FY2014-FY2018.
• Of the 39 programs with no baseline after the 2014 farm bill expired, the 2018 farm bill provided 23 of the programs with $1.6 billion over FY2019-FY2023; nine of which received permanent baseline, costing an additional $1.5 billion over FY2024-FY2028.

The situation facing these programs in FY2025 is similar to a previous one-year extension of the farm bill in 2013 (P.L. 112-240, Title VII), when none of the programs without baseline received additional mandatory funding. However, the budget reconciliation proposals in 2025 would provide FY2025 budget authority late in the fiscal year for many of the reauthorized programs.