Contents

• Description of Agriculture Appropriations
• Status of FY2025 Action
• Discretionary Totals in the FY2025 Bills
• Scope of Agriculture Appropriations
• Decisions Leading to Subcommittee Allocations
• Amounts for Agencies and Programs in FY2025
• House-Reported H.R. 9027 (118^th Congress)
• Senate-Reported S. 4690 (118^th Congress)
• Short-Term Continuing Resolutions
• Year-Long Continuing Resolution P.L. 119-4
• Other Appropriations Issues
• Policy-Related Provisions
• Congressionally Directed Spending (Earmarks)

Summary

The Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act (Agriculture appropriations) funds the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), except for the U.S. Forest Service, as well as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA, in the Department of Health and Human Services). It also funds the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in even-numbered fiscal years, and House Agriculture appropriations bills mark up CFTC funding each year.

Agriculture appropriations acts include both discretionary and mandatory funding, which differentiates Agriculture appropriations from some other appropriations acts. Congressional debate on appropriations is primarily about discretionary spending. Appropriations for mandatory spending programs, although not usually debated, are necessary to technically make funds available for those programs (e.g., entitlement programs, such as farm safety net and nutrition assistance programs, that were previously enacted under separate budget enforcement procedures).

This report focuses mostly on discretionary appropriations. The primary discretionary spending accounts are for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); agricultural research; rural development loans and grants; the FDA; foreign food assistance and trade promotion; farm agency salaries and loans; food safety inspection; animal and plant health programs; and conservation program technical assistance.

For the FY2025 appropriations process, the House Committee on Appropriations reported its bill (H.R. 9027, H.Rept. 118-583) on July 10, 2024, following subcommittee markup on June 11. The Senate Committee on Appropriations reported its bill (S. 4690, S.Rept. 118-193) on July 11, 2024. Neither chamber considered these bills on the floor. FY2025 began under two continuing resolutions (CRs) (P.L. 118-83 and P.L. 118-158). A year-long CR (P.L. 119-4) was enacted on March 15, 2025.

The year-long CR for FY2025 basically continues FY2024 funding levels without using the House and Senate bills for FY2025. It provides $26.6 billion in discretionary Agriculture appropriations, an increase of $420 million over FY2024 (+1.6%) due to anomalies for a few accounts. The year-long CR provides additional funding for two domestic nutrition assistance programs and does not provide funding in FY2025 for FY2024 earmarks. The agriculture portion of the FY2025 CR includes appropriations for the CFTC, despite being an odd-numbered fiscal year, since the FY2024 Agriculture appropriation carried the CFTC.

The nominal total of Agriculture appropriations has been generally increasing since FY2017. On an inflation-adjusted basis, Agriculture appropriations have been decreasing since FY2018.

Discretionary Agriculture Appropriations, FY2015-FY2025

Source: Figure created by CRS using annual appropriations acts and reports and Congressional Budget Office tables. Notes: Excludes the CFTC on the basis of Senate Appropriations Committee Agriculture Subcommittee jurisdiction and supplemental appropriations acts. Adjusted for inflation using the Gross Domestic Product price index.

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Description of Agriculture Appropriations

The Agriculture Appropriations Act—formally known as the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act (referred to as Agriculture appropriations)—funds the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), except for the U.S. Forest Service.¹ It also funds the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the Department of Health and Human Services and, in certain cases, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC, an independent agency).²

Congressional actions on appropriations bills primarily concern discretionary spending. Agriculture appropriations acts include both discretionary and mandatory funding, which differentiates them from some other appropriations acts. For example, the level of mandatory spending for farm commodity and nutrition assistance programs is set in the farm bill authorization process, but the funding technically needs to be appropriated in appropriations acts. Specifically, the Commodity Credit Corporation—a line of credit with the U.S. Treasury—needs a reimbursement in appropriations to continue operating, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) needs an annual appropriation to fulfil its authorization. These mandatory amounts are funded, although not often debated, in annual Agriculture appropriations. This report focuses mostly on discretionary appropriations but includes tables for the mandatory appropriations included in Agriculture appropriations.

Status of FY2025 Action

The Biden Administration released its FY2025 budget request on March 11, 2024. The House Committee on Appropriations reported its agriculture bill (H.R. 9027, H.Rept. 118-583) on July 10, 2024, following subcommittee markup on June 11. The Senate Committee on Appropriations reported its agriculture bill (S. 4690, S.Rept. 118-193) on July 11, 2024. A continuing resolution (CR) was enacted on September 26, 2024 (P.L. 118-83), and lasted until December 20, 2024.³ A second CR (P.L. 118-158, Division A) was enacted on December 21, 2024, and lasted until March 14, 2025. A year-long CR (P.L. 119-4) was enacted on March 15, 2025. See Table 1 for links to congressional actions and Figure 1 for a timeline of actions on Agriculture appropriations.

Figure 1. Timeline of Legislative Actions on Agriculture Appropriations, FY2023-FY2025

Source: Figure created by CRS. Notes: The figure excludes supplemental appropriations acts and continuing resolutions and excludes drafts or bills introduced for which no committee action was taken. Gray shading shows the beginning of each fiscal year. Yellow shading highlights the current appropriations cycle.

Discretionary Totals in the FY2025 Bills

The year-long CR for FY2025 provides $26.6 billion in discretionary Agriculture appropriations, an increase of $420 million over FY2024 (+1.6%) due to anomalies for several accounts. The House-reported Agriculture appropriations bill would have been a decrease of $357 million from FY2024 (-1.4%). The Senate-reported bill would have been an increase of $1.2 billion over FY2024 (+4.6%) (Table 2, Figure 2).

Figure 2. Discretionary Agriculture Appropriations, FY2015-FY2025

Source: Figure created by CRS using appropriations acts and joint explanatory statements; CBO, "H.R. 1968 Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2025"; and unpublished CBO tables. Notes: The figure excludes supplemental appropriations acts and excludes the CFTC on the basis of jurisdiction of the Senate Appropriations Committee Agriculture Subcommittee. Adjusted for inflation using U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Gross Domestic Product price index, Table 1.1.4, using Q4 of the calendar year (Q1 of the subsequent fiscal year) annually.

The nominal total of Agriculture appropriations has been generally increasing since FY2017. On an inflation-adjusted basis in FY2025 dollars, Agriculture appropriations have been decreasing since FY2018 (Figure 2).

Scope of Agriculture Appropriations

As discussed above (see "Description of Agriculture Appropriations"), agricultural programs rely on both discretionary and mandatory spending. This section describes specific mandatory and discretionary spending in Agriculture appropriations and the relative sizes of major agencies and functions. It also illustrates the nexus of committee jurisdictions for agricultural programs between appropriations and authorizing committees.

Appropriations for discretionary spending programs in the FY2025 Agriculture Appropriations Act were $26.6 billion ($26.3 billion excluding CFTC), distributed among the programs or agencies in the green stacked bar in Figure 3. Appropriations for mandatory spending programs were about $184 billion, as shown by the gray shading in the pie graph (Figure 3), relative to the discretionary total.

Figure 3. Scope of Agriculture and Related Agencies Appropriations, FY2025 Budget authority in billions of dollars

Source: Figure created by CRS using P.L. 118-42 (Division B); H.Prt. 55007, 118th Cong., 2nd sess.; CBO, "H.R. 1968 Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2025"; and unpublished CBO tables. Note: The figure excludes supplemental appropriations acts and excludes the CFTC on the basis of jurisdiction of the Senate Appropriations Committee Agriculture Subcommittee. Amounts in the figure may add to the totals in Table 3 and Table 4 due to rounding. FSA = Farm Service Agency; RMA = Risk Management Agency; FPAC Business = Farm Production and Conservation Business Center; FSIS = Food Safety Inspection Service; NRCS = Natural Resources Conservation Service. The amount shown for Section 32 is USDA's reserved spending authority for payments and procurement (see CRS In Focus IF12193, Farm and Food Support Under USDA's Section 32 Account). The amount for the Commodity Credit Corporation is the reimbursement for net realized losses (see CRS Report R44606, The Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC)).

Most programs in Agriculture appropriations are in the authorizing jurisdiction of the House Committee on Agriculture and Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. A few programs funded through Agriculture appropriations are not in the jurisdiction of the Agriculture authorizing committees. The FDA is in the jurisdiction of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. In rural development, Rural Housing Service programs, except for community facilities loans and grants, are in the jurisdiction of the House Committee on Financial Services and the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. In the Food and Nutrition Service, the child nutrition programs and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) are in the jurisdiction of the House Committee on Education and Workforce and the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.

Decisions Leading to Subcommittee Allocations

The total amount allowed for discretionary appropriations is controlled by congressional budget enforcement rules.⁴ Typically, each chamber's appropriations committee would receive a top-line limit on discretionary budget authority from the chamber's budget committee via an annual budget resolution, referred to as a "302(a)" allocation. The appropriations committees subdivide the allocation among the 12 appropriations subcommittees, referred to as the "302(b)" allocations.⁵ Since 1986, the House and Senate have not adopted a joint budget resolution when the chambers are controlled by different parties, as they were in 2024 when the FY2025 bills were developed.⁶

For FY2025, the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA; P.L. 118-5) established statutory spending limits, divided into separate amounts for defense and nondefense spending. The limits are $895 billion for defense and $711 billion for nondefense, for a total of $1.606 trillion. The FRA directs the Senate Budget Committee chair to file a 302(a) allocation for the Senate Appropriations Committee. The House may take similar action through a "deeming resolution," which substitutes for a budget resolution.⁷

On May 23, 2024, the House Appropriations Committee voted to approve draft subcommittee allocations ("interim 302(b)s") totaling $1.606 trillion, the same as in the FRA, including $25.873 billion for the House Agriculture Subcommittee.⁸ This was a decrease of $349 million (-1.3%) from FY2024 enacted levels.⁹

On July 11, 2024, the Senate Appropriations Committee reported its full set of 302(b) allocations totaling $1.606 trillion (S.Rept. 118-190), including $27.049 billion for the Senate Agriculture Subcommittee. This was an increase of $1.2 billion (+4.6%) from FY2024 enacted levels on a comparable basis, excluding funding for the CFTC.¹⁰

The 119^th Congress did not resolve new top line or subcommittee allocations for the rest of FY2025. It enacted a full-year CR.

Amounts for Agencies and Programs in FY2025

Table 3 provides detail at the agency level for FY2025 discretionary amounts in the proposal by the Biden Administration, House-reported H.R. 9027, Senate-reported S. 4690, and the year-long CR P.L. 119-4. Figure 4 shows the dollar changes from FY2024 appropriated levels to the enacted year-long CR. Table 4 shows the mandatory program appropriations.

House-Reported H.R. 9027 (118^th Congress)

The House-reported bill would have provided $25.866 billion in discretionary appropriations, a decrease of $357 million from the enacted FY2024 appropriations (-1.4%, Table 3).

The largest decrease in the House bill would have been for Food for Peace Title II international food aid grants (-$619 million, -38%). The House subcommittee noted that the Biden Administration separately provided more than $1 billion of supplemental assistance from the Commodity Credit Corporation for the Food for Peace Title II grants. The next-largest decrease would have been to the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) (-$108 million, -14%), mostly for the Rural Water and Waste Disposal Program and for the Distance Learning and Telemedicine Program (Table A-6). The largest increase in the House-reported bill would be to the Rural Housing Service (RHS) (+$549 million, +24%), mostly for the Community Facilities program (Table A-4). In FY2024, the Community Facilities appropriation was unusually low because Congress directed USDA to use $505 million from the Nonrecurring Expenses Fund at no cost to the FY2024 appropriations.¹¹

Senate-Reported S. 4690 (118^th Congress)

The Senate-reported bill would have provided $27.044 billion in discretionary appropriations, an increase of $1.186 billion more than the enacted FY2024 appropriations (+4.6%, Table 3) and $1.523 billion more than the House-reported bill (on a comparable basis, without the CFTC).

The largest increases in the Senate bill would have been for WIC (+$667 million, +9%) and RHS (+$371 million, +20%), mostly for the Community Facilities program as discussed above. In contrast to the House bill, the Senate bill would have increased the amount for Food for Peace Title II grants by $102 million. The Senate bill would have decreased RUS by slightly more than the House bill (-$133 million), with a $25 million decrease for the ReConnect Program (Table A-6).

Short-Term Continuing Resolutions

CRs generally continue funding levels and policy riders that were in the preceding annual appropriation at prorated levels throughout the duration of the CR.¹² A CR may contain anomalies (exceptions) to the funding levels, timing, or purposes. The first short-term CR in the FY2025 appropriations cycle (P.L. 118-83) included five anomalies for Agriculture appropriations. Four of the anomalies provided flexibility for the apportionment of funding to meet program demand for WIC, the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, the farm loan programs, and rural community facilities. These anomalies did not provide any additional budget authority. A fifth anomaly extended the expiration date for the Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act (LMR; 7 U.S.C. §§1635 et seq.) for the duration of the CR. P.L. 118-158 continued these anomalies.¹³

Year-Long Continuing Resolution P.L. 119-4

The year-long CR (P.L. 119-4, Division A, Title I) provides $26.6 billion of discretionary budget authority for Agriculture appropriations, an increase of $420 million (+1.6%) compared with FY2024 (Table 2, Table 3, Figure 4).¹⁴ The full-term CR includes seven anomalies for Agriculture appropriations.¹⁵

The full-year CR did not provide any earmarks for FY2025; two of the anomalies (§1201 and §1204) reduced appropriations for accounts that contained earmarks in FY2024. The first reduced budget authority by $248 million across seven accounts (Table 3): (1) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Buildings and Facilities; (2) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) Salaries and Expenses; (3) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Conservation Operations; (4) NRCS Watershed and Flood Prevention Operations; (5) RUS Rural Water and Waste Disposal; (6) RUS Distance Learning, Telemedicine, and Broadband; and (7) RUS ReConnect broadband program.¹⁶ The other anomaly excluded from continuation $505 million from the Nonrecurring Expenses Fund (NEF) that funded earmarks for the RHS Community Facilities account; use of the NEF in FY2024 was a reallocation of prior appropriations and did not count against budget limits (Table A-4).

Two other anomalies (§1202 and §1206) increased budget authority for three accounts and directed a budget-neutral transfer to a fourth, respectively. The first increased (1) Food and Nutrition Service WIC appropriations by $567 million ($7.0 billion in FY2024); (2) Commodity Assistance Program by $36 million ($480 million in FY2024); and (3) Food Safety and Inspection Service by $24 million ($1.2 billion in FY2024). The other increased the RHS Rental Assistance Program by a budget-neutral $34 million ($1.6 billion in FY2024) by allowing transfers of funds among other rural development accounts; the accounts that might be offset and the implications of those reductions are uncertain.

Other budget-neutral anomalies provided flexibility to transfer funds among the farm loan programs to maintain FY2024 loan authorization levels to the extent possible (§1205), extended the expiration date for the LMR through FY2025 (§1203), and allowed certain agricultural producers to retain supplemental disaster assistance payments that may have been claimed incorrectly under the Emergency Relief Program 2022 (ERP 2022; §1207).

Changes in rescissions and scorekeeping adjustments compared with FY2024 account for a net increase of $42 million of budget authority in addition to the anomalies above.¹⁷ Not all of the rescissions in the FY2024 appropriation could be continued in FY2025, possibly because of insufficient unobligated budget authority (+$158 million; Table A-9). CBO also scored a new Change in Mandatory Program Spending (CHIMP) for Section 32 (-$49 million; Table A-10). The CBO detail also shows that the negative subsidies for the loan programs that were in the House-reported and Senate-reported bills are the scorekeeping adjustments under the year-long CR, resulting in a cumulatively larger negative subsidy than FY2024 (-$56 million; Table A-11). CRS calculated that a -$11 million "rounding plug" (0.04% of the discretionary total) would account for the difference between the CBO-released official total (Table 2) and the agency-level detail shown in Table 3 and the Appendix tables.

Figure 4. Changes in Discretionary Agriculture Appropriations from FY2024 Appropriations to Enacted FY2025 Year-Long Continuing Resolution Change in budget authority in millions of dollars

Source: Figure created by CRS using appropriations text and unpublished CBO tables. Notes: The figure excludes supplemental appropriations acts. Agencies are included in this figure only if there was a change in their funding. Agencies and programs are ordered as shown in Table 3. WIC = Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants and Children; CHIMPS = changes in mandatory spending programs.

Other Appropriations Issues

Policy-Related Provisions

Appropriations acts set spending authority and may serve as vehicles for policy-related limitations and so-called "riders" (language extraneous to the subject of the bill) that direct executive branch actions.¹⁸ These provisions may have the force of law if they are included in an act's text, but their effect is generally limited to the current fiscal year unless they amend the U.S. Code, which is not typical in appropriations acts. Report language may also provide policy directions for agencies but does not carry the force of law.

Congress has directed that committee reports and the joint explanatory statement need to be read together to capture congressional intent. For example, the explanatory statement for the Agriculture division of the FY2024 Consolidated Appropriations Act instructs that the House committee report and Senate committee report are to be read together and with the conference agreement.

The joint explanatory statement accompanying this division is approved and indicates congressional intent. Unless otherwise noted, the language set forth in H.Rept. 118-124 and S.Rept. 118-44 carries the same weight as language included in this joint explanatory statement and should be complied with unless specifically addressed to the contrary in this joint explanatory statement. While some language is repeated for emphasis, it is not intended to negate the language referred to above unless expressly provided herein.

In cases in which the House or the Senate or this explanatory statement has directed the submission of a report, such report is to be submitted to both the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations no later than 60 days after enactment of this Act, unless otherwise directed.¹⁹

The FY2025 full-year CR continues the policy-related provisions that were in the FY2024 Appropriations Act.

Congressionally Directed Spending (Earmarks)

From FY2022 to FY2024, the House and Senate allowed earmarks in annual appropriations acts, including in Agriculture appropriations.²⁰ Congressional earmarks are defined in the 119^th Congress as a type of congressional spending action that noncompetitively benefits a specific entity or locality.²¹ The House Committee on Appropriations refers to these as Community Project Funding requests, and the Senate Committee on Appropriations refers to these as Congressionally Directed Spending items.

The FY2024 appropriation included 600 earmarks totaling $753 million across eight USDA accounts: ARS Buildings and Facilities (15 earmarks, $57 million); APHIS Salaries and Expenses (13 earmarks, $14 million); NRCS Conservation Operations (18 earmarks, $19 million); NRCS Watershed and Flood Prevention (11 earmarks, $20 million); RHS Community Facilities grants (440 earmarks, $505 million); RUS Distance Learning and Telemedicine Program grants (16 earmarks, $10 million); RUS ReConnect broadband grants (9 earmarks, $10 million); and RUS Water and Waste Disposal Program grants (78 earmarks, $117 million).

The House- and Senate-reported bills for FY2025 proposed new earmarks as allowed by the committees at markup, but none were enacted in the year-long CR. The House-reported bill included 472 earmarks totaling $626 million across six accounts: ARS Buildings and Facilities; NRCS Conservation Operations; RHS Community Facilities grants; Distance Learning, Telemedicine, and Broadband grants; RUS ReConnect broadband grants; and RUS Water and Waste Disposal Program grants.²² The Senate-reported bill included 230 earmarks totaling $305 million across five accounts, three accounts of which overlap with the House bill (ARS Buildings and Facilities, RHS Community Facilities grants, and RUS Distance Learning and Telemedicine Program grants). The Senate bill also included earmarks for APHIS and NRCS Watershed and Flood Prevention Operations.²³

The year-long CR does not include nor fund any of the proposed FY2025 earmarks (P.L. 119-4, §1111). Two anomalies in the Agriculture portion of the CR (§1201 and §1204) reduced funding for FY2025 for accounts that contained FY2024 earmarks by the amount of those earmarks (Table 3, Figure 4). One of these anomalies reduced Agriculture appropriations by $248 million for the following accounts: (1) ARS Buildings and Facilities (100% of the FY2024 account appropriation was earmarked); (2) APHIS Salaries and Expenses (1% was for earmarks); (3) NRCS Conservation Operations (2% was for earmarks); (4) NRCS Watershed and Flood Prevention Operations (58% was for earmarks); (5) RUS Rural Water and Waste Disposal grants (20% was for earmarks); (6) RUS Distance Learning, Telemedicine, and Broadband grants (19% was for earmarks); and (7) RUS ReConnect broadband program (10% was for earmarks). The other anomaly excluded the $505 million from the NEF in FY2024 that funded RHS Community Facilities earmarks (99% of the account's activities in FY2024).

Appendix. Additional Detail on USDA Appropriations