Joint ABA and National Associations Letter to House and Senate Budget and Agriculture Committees on the Farm Bill 2024 Budget

The Honorable Sheldon Whitehouse
Chairman
U.S. Senate Committee on Budget
Washington, D.C. 20510

The Honorable Jodey Arrington
Chairman
U.S. House Committee on Budget
Washington, D.C. 20510

The Honorable Chuck Grassley
Ranking Member
U.S. Senate Committee on Budget
Washington, D.C. 20510

The Honorable Brendan Boyle
Ranking Member
U.S. Committee on Budget
Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Chairmen Whitehouse and Arrington and Ranking Members Grassley and Boyle:

As you develop the fiscal year 2024 budget in this farm bill reauthorization year, we write to express our strong support for providing the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry and House Committee on Agriculture with sufficient budgetary resources to write a new bipartisan, multi-year, comprehensive, and meaningful piece of legislation.

Just as there are many pressures on the federal budget, there are many pressures on U.S. farmers and others throughout the agricultural supply chain who provide food, feed, fuel, fiber, and other products to consumers across the United States and abroad.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), international sales of U.S. farm and food products reached $196 billion in 2022. The leading market for these products is marked with geopolitical volatility: China. During the trade war with China that began in 2018, U.S. agriculture endured significant market impacts, which unfortunately revealed gaps in the farm safety net. If a trade war with our largest trading partner hardly triggered the farm safety net provided in the current farm bill – a Title I safety net that has been shrinking over the past 20 years – it is difficult to envision a scenario that would provide meaningful assistance without significant improvements. Continuing rising tensions with this important trading partner underscore the need in the next farm bill for a more meaningful, predictable farm safety net and the need to invest more into trade promotion programs to help diversify agricultural markets.

Market volatility with China is only one example of the many disruptions impacting U.S. agriculture during the life of the current farm bill. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, COVID-19 and other supply chain disruptions, non-tariff trade barriers erected by multiple countries, and devastating natural disasters have tested the effectiveness of current farm policy. Increased production input costs have as well, with USDA projecting that most expense categories will remain above their 2021 levels in 2023 both in nominal and inflation-adjusted dollars. These projected high input costs, coupled with lower projections for many crop cash receipts, are cause for concern for farm country: USDA’s February 2023 Farm Income Forecast publication projects a 20.7 percent decline in net cash farm income in 2023 relative to 2022.

Projections such as this, when realized, often result in financial stress and calls for ad hoc or supplemental disaster assistance to farmers and ranchers – that is, assistance outside of the farm bill. In fact, between 2018-2021, ad hoc assistance made up approximately 70% of direct farm payments due to challenges described above. Ad hoc assistance is necessary in times of need but is not a timely, reliable, or predictable safety net for farmers and ranchers. The upcoming farm bill reauthorization provides an opportunity to address very real needs in agriculture and rely less on off-budget ad hoc assistance.

Download the comment letter to read the full text.