The Farm Bill
is a package of legislation passed roughly once every five years that has a tremendous impact on how food is grown, what kinds of foods are grown, farming livelihoods, land transitions, and land conservation
The Farm Bill
covers programs ranging from crop insurance for farmers to healthy food access for families, from beginning farmer training to support for sustainable farming practices, the farm bill sets the stage for our food and farm systems.
Every five years, the farm bill expires and is updated: it goes through an extensive process where it is proposed, debated, and passed by Congress and is then signed into law by the President. Each farm bill has a unique title, and the current farm bill is called the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018. It was enacted into law in December 2018 and expired in 2023.
We need a new farm bill. We need a good farm bill.
We need a farm bill that puts power in the hands of small-scale producers.
As members of the RE-AMP Network, a collective of Midwest partners working to create strategy and enable collaboration for climate solutions in the region, we support a farm bill that…
1) Increases Equitable and Just Land Transition. Support land succession that helps producers retire and provides affordable and equitable access for new, beginning, and historically marginalized farmers and land stewards. Fund and support programs that provide grants and loans, agricultural easements, farmer-to-farmer education, and technical assistance to increase land transition and access that encourages smaller, sustainable models of agriculture.
2) Supports the development of rural economies and communities in ways that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Increasing funds for and access to programs that increase affordable rural housing powered by clean and efficient energy and heating and cooling systems; grows electric vehicle charging infrastructure in rural places; supports rural hospitals to transition to clean energy; creates more walkable and bike-able rural communities, encourages infill, mixed-use, and brownfield redevelopment; increases green infrastructure; extends broadband; funds the establishment of additional natural landscapes in rural communities; provides increased technical assistance to enable faster and easier access to USDA funds for rural communities.
3) Moves conservation funds from the Inflation Reduction Act to the permanent Farm Bill funding baseline.
4) Supports and expands local food systems by increasing food sovereignty and ensuring the ability of communities to produce, procure, and distribute high-quality nutritious foods. Grow opportunities for entrepreneurship and careers in food and agriculture. Increase funding and program support for programs such as farmers markets, fruit, and vegetable producers, small and mid-sized meat processing, and heirloom grain processing.
5) Shifts funding and resources away from harmful practices and toward practices that promote ecosystem and human health. Oppose funding and programs that further incentivize large-scale industrialized agriculture systems and approaches including but not limited to animal production, monocropping, tillage, and practices that require high chemical inputs.
6) Shifts power to farmers and people in rural communities and away from consolidated power and corporate control in agriculture and food systems. We seek to democratize the Farm Bill, both in drafting it and the outcomes it creates, so that more people are informed and benefit from the Farm Bill’s programs.
7) Accelerates the transition to true, clean renewable energy on farms and in rural communities. Make it easier to access funds from USDA programs that will increase wind, solar, geothermal, energy efficiency, and battery storage on farms and rural communities; Increase funds and access to programs that help farms and rural communities decrease energy costs.
To learn more, reach out to Lydia@kcfarmschool.org