The planning and budgeting process for the 2023 Farm Bill has commenced, with U.S. House and Senate Agriculture committees outlining the next five years’ spending for national conservation, food, farm, and nutrition programs.
The farm bill is an omnibus, multiyear law that is typically renewed about every five years. The current farm bill from 2018 is set to expire in September 2023. Some water well contractors drill farm water wells, irrigation wells, or service wells and their pumping systems.
“Typically, the way that the farm bill has come about is because of a grand alliance of agriculture interests and nutrition interests,” said Nathan Bowen, advocacy director at the Irrigation Association. “By creating a really broad coalition of interests that needs the farm bill, each cycle typically has moved on a fairly bipartisan basis.”
Using a funding projection from the Congressional Budget Office, the current baseline for farm bill programs is estimated at $648 billion over fiscal years 2023-2027 and $1.3 trillion over fiscal years 2023-2032, according to a Congressional Research Service report. A new CBO baseline in 2023 will update these amounts and add a future fiscal year.
Debate over this next farm bill will likely include topics like policies related to ag and climate change; the federal government’s role in supporting beginning, veteran, and historically underserved farmers; and COVID-19 impacts on ag supply chain issues, price inflation, international trade, and industry consolidation.
“The farm bill is critically important for the irrigation industry, not only because of the conservation programs that provide financial and technical resources to farmers to implement water efficiency and water management practices, but also because it sets food, agriculture, and environmental policy for the next five years,” Bowen says. “It has significant ramifications on the economic vitality of industries that depend on a strong and vibrant food and agriculture sector in the United States.”
A large portion of where ag professionals see an impact is the conservation title. Per the May 2022 CBO scoring baseline, conservation is estimated to receive $59.2 billion dollars for fiscal years 2023-2032.
Per the current farm bill, funds went to 20 conservation programs, subprograms, and initiatives, like the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Regional Conservation Partnership Program. But thanks to the $20 billion coming to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for its various conservation programs via the Inflation Reduction Act, the 2023 Farm Bill might not need to tackle conservation and other climate-related programs as heavy-handedly.
Another key title of farm bill spending for ag professionals is research, extension, and related matters. This title supports agricultural research and extension programs to expand academic knowledge and help producers be more productive, according to the CRS report. Research is estimated to receive $1.3 billion, up from the 2018 Farm Bill’s allotted $1.2 billion.
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