The Farm Bill
The legislation that shapes the U.S. food system
until the 2013 Farm Bill deadline
Tell your legislator to act now to support healthy food and farms!
Farm Bill Countdown
Each new version of the Farm Bill comes with an expiration date. If the bill isn't renewed by that date, decades-old permanent farm legislation comes back into force.
The 2008 Farm Bill was due to expire on September 30, 2012. But Congress couldn't agree on a new bill before that date, and efforts to include the Farm Bill in the late 2012 "fiscal cliff" negotiations proved fruitless as well.
As a result, a return to the permanent legislation was imminent when Congress passed a bill on January 1, 2013, extending some provisions of the 2008 bill.
The January 2013 extension was a giant step backward for healthy food and farms. Many programs that UCS was recommending for expansion were cut instead.
The deadline for passing a new Farm Bill in 2013 is again September 30. America's farmers and consumers can't afford another year of delay and retreat. Congress needs to pass a new bill before this year's deadline—a bill that includes forward-looking provisions like those in the Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act.
UPDATE: UCS is supporting the Local Farm, Food and Jobs Act, which will improve Farm Bill programs that support local and regional farm and food systems.
The Farm Bill is a large (currently around $300 billion) legislative package, renewed by Congress at approximately five-year intervals, that shapes federal agricultural policy, with far-reaching implications for our food system.
Our food choices, food costs, and how food production affects our land, air, water, and rural communities—the Farm Bill has impacts on all of this and more.
What's In the Farm Bill?
The Farm Bill is an omnibus bill, which means that it incorporates a wide variety of provisions that might otherwise be considered as separate bills.
For instance, the 2008 Farm Bill includes provisions addressing, among many other things,
- Credit, insurance, and other forms of financial support for farmers
- Conservation
- Nutrition
- Research
- Rural development
A Healthier Farm Bill
The 2008 Farm Bill, though still largely geared to support the industrial food system, contained some important new or expanded provisions to promote sustainable farming and healthier food.
Unfortunately, the temporary extension of the 2008 bill that was passed in January 2013 cut many of these provisions, moving federal farm policy backward (see sidebar).
UCS is working to ensure that the next version of the bill moves us in the right direction, with measures to
- expand the production and accessibility of healthy food
- increase farmers’ adoption of sustainable agriculture and conservation practices
- ramp up publicly-funded research to enable an economically robust and sustainable agriculture and food system.
