On May 22, 2025, the House of Representatives approved its budget reconciliation legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB, HR 1), by a vote of 215-214-1. Just a week earlier, on May 15, the House Committee on Agriculture approved, by a party line vote of 29-25, components of OBBB that fall within its jurisdiction. OBBB’s passage out of the full House marks the culmination of a monthslong process, and kickstarts Senate consideration of the bill.

The budget reconciliation process, an optional procedure that can alter spending, revenues, and the federal debt limit, was first established in the late 1970s and has been used dozens of times by both political parties since 1980. Reconciliation has primarily been used to cut federal spending, with one notable recent exception being 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act. Since the establishment of reconciliation, federal programs within the jurisdiction of the Congressional Agriculture Committees have been consistently targeted for cuts – through budget reconciliation, cuts to farm bill programs were made in 1982, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1996, and 2006. However, the scope of reductions in these instances pales in comparison to those included in the House-passed OBBB.

The House Committee on Agriculture resorted to cannibalization – slashing over $294 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in order to fund nearly $50 billion worth of increased farm subsidies that support only a fraction of American farmers. In doing so, the Committee has directly undermined its ability and responsibility to accomplish a full, bipartisan farm bill that meets the diverse needs of all of American agriculture. While OBBB attempts to sweeten this bad deal by including funding for select programs, on the whole, it effectively abandons fundamental components of the food and farm system, from farm loans to rural development to new market access, and beyond.

The Senate is poised to consider its version of OBBB beginning in June. This blog post summarizes the budget reconciliation process in the House of Representatives and the food and farm components of OBBB. It concludes with a discussion of where reconciliation will go from here and how it may impact the future of the farm bill.

The Markup

The House Committee on Agriculture’s markup of its components of OBBB began shortly after 7:30 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, May 13, and concluded late in the evening on Wednesday, May 14. In total, the markup spanned more than 11 hours across two days. The first several hours of markup consisted of opening statements from Committee members. Most Democrats used the entirety of their individually allotted time for opening remarks. Most Republicans offered only perfunctory opening remarks, choosing not to use their allotted time – a rarity in Washington, DC, that suggests an unwillingness to speak at length or on camera about OBBB.

Following opening remarks, Committee members proceeded to debate a series of amendments that spanned the entire bill. OBBB’s food agriculture portion consists of two subtitles – Subtitle A and Subtitle B. Subtitle A focuses exclusively on Nutrition, while Subtitle B focuses on all other programs. Historically speaking, committee markups have been a relatively meaningful opportunity to improve the underlying bill by offering amendments. However, in recent years, legislation has arrived at markup more or less fully negotiated, leaving little room for meaningful amendment opportunities. Of the 79 amendments submitted for the House Committee on Agriculture’s OBBB markup – 78 from Democrats and 1 from a Republican – only 25 received a standalone vote. All 25 amendments failed by roll call vote along party lines, with 29 Republicans opposed and 25 Democrats in favor.

You can find all filed amendments here. Below is a list of amendment votes taken during markup pertaining to Subtitle B:

• #5 – Representative Vindman (D-VA-7) amendment to reauthorize the Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority (AGARDA) and provide $150 million annually. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (29) opposed – all Democrats (25) in favor.
• # 7 – Representative Pingree (D-ME-1) amendment to require the Secretary of Agriculture to reinstate the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement (LFPA) Program and the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement (LFS) Program. National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) supported. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (29) opposed – all Democrats (25) in favor.
• #15 Representative McDonald Rivet (D-MI-8) amendment to reinstate the LFS Program for $660 million in fiscal year 2025. NSAC supported. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (29) opposed – all Democrats (25) in favor.
• #24 Representative Riley (D-NY-19) amendment to fund the completion of an online filing portal for reports filed under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (29) opposed – all Democrats (25) in favor.
• #32 Representative Davids (D-KS-3) amendment to prohibit reductions in force at the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (29) opposed – all Democrats (25) in favor.
• #35 Representative McDonald Rivet (D-MI-8) amendment to provide funding for research facilities maintenance, including $11.5 billion for deferred maintenance at land grant universities. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (29) opposed – all Democrats (25) in favor.
• #36 Representative Salinas (D-OR-6) amendment to require all revenue generated by timber sales to be utilized for hiring and paying wildland firefighters and forest management personnel. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (29) opposed – all Democrats (25) in favor.
• #37 Representative Salinas (D-OR-6) amendment to prohibit the reconciliation bill from providing any funding until the US Forest Service re-hires all qualified personnel who were terminated as part of a mass termination. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (29) opposed – all Democrats (25) in favor.
• #45 Representative Budzinski (D-IL-13) amendment to make investments in the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), the Economic Research Service (ERS), the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), and the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). NSAC supported. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (29) opposed – all Democrats (25) in favor.
• #53 Representative Vasquez (D-NM-2) amendment to require the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to honor and fund all existing contracts and reopen all closed field offices. NSAC supported. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (29) opposed – all Democrats (25) in favor.
• #55 Representative Mannion (D-NY-22) amendment to increase funding for the Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI) to $300 million in FY2026. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (29) opposed – all Democrats (25) in favor.
• #60 Representative Gray (D-CA-13) amendment to require the President to provide Congress and the public with certain information at least 30 days before issuing an executive order related to agriculture, food, and the livelihood of farmers, ranchers, and producers in the United States. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (29) opposed – all Democrats (25) in favor.
• #63 Representative Gray (D-CA-13) amendment to require the Secretary of Agriculture to submit a monthly report that includes five bullet points explaining the actions the Secretary has taken in the preceding week to improve market access for American Farmers. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (29) opposed – all Democrats (25) in favor.
• Vote on the final House Committee on Agriculture passage of its OBBB provisions. NSAC opposed. Approved by roll call vote 29 in favor – 25 in opposition.

What Is (and Isn’t) in the Bill 

While the food and agriculture provisions of OBBB are small compared to a full farm bill, there are nonetheless nearly one hundred pages within the jurisdiction of the House Committee on Agriculture. As always, a key consideration for which provisions make the final cut is how much they reduce the deficit or increase spending. The Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) full breakdown of the bill can be found here, and an analysis of the food and agriculture provisions is here.

Remarkably, the CBO has indicated that OBBB will increase the deficit by more than $2.4 trillion over 10 years. If enacted, OBBB would be subject to sequestration. According to CBO, the required reduction in spending for OBBB programs other than Medicare would “exceed the estimated amount of resources available to those programs in each year over the 2027–2034 period. If [the Office of Management and Budget] sequestered all of the funding for those programs, the total amounts would be less than the reductions required … .” Essentially, OBBB increases the federal deficit so significantly that the size of the required sequestration would be larger than the programs subject to sequestration, meaning that unless sequestration is waived all together, numerous USDA programs subject to sequestration – from farm bill conservation programs and some of the current and former stranded programs – would be completely wiped out. 

The following summarizes provisions in Subtitles A and B of OBBB. This summary does not include every provision under the jurisdiction of the House Committee on Agriculture within OBBB.

• Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
  • OBBB includes a number of provisions that create new restrictions on who can benefit from SNAP, such as changing age ranges for existing work requirements. (Sections 10002, 10003, and 10008). The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ assessment estimates that more than 3 million adults and 2 million children will be impacted as a result of the proposed changes. 
  • While all provisions in Subtitle A restrict access to this essential nutrition benefit in some way, the change that has the potential to affect the most people is a new state matching fund requirement. Historically, 100% of the cost of the food benefit has been paid by the federal government, with states sharing the administrative costs of the program. OBBB not only increases the state’s share of administrative costs (from 50% to 75%), but it also establishes a new state match requirement for the cost of the food benefit. The baseline would include a 5% contribution from every state, with some states paying as much as 25%, depending on their payment error rates (Sections 10006 and 10007).
  • These changes will undoubtedly affect millions of individuals, but the full extent of the impact of shifting a significant amount of the burden to the states is less understood. Some states may not be able to afford the entirety of the required match, which could result in additional cuts in benefit offerings. Rural areas stand to be the most affected. Additional analysis is provided by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

• Commodity and Crop Insurance
  • OBBB includes many provisions first introduced in last year’s Farm, Food, and National Security Act to substantially raise subsidies for some farm operations; the CBO estimates this new spending will amount to roughly $52 billion over 10 years. It boasts an immediate increase to reference prices for each covered commodity under the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) program by 10 to 20%, in addition to an annual 0.5% adjustment beginning in 2031, up to 115% of the statutory reference price. Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) payments will be boosted as well by boosting the revenue guarantee from 86% to 90% of average individual or county revenue, as well as authorizing a higher payment factor. PLC and ARC payments are triggered when commodity prices fall below the reference price or benchmark revenue guarantee, respectively. 
  • Just 27% of US farm acres are enrolled in ARC and PLC, and only 31% are eligible given their possession of base acres. This means very few farms will benefit from the bill’s most expensive agriculture provisions. One analysis projects that less than 0.3% of farms would be the chief beneficiaries from these costly reference price increases: primarily operations with rice, peanut, and cotton base acres. In exchange, 78 percent of counties stand to see a net reduction in federal nutrition benefits.
  • OBBB authorizes enrollment of up to 30 million additional base acres nationwide, roughly the number of farmland acres in Iowa. But that option will almost certainly be most accessible to farms with existing base acres that have acquired new acreage. Farmers growing fruits and vegetables – among them, many small and direct-market farms – are still not eligible. Even if enrolled in base acres, a smaller farm that does grow an eligible commodity, for instance, would see inconsequential payments from ARC or PLC; the usefulness of these programs scales with acreage. 
  • To exacerbate the spectacle of winners and losers, OBBB eviscerates longstanding payment limits and means tests intended to curb excess taxpayer spending. Existing payment limits place a $125,000 cap on the amount that a farmer – deemed actively engaged in the labor or management of a farm – may receive annually. Loopholes already hinder the effectiveness of the payment limit, which mostly exists on paper, including exempting all family farms – roughly 97% of farms – from the actively engaged requirement per a last-minute “correction” to the 2020 Payment Limitation and Payment Eligibility Final Rule. Nuclear family members as well as cousins, nieces, and nephews are automatically considered to be “actively engaged,” and each may thus receive up to $125,000 annually irrespective of their actual involvement with the farm. OBBB raises the aforementioned $125,000 cap to $155,000, while also authorizing annual adjustments for inflation. Perhaps more consequential, the House extends the exemption to all corporate farms; this is poised to open the door to board members and more absent landowners to receive limitless individual payments for their ties to a single farm. 
  • Further, under current law, farm operations with an Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) above $900,000 are not eligible for subsidies. Historically, this “means test” stems from a bipartisan consensus that any farm business with a robust profit margin – almost $1 million – does not need to be bailed out by the American taxpayer. Although loopholes exist, such as dividing the farm into multiple smaller entities on paper, the OBBB takes it further, completely exempting farmers who earn 75% or more of their income from farming from the means test with respect to payments from disaster and conservation programs. Incomplete public data makes it impossible to know how many farms this impacts, but 77% of farm household income is derived from off-farm income, and even large commercial farms (with a Gross Farm Income beyond $350,000) receive on average 74% of their income from off-farm sources. Off-farm income is vital to most American farming households to provide benefits such as healthcare, retirement benefits, and additional income. Disaster assistance already primarily benefits the largest farms and flows to states with the most acres planted to commodities; expanding disaster assistance eligibility to the country’s most profitable farms will exacerbate this pattern, leaving even fewer resources available in the future to extend relief to smaller and noninsured farms impacted by natural disasters. 
  • The application of this AGI waiver to conservation programs is particularly troubling. Coupled with large program budget increases (discussed below) and aggressive reductions in total staff capacity at the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), this waiver offers a sinister release valve for field staff facing mounting pressure to spend down their state’s annual program budgets. With more dollars and fewer hands on deck at NRCS to address the long line of farms trying to access funds, many states may opt to prioritize working with larger farms in hopes of writing larger contracts, thereby getting more money out the door, faster. Many NSAC members report anecdotally that this philosophy is often present at NRCS state offices, even in times of higher staff capacity. Passing this waiver into law now would allow more of the largest farms in each state to access conservation programs for the first time, increasing the risk that new investments in each program will flow to a small number of the largest, most well resourced producers, rather than to the current backlog of producers that have been waiting to enroll.
  • Finally, OBBB includes no meaningful provisions to expand access to crop insurance for a majority of small to mid-sized, multi-crop, or direct marketing farms. The House does authorize an expanded premium discount for beginning farmers, but that provision alone fails to remove the most persistent administrative barriers to enrollment across crop insurance programs – including paperwork and compensation metrics that disincentivize crop insurance agents to write policies for small farms. To similar ends, the House marginally expands coverage levels for catastrophic policies and authorizes expanded premium discounts for the Supplemental Coverage Option, but these changes will not reach the 73.5% of farms with cropland that are not enrolled in the Federal Crop Insurance Program. 
  • Private insurance companies stand to benefit most from crop insurance provisions in the OBBB. While the Government Accountability Office has found on several occasions that federal payments to Approved Insurance Providers (AIPs) contribute to spending waste or exceed what may be considered a reasonable amount based on market necessities, the House decided to authorize a range of new subsidies for AIPs. These include an additional subsidy equal to 6% of companies’ net book premiums as well as annual inflation adjustments to all contracts covering commodities that were subject to an increase between 2011-2015 – a highly specific provision which appears to exclude Whole-Farm Revenue Protection from the bonus, which only began as a pilot in 2015. Under current law, subsidies for administrative and operative (A&O) expenses to AIPs already amount to almost $4 billion annually –and sometimes surpass annual payments to farmers.

• Conservation
  • The House rescinds unobligated Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funds within the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP), and Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP).
  • The bill increases permanent baseline funding for these same conservation programs. Over the 10 year budget window used to score the bill, each program’s budget authority will be:
    • CSP – $13.6 billion, a 36% increase 
    • EQIP – $31.55 billion, a 55% increase
    • ACEP – $6.85 billion, a 26% increase
    • RCPP – $4.475 billion, a 49% increase
  • Notably, these totals and percentages mark a reprioritization of available funding across these four programs. Previously, the IRA had overinvested in RCPP, creating $2.4 billion in additional budget authority in FY26 alone, a roughly eight-fold increase over RCPP’s farm bill budget of $300 million for that same year. The redistribution of funds proposed in OBBB corrects this, shifting a greater portion of funding into CSP and EQIP, programs that contract directly with farmers and have seen similarly high oversubscription rates in recent years, even with additional IRA funds available. This redistribution is generally positive, though with similarly high oversubscription in both CSP and EQIP, NSAC maintains that a more balanced distribution of funding between CSP and EQIP would better serve producers, particularly the most innovative conservation farmers who have led the way for our nation in building systems of stewardship on their operations.
  • Since this package increases permanent baseline authority for these conservation programs, it creates a long-term investment in each program that will last long beyond the 10 year budget window of this reconciliation package. This will ensure tens of billions of extra dollars in conservation funding in the coming decades and any future farm bill, a long overdue investment NSAC has advocated for. It is worth noting that this investment could have been accomplished during recent government funding negotiations or in a fully reauthorized farm bill; reconciliation is not the only path to achieving this investment.
  • Finally, OBBB abandons targeted support for practices that help farmers deal with the impacts of climate change and increasingly severe weather. All Climate Smart Agriculture and Forestry (CSAF) practices are popular, classic conservation practices – such as cover crops, rotational grazing, and reduced till – that first and foremost address non-climate resource concerns on farms such as water quality, erosion, soil health, and wildlife habitat. However, CSAF practices also have the added benefit of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or sequestering carbon and building agricultural resilience to the impacts of severe weather – something that is not true of all conservation practices that NRCS supports. Making climate targeting a permanent part of conservation programs ensures that the most popular practices that address multiple resource concerns, including climate change, have dedicated funding. These practices generate multiple benefits, ensuring an excellent return on investment, and therefore should be prioritized.

• Research
  • OBBB would increase mandatory funding for Scholarships for Students at 1890 Institutions (1890 Scholarships) from $40,000,000 to $60,000,000 to remain available until expended. Of note, this program is considered a stranded program in the farm bill, and has not been issued any new funding since September 2024.
  • In addition, this bill significantly increases mandatory funding for the Specialty Crops Research Initiative, scaling up funding from $80,000,000 in FY25 to $175,000,000 in FY26. 
  • However, OBBB does not increase funding for any of the programs, like the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (SARE) or the Organic Research and Extension Initiative (OREI), that provide more direct funding for organic and sustainable agriculture research. Nor does it address the many education and training programs – like the Food Safety Outreach Program or the Farming Opportunities Training and Outreach program – which provide critical education and technical assistance for small and mid-sized farms navigating new markets and regulatory requirements. The current demand for sustainable agriculture solutions far outweighs available resources. Increased funding for these programs in a full, bipartisan farm bill would play a critical role in helping farmer-driven research keep pace with the growing challenges related to the state of the rural economy, soil health, and competitiveness of American producers, and helping smaller-scale and next generation farmers access new markets.

• Stranded Programs
  • Funding for programs without farm bill baseline (the so-called “orphan” or “stranded” programs) was left out of the American Relief Act, passed in December 2024. These stranded programs have been unable to issue new funding since the farm bill expired at the end of September 2024. However, OBBB provides funding for most of the stranded programs, including:
    • $8,000,000 each fiscal year for the National Organic Certification Cost-share Program through 2031.
    • $10,000,000 for the Organic Production and Market Data Initiative for fiscal years 2026 through 2031.

One other provision in OBBB, Section 10101(n) or Suspension of Permanent Price Support Authority, has broad implications for federal food and farm policy. Historically, most farm bill programs have the same authorization date, which is another way to say that, with a few exceptions, the farm bill legally allows most programs to operate within the same time window. The expiration of that window is what prompts a new farm bill. However, this picture has become murkier in recent years and is exacerbated by the House-approved OBBB. 

If the House-passed OBBB becomes law there will effectively be two sets of authorization dates for “farm bill” programs. Some programs will be authorized through 2031, while the rest of the farm bill programs have an authorization that runs through September 30, 2025. The following programs would be authorized through 2031: Conservation Stewardship Program; Environmental Quality Incentives Program; Agricultural Conservation Easement Program; Regional Conservation Partnership Program; commodity support programs including ARC and PLC; Organic Market Data Initiative; National Organic Cost-Share Program; Grassroots Sourcewater Protection Program; Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program; Feral Swing Eradication and Control Pilot Program; Urban, Indoor, and Other Emerging Agricultural Production Research Extension and Education Initiative; Biobased Markets Program; and the Bioenergy Program for Advanced Biofuels. Virtually all farm bill programs not named here would expire on September 30, 2025. This leaves two sets of farm bill programs on different reauthorization timelines, likely making it more challenging than ever to extend the farm bill.

Where to from Here

The next step in the budget reconciliation process will take OBBB to the Senate. While the House version serves as a basis for the Senate bill, there are reasons to expect a substantively different approach in the Senate. First and foremost, while the budget resolution required the House Committee on Agriculture to identify at least $230 billion in spending reductions, the Senate Agriculture Committee is only required to identify $1 billion in reductions. Furthermore, some members of the Senate Agriculture Committee have publicly outlined how the Senate version may end up different from the House.

Public reporting has indicated that Senate Agriculture Committee Chair John Boozman (R-AR) has privately encouraged House Committee on Agriculture Chair GT Thompson (R-PA-15) “to only include risk-management policies like updated reference prices and crop insurance” while excluding other programs. Separately, after reviewing the OBBB text, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) suggested that the bill would need a “do-over” in the Senate.

Another important consideration as OBBB moves to the Senate is the impact of the “Byrd rule”. The Byrd rule limits the scope of provisions that can be included in budget reconciliation by disallowing the inclusion of extraneous provisions. Provisions can be considered extraneous if they do not produce a change in spending or are outside the jurisdiction of a relevant Congressional committee. The agriculture-specific portion of OBBB may include multiple provisions that are out of compliance with the Byrd rule, which would ultimately change the scope and nature of the bill itself.

As the Senate begins in earnest its work on budget reconciliation, timing is a key question. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA-4) initially committed to passing OBBB through the House by Memorial Day. He has accomplished this goal despite widespread skepticism. The next Republican goal has been to deliver a bill to the President’s desk by July 4, 2025. If they intend to stick to this timeline, roughly 4 weeks remain to pass the bill through the Senate, resolve differences between the Senate and House, and send it to the President’s desk by passing it through both chambers once more. A tall task indeed. In all likelihood, the process to approve budget reconciliation will drag on through the summer, potentially into August.

And the Farm Bill?

By dramatically cutting one title of the farm bill to increase funding in another part of the farm bill, OBBB has charted a path toward something unthinkable just a handful of years ago: effectively ending the decades-long farm bill coalition. For close observers of federal food and farm policy, the key question has been what impact this will have on the future of the farm bill reauthorization.

One idea that has emerged is to follow reconciliation with a “skinny” or “lite” farm bill that would theoretically reauthorize all programs abandoned by OBBB. House Agriculture Committee Chair Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-PA-15) has indicated that he has bipartisan support to pass a “skinny” farm bill. When asked for her thoughts on a bipartisan “skinny” farm bill by the end of the year, House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Angie Craig (D-MN-2) said, “Are [Republicans] going to restore the $300 billion they’re taking out of SNAP in the next step? I don’t think so.”

The reality of the situation, however, is that it is just too soon to predict how the farm bill reauthorization could shift from here. So, let’s start with what we know for certain. We know that on October 1, 2025, the authorization for the majority of farm bill programs will expire. If the final reconciliation bill passes without Section 10101(n), Congress will also need to act by December 31, 2025, if not sooner, to prevent a reversion to permanent law that would impact commodity programs. So, at a bare minimum, a farm bill extension is needed by September 30, 2025, if not a more comprehensive bill.

Even if Congressional Republicans manage to send their budget reconciliation bill to the President’s desk by July 4, that leaves just three months – including August, Congress’ recess month – to draft and pass a farm bill by September 30. After a months-long and bruising debate over budget reconciliation, it seems unlikely that Congress would have the capacity to quickly turn around a new farm bill by September 30. It is theoretically possible; however, given the uncertain timeline for the completion of a budget reconciliation bill, it remains unlikely. The Senate’s approach to budget reconciliation and ultimately the final reconciliation bill – assuming one passes – will heavily dictate the future of the farm bill.