Farming Challenges Will Follow Congress Into 2025, AFBF

Farm Bill challenges will not go away in 2025 if Congress has to punt again on the top farming legislation; that, from a top American Farm Bureau official.  AFBF Director of Government Affairs Joe Gilson said there will be many challenges next year, since there will be a new Congress, new representatives, new senators, and a debt selling issue to address.  All of these, he noted, will make it challenging for the Farm Bill to get the focus it deserves.

As for the political landscape in 2025.

“You need 60-votes in the Senate. And I don’t think anything that I’ve been looking at, into the election, gives anybody sixty votes in the Senate," Gilson pointed out.  "So, we’re going to have to have a bipartisan agreement at some point."

Better now, he noted, than continuing the uncertainty with another one-year extension of an outdated farm bill and losing time seating new lawmakers who may have no Farm Bill experience.  Gilson added lawmakers may not appreciate that farmers’ livelihoods are on the line.

“We want to be able to have them farm next year, and they’re starting to make financial decisions alongside their lenders," Gilson said.  "And that uncertainty that is created is definitely...we have a lot of question marks from farmers saying, ‘what is Congress doing, what is Farm Bureau doing to provide that robust farm safety net?’”

Questions, he pointed out, that might not finally be answered until well into the new year.

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