Next farm bill will need support of both parties

CHICAGO — When Mary Kay Thatcher talks about the political climate surrounding the farm bill, she’s speaking from experience.

Thatcher, who retired in 2018 after 31 years as a lobbyist with the American Farm Bureau Federation, now works as the senior lead for federal government relations at Syngenta.

In those three decades, which have included countless farm bills developed under different administrations and with each party controlling Congress at different times, there is one suggestion that Thatcher has heard over and over — one that she immediately refuses to consider.

“Every year, people say, ‘oh, let’s just get the nutrition title out of the bill, Mary Kay, and then we won’t get bludgeoned so hard in the press,’” said Thatcher, speaking during a panel discussion on the outcome of the midterm elections.

The panel was part of the American Seed Trade Association 2022 Corn, Sorghum, Soybean and Seed Expo.

Thatcher said that while 83% of the cost of the farm bill goes to nutrition titles to provide funding for programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the Women, Infants, Children food assistance program and the federal school lunch program, as well as funding for food banks, the nutrition titles cannot be separated from the commodity titles, at risk of losing needed congressional support.

“If we did that, we might get a farm bill through the Senate,” said Thatcher, adding her statement that the bill, without the nutrition titles, would never pass the House.

She stressed that the bill and the titles and their supporters are linked in one mission.

“If there is one thing you take away as you think about the farm bill, I would say keep in mind we cannot pull that nutrition title out. They’re our partners and it’s the only way we’ve passed the last at least four or five farm bills, if not before that. It will certainly be the only way we can do that,” she said.

Thatcher also quashed the idea of moving money from the nutrition title to the commodity side of the bill.

“We can’t also go in as agriculture and try to steal money from nutrition and put it into conservation programs or commodity programs or whatever. I totally understand people have concerns with maybe the way the SNAP program works,” she said.

“But if we want agriculture to be successful in a farm bill, please put a stop to that with the person sitting behind you in the pew at church or somebody in the local chamber of commerce group or whatever. We have to stop any thought of doing that.”

Who will write the next farm bill also needs to be on the minds of those in farm country, on the lawmaker level and on the staff level.

Karis Gutter, North American government and industry affairs leader for Corteva Agriscience, pointed out that over half of the incoming House Agriculture Committee will have never been part of the farm bill process.

“If we do the math, there are 50 members who sit on the House Ag Committee. Twenty-eight of those folks currently have never been part of a farm bill cycle,” he said.

“More than half of the people who will be charged with helping to write the next farm bill in the House have never done it before.”

The familiar faces of lawmakers’ staffs also will be changing as the new Congress is sworn in and gets down to business.

“We also saw a lot of staff movement because anytime a member of Congress comes, they’ve got to hire about 10 to 20 people to help them staff up their offices,” Gutter said.

He discussed the past farm bill votes under different administrations and congressional control.

“It required a bipartisan coalition of votes to pass. You had different dynamics. You had dynamics where you had a Democrat as the president in one farm bill cycle. You had Republicans in the other,” he said.

“You had Republicans with gavels in one Congress and Democrats with gavels in the other. It will continue to require those bipartisan coalitions.”