Across these decades, the breadth of policy areas addressed through such farm bills has expanded beyond providing support for a limited number of agricultural commodities to include establishing programs and policies that address a broad spectrum of related areas, such as agricultural conservation, credit, rural development, domestic nutrition assistance, trade and international food aid, organic agriculture, forestry, and support for beginning and veteran farmers and ranchers, among others. On June 21, 2018, the House voted 213-211 to approve H.R. 2 , the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018, an omnibus farm bill that would establish farm and food policy for the next five years, covering FY2019-FY2023. The Senate passed its version of H.R. 2, the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, on June 28, 2018, on a vote of 86-11. The disparity in the number of titles between the two bills reflects the provision of a separate title for energy programs in the Senate bill, whereas the House bill would eliminate what had been a separate energy title in the 2014 farm bill and place these agricultural energy programs within the title on rural infrastructure and economic development. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued its scores of H.R. CBO projected that spending on mandatory programs in the Senate bill would total $867 billion over the 10-year period FY2019-FY2028 and $865 billion in the House bill. These totals compare with CBO's estimate of the cost of extending the current 2014 farm bill for 10 years of $867 billion. 113-79 , many of which are to expire in 2018 unless Congress acts to reauthorize or extend them. In the Senate bill, while none of the titles' cumulative increases and decreases are as large in magnitude as the changes to nutrition and conservation programs in the House bill, the section-by-section scores of the Senate bill nonetheless show both increases and decreases from the baseline. Major field-crop programs include the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) and Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) programs and the Marketing Assistance Loan (MAL) program (see Table 5 ). Under both bills, the sugar program is extended but is otherwise unchanged. With respect to payment limits and the AGI limit, the Senate farm bill would leave payment limits unchanged but tighten the AGI limit to $700,000 (down from $900,000 under current law). In contrast, the House farm bill proposes to expand the list of producer exemptions from payment and income limits under certain conditions. Both bills would also expand coverage choices for milk producers. margin would be lowered slightly. The House and the Senate bills reauthorize all current conservation programs with the exception of the largest—the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP)—which the House bill would repeal. The two largest working lands programs—Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and CSP—account for more than half of all conservation program funding. Nutrition15

The Nutrition titles of House- and Senate-passed farm bills differ in their approach to eligibility and benefit calculation rules but include some similar policies in other topic areas (see Both bills would reauthorize SNAP and related programs for five years through the end of FY2023. Both bills propose policies intended to improve detection of errors and fraud. The House bill repeals funding for performance bonuses, while the Senate bill reduces funding and limits them to application timeliness. Both bills would expand SNAP bonus incentives for fruit and vegetable purchases and authorize the addition of milk for certain incentive pilot programs (one with mandatory funding in the House bill, one with discretionary funding in the Senate bill). Food Distribution Programs. Both bills would make changes to the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations. Other Nutrition Programs and Policies. 2. For direct loans, the Senate bill would increase the farm ownership loan limit to $600,000 and the farm operating loan limit to $400,000, both from $300,000 currently. The bill establishes priorities for awarding loans and grants for broadband projects in rural communities. The Senate bill would also authorize a new Urban, Indoor, and Emerging Agricultural Production, Research, Education, and Extension Initiative. The Senate bill would raise the authorized level, while the House bill would modify the terms of the program. The House bill would also direct the Secretary of Agriculture to exempt unprocessed dead and dying trees on NFS lands in California from the export prohibition for 10 years and would amend provisions of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000, a program that authorizes payments to counties containing NFS lands and certain BLM lands, among other provisions. Both bills extend most of the energy title programs through FY2023. The House bill addresses energy programs in three key ways—it reauthorizes many of the programs, it changes the placement of the programs within the farm bill, and it modifies the type of funding available for the programs. In contrast, the House bill provides discretionary funding, but not mandatory funding, for the energy title programs. The Senate bill includes a number of provisions regarding industrial hemp within the bill's Horticulture title but also includes hemp-specific provision in the Research, Crop Insurance, and Miscellaneous titles of the bill. The House bill does not include comparable hemp provisions, but it would amend certain regulatory requirements under some federal statutes that are not contained in the Senate bill. 5485 ) that are intended to facilitate the possible commercial cultivation of hemp in the United States. Both bills would establish an animal disease preparedness program and a vaccine bank that prioritizes the acquisition of foot-and-mouth disease vaccine. Both the House-passed and Senate-passed bills amend parts of current law to account for USDA reorganizational changes that created the Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs, the Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation, and the Assistant to the Secretary for Rural Development.
Congress sets national food and agriculture policy through periodic omnibus farm bills that address a broad range of farm and food programs and policies. The 115th Congress has the opportunity to establish the future direction of farm and food policy, because many of the provisions in the current farm bill (the Agricultural Act of 2014, P.L. 113-79) expire in 2018.
On June 21, 2018, the House voted 213-211 to approve H.R. 2, the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018, an omnibus farm bill that would authorize farm and food policy for FY2019-FY2023. The Senate passed its version of H.R. 2, the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, also a five-year bill, on June 28, 2018, on a vote of 86-11.
In terms of cost, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) score of July 24, 2018, of the programs in both bills with mandatory spending—such as nutrition programs, commodity support programs, major conservation programs, and crop insurance—over a 10-year budget window (FY2019-FY2028) amounts to $867 billion in the Senate-passed bill and $865 billion in the House-passed bill. These cost projections compare with CBO's baseline scenario of an extension of existing 2014 farm bill programs with no changes of $867 billion. In both the House and Senate versions of H.R. 2, most existing programs would be extended through FY2023. Overall, the bills provide a relatively large measure of continuity with the existing framework of farm and food programs even as they would modify numerous programs, alter the amount and type of program funding that certain programs receive, and exercise discretion not to reauthorize some others.
Both bills would extend commodity support programs largely along existing lines while modifying them in different ways. For instance, the House bill could raise the effective reference price for crops enrolled in the Price Loss Coverage program (PLC) under certain market conditions. It would also amend payment limits and the adjusted gross income (AGI) limit for eligibility for farm program payments and increase the number of producer exemptions from payment and income limits. In contrast, the Senate bill would leave payment limits unchanged while lowering the AGI limit for payment eligibility. The Senate would also leave PLC unchanged while adopting changes to the Agricultural Risk Coverage program (ARC) that could enhance its appeal as a program option. Both bills would amend disaster assistance programs but under different approaches. Both bills would also rename the dairy program and expand coverage choices for milk producers, and both bills extend the sugar program with no changes.
The House and Senate bills would reauthorize the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for five years, and both bills include polices intended to improve error and fraud detection. Among their differences, the House bill includes multiple changes to who is eligible for SNAP and the calculation of benefits, which are not included in the Senate bill. The House bill includes major changes to work requirements, while the Senate bill would make changes that are minor by comparison.
Within the conservation title, the two bills would raise the acreage limit on enrollment in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), with the House bill setting a higher limit than the Senate does. Among other differences, the House bill would repeal the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), whereas the Senate bill would extend CSP but lower the limit on acreage enrollment. The House bill also increases funding for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), while the Senate bill reduces funding for EQIP. Within the credit title, both bills increase the maximum loan amounts for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's guaranteed farm ownership loans and guaranteed farm operating loans. The Senate bill would also raise the limits for direct farm ownership loans and direct farm operating loans, whereas the House bill would not. The miscellaneous title of both bills establishes an animal disease preparedness program and a vaccine bank, although they diverge over funding.
The Senate bill includes a number of provisions that are intended to facilitate the possible commercial cultivation of industrial hemp, while the House bill would amend certain regulatory requirements that apply to industrial hemp. For rural communities, the House bill would authorize the Secretary of Agriculture to reprioritize certain loan and grant programs and take other actions to respond to specific health emergencies, and it would require the Secretary to promulgate minimum acceptable standards for broadband service. The Senate bill would establish priorities for awarding loans and grains for rural broadband projects and add a new program on substance abuse education and prevention. Both bills extend most bioenergy programs, but the House bill places them within the title on rural development and infrastructure, while the Senate bill maintains a separate energy title. Moreover, while the House bill would provide discretionary funding for these programs but no mandatory funding, the Senate bill would provide both mandatory and discretionary funding.