Why the latest farm bill matters, from SNAP benefits to crop insurance
A worker pulls weeds in a wheat field on a farm near Healy, Kansas, May 15, 2026.
Charlie Riedel/AP
Every five years or so, Congress passes a new farm bill: a big collection of laws that guides agricultural policy within the United States. The bill covers every part of the food cycle in the U.S., from when seeds are planted to when Americans sit down at the dinner table.
There are three main areas of the bill. The commodities section includes several safety-net programs, such as crop insurance, and guarantees prices on some crops to help farmers manage a risky industry. The nutrition section, which has become the largest share of the farm bill over the past few decades, includes the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. And the third section covers the environment, dedicating money toward conservation programs that encourage farmers to remove land from agriculture production, plant 鈥渃over crops鈥� that improve soil quality, and grow buffer strips between farms and waterways.
Throughout the years, these three sections have helped build a big enough coalition of legislators 鈥� who represent rural, urban, Republican, and Democratic areas 鈥� to get the sweeping, expensive farm bills passed. But this big-tent approach hasn鈥檛 been enough to supersede the increased partisanship in Washington. After the 2018 farm bill expired in 2023, Congress kicked the can down the road for a new bill, passing one-year extensions in 2023, 2024, and 2025.
Why We Wrote This
Throughout the years, the three sections of the farm bill have helped build a big enough coalition of legislators to get the sweeping, expensive legislation passed. But this big-tent approach hasn鈥檛 been enough to supersede the increased partisanship in Washington.
This year is shaping up to have its own challenges. The U.S. House passed the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 at the end of April, and the Senate is expected to release their version of the farm bill this week. Legislators face a deadline of Sept. 30, when the most recent extension expires. Many also face pressure from constituents 鈥� midterm elections are a little over a month later.
鈥淚t鈥檚 never been easy to pass a farm bill,鈥� says Patrick Westhoff, who recently retired from leading the University of Missouri鈥檚 Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute, 鈥渂ut it鈥檚 gotten more complicated to get them done.鈥�
How has the farm bill changed over time?
Farm bills have defined U.S. agriculture for almost a century. President Franklin Roosevelt signed the first farm bill, the Agriculture Adjustment Act of 1933, as part of New Deal programs to provide relief during the Great Depression. To address overproduction and increase crop prices, the federal government paid farmers to actually grow less food; they also bought up crop surpluses and gave that food to hungry Americans. And to prevent another dust bowl, which was caused in part by farming practices that didn鈥檛 protect soil, the bill encouraged soil-conservation programs.
The legislation has grown in size and scope since the 1970s. Crop insurance, which made up almost 9% of the cost of the most recent farm bill in 2018, has become increasingly common. In 2024, 89% of acreage of the eight major U.S. crops (barley, corn, cotton, oats, rice, sorghum, soybeans, and wheat) was covered by insurance through the Federal Crop Insurance Program, more than double the acreage protected in 1990. That protects farmers from financial losses due to weather and price changes. Farmers can buy insurance policies at a subsidized rate through this federal program, which compensates them for losses from either below-average production yields or revenue.
But the biggest expansion has happened within the nutrition assistance sector of the bill, which now makes up almost 80% of the farm bill鈥檚 price tag. SNAP, which was first included in the 1973 farm bill, has steadily expanded, and then increased dramatically in 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic. The overall program cost doubled between 2019 and 2022. In 2025, nearly 1 in 8 Americans received SNAP benefits.
What is different about the 2026 farm bill?
The One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB), the huge spending bill that President Donald Trump signed into law last summer, 鈥渨as a mini farm bill in some ways,鈥� says Vincent Smith, director of agricultural policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. The OBBB includes a $56 billion expansion in safety-net programs, not only increasing the number of acres eligible, but also raising the price tag. Among other measures, the legislation adds $6 billion to the crop insurance program and raises guaranteed prices for major commodities by 10% to 20%, so the baseline floor price of soybeans, for example, went from $8.40 a bushel to $10.
Dr. Smith sees the investment in certain commodity crops as a way for Republicans to hold on to their rural seats in Congress. Proponents of subsidy programs, however, say that these investments encourage farmers to invest in a business that is subject to volatile market and environmental shifts. U.S. wheat stocks, for example, are set to be at their lowest levels since the 1960s, thanks to fertilizer shortages due to the Iran war and widespread drought.
The OBBB balanced boosted spending on the farming pillar of the farm bill with cuts to SNAP in the nutrition sector. Although SNAP is currently funded 100% by the federal government, the OBBB is set to have states be partially responsible for the program beginning in 2028 if they have high rates of improper payments. (In both 2023 and 2024, about 10% of SNAP payments were for incorrect amounts or should not have been distributed.) The act is also set to shrink the size of the program by increasing work requirements for eligibility, and making some noncitizens, such as refugees and asylees, ineligible.
These OBBB-led changes to agricultural policy have made it an 鈥渦nusual year鈥� for farm bill negotiations, says Parke Wilde, a food economist at Tufts University鈥檚 Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, given 鈥渢hat so much major policy has happened outside the farm bill.鈥�
What鈥檚 next for the 2026 farm bill?
Despite the farm bill鈥檚 big-tent ethos that has made this sweeping legislation possible, delays have become more regular. The 2008 farm bill took more than a year to enact, the 2012 farm bill was eventually passed in 2014, and what was supposed to be the 2023 farm bill is now the 2026 farm bill.
Although the 2026 farm bill passed the narrowly divided House 224 to 200, with 14 Democrats voting in support, there are several potential sticking points in the Senate, where it needs 60 votes to pass. Some Senate Democrats have voiced opposition to the legislation largely because of the OBBB-induced SNAP cuts and new cost-sharing regulations, threatening the bipartisan compromises that have long underpinned farm bills.
鈥淚 used to tell my students that one of the joys of following farm bill politics is that it鈥檚 less partisan than other areas of American policymaking,鈥� says Dr. Wilde. 鈥淏ut that also isn鈥檛 true this year.鈥�