Stabenow says GOP farm bill is ‘not balanced’ and won’t pass through the US Senate

A farm in Leelanau County | Susan J. Demas

The U.S. House Agriculture Committee’s version of the farm bill will not get support from U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Lansing), who chairs the Senate committee responsible for handling the appropriations bill.

Stabenow told the Advance after an event in Lansing Wednesday morning that this farm bill process has been the “most frustrating” of her career. 

“I’ve actually been involved in six farm bills and led on three of them, and this has been the most frustrating time,” said Stabenow, who chairs the U.S. Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, and is retiring this term. “Because it’s so much more partisan than usual and particularly around food assistance.”

The farm bill is a $1.5 trillion federal legislation package that creates policy and appropriates funding to food, agriculture and conservation programs. The bill expires every five years, and the most recently passed legislation was set to expire in September 2023. The 2018 farm bill received an extension through the end of September 2024, putting pressure on lawmakers to finish a deal before the November election.

The framework from GOP senators reflected the GOP-led House panel’s version, which passed with votes from every Republican and four Democrats on the committee. Stabenow said the version is “just not balanced.”

“The politics of food has gotten, very, very, very partisan and very, very disheartening to me,” Stabenow said. “Because traditionally, we’ve been able to come together around those issues.”

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly), a member of the House Agriculture Committee, told the Advance after a May 31 event in Traverse City that she doesn’t believe that GOP cuts to food assistance will make it into the final bill.

“This was the thing that was so hard about last week, is that the farm bill draft in the House had a bunch of bills that I care about and I voted against it. Because they just slashed food assistance — they slashed SNAP, so food stamps, all kinds of agricultural programs for our farmers markets, school lunch programs, you name it,” Slotkin said. “So I couldn’t vote for it. I think that it will not pass muster; those kinds of things will not make it into law — most importantly because we have Debbie Stabenow as the chairwoman of the Senate Ag Committee and she’s absolutely not going to stand for that.”

Slotkin is running for the open U.S. Senate seat and will face actor Hill Harper in the Aug. 6 Democratic primary. On the GOP side, former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, former U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, physician Sherry O’Donnell and businessman Sandy Pensler are running.

The farm bill has 12 areas, or titles, that need to be passed together, including commodity programs, conservation and nutrition. Stabenow said eight of the twelve titles have been agreed upon, but there are sticking points in other areas. 

Slotkin said in Traverse City that she was focused on promoting “positive and sustainable farming. 

“I always want to be able to have America feed itself by itself, but you can incentivize healthier farming practices, better environmentally sound practices by incentivizing farmers to do the right things, instead of trying to just punish them when they do the wrong things,” she said.

She noted that Michigan has a lot of small and medium farmers and she said crop insurance does not work well for them. Instead, she wants to see the safety net expanded for farmers.

Slotkin also said that the U.S. has to invest more into scientific crop research and conservation efforts for land and water.

The House version of the bill removed some money that would go to farmers to fund conservation projects in agriculture. The version also changed the formula for calculating food benefits programs. 

Stabenow said these cuts helped fund farm subsidy programs, primarily for larger southern farms and that GOP lawmakers have “doubled down” on those priorities. 

“The House of Representatives wants to take money out of the nutrition title to fund big farm subsidies that we’ve never done before, and I’m not going to let that happen,” Stabenow said.

Stabenow said she thinks the outlined commodity programs that benefit larger industries primarily help bigger farms in southern states, which many GOP lawmakers represent. 

“We’re kind of locked in this big southern farms fight vs. funding something that is fair nationally,” Stabenow said. 

Slotkin also was critical last month of the draft farm bill for including big increases in subsidies for the commodity groups.

“So big corn growers, big wheat growers, just folks we don’t really have here [in Michigan]. And I think even the fiscal conservative Republicans aren’t going to like that,” Slotkin said. 

But she said there was one big area of bipartisan agreement in the process.

“I don’t think we should be able to sell our farmland to countries of concern, including China,” Slotkin said. “I think that there are real implications, national security implications, if suddenly they’re buying farmland right outside Traverse City Airport, outside of military bases — huge amounts of land that then we don’t have access to.”

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