Members of Congress took another concrete step toward passing an updated Farm Bill this week, and conservation groups hope they can keep the momentum going. On Tuesday, Senator John Boozman (R-Arkansas), chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, issued a draft proposal Which he is calling Farm Bill 2.0. This follows the House’s approval of its own version, known as Farm, Food, and National Security ActIn April.
groups like pheasant always and quail always Tuesday’s news was welcomed, as he has spent years pressing Congress to pass a new Farm Bill — a bill that better matches the needs of modern farmers and builds on vital programs that benefit wildlife conservation. The last time Congress passed a comprehensive and bipartisan farm bill was in 2018, and it expires in 2023.
“A lot has changed in the world of agriculture and conservation since 2018. There are different needs now and different tools we can use to help,” says Andrew Schmidt, PF&QF’s director of government affairs. “So now is the time to pass a new Farm Bill. And we’re excited that now, with the House passing our bill, we’re seeing some movement in the Senate.”
In the three years since the last Farm Bill expired, Congress has been able to authorize and fund most (but not all) of its key components through short-term extensions. Schmidt says passage of a sweeping reconciliation bill last year helped preserve most of the conservation programs that help farmers better manage their land (or at least parts of their land) for wildlife. The one exception has been Conservation Reserve ProgramBetter known as CRP, it pays farmers to keep some of their acres out of production to maintain quality habitat for upland birds and other wildlife.
“Each year, the CRP expires in authority at the end of the fiscal year, and requires an extension to get it back up and running,” explains Schmidt. “So we’ve lost the ability to enroll some acres of land, because it takes time to get that program started again… Those short-term extensions take away a lot of the certainty and predictability for farmers and ranchers.”
“If I’m having trouble paying the mortgage on my house, I can rent out my basement, right? We can provide the same thing for farmers, and CRP can be an important part of that safety net.”
And if there’s one thing farmers have in abundance today, it’s uncertainty. Between rising fuel and fertilizer costs, frequent droughts, land use changes and generational turnover, margins are tight in many parts of the country. This is where a program like CRP pays dividends not only for pheasants and pollinators, but also for the farmers themselves.
“If you’re having trouble making ends meet, we need to be able to give you another option of what to do with some of that land, especially if it’s not growing or producing good crops,” says Schmidt. “If I’m having trouble paying the mortgage on my house, I can rent out my basement, right? We can provide the same thing for farmers, and CRP can be an important part of that safety net.”
fine-tuning crp
Boozman’s draft proposal It includes some significant changes to revitalize and modernize the Conservation Reserve Program. Schmidt says most of these updates were taken directly from the CRP Reform and Flexibility Act, which Senators John Thune (R-South Dakota) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) introduced last summer. Those updates include improved cost sharing for management activities like prescribed burning, which are often required of landowners as part of the CRP contract. These activities are not currently eligible for cost sharing, but under Boozman’s proposal, the federal government would cover 50 percent of those costs.
Schmidt says the cost sharing model will also extend to grazing infrastructure – things like fencing and water delivery equipment.
Another big update to the CRP is more than doubling the payment farmers receive when they enroll their acreage. Under the current proposal, that limit would increase from $50,000 to $125,000. That’s important, Schmidt says, because the $50,000 limit hasn’t changed since 1985.
Although the CRP was a major focus of wildlife and conservation groups, there are many other aspects to Boozman’s current proposal. (full text is over 900 pages long.) According to Schmidt, some of the highlights are:
- Better incentives for precision agriculture technology
- Better support for wildlife management facilities
- A more streamlined process for technical service providers who can help landowners enroll in programs and write conservation plans.
It would also create two entirely new programs: a Forest Conservation Easement Program, and a State Conservation Assistance Program.
The latter is intended to facilitate greater collaboration between state agencies (be it a wildlife agency or a natural resources agency) and landowners to help implement more tools and programs that benefit wildlife, soil health, and water quality. These programs may seem like small changes, says Schmidt, but some of them are desperately needed and they can make a big difference on some properties.
“One example is virtual fencing. It may have been around in 2018, but it was more cost prohibitive, it wasn’t widely available, and it certainly wasn’t something anyone was thinking about putting into Farm Bill legislation,” says Schmidt. “But here we are in 2026, and there is a real need to update the rules and definitions to make sure that manufacturers can access cost-share for virtual fencing if they want to use something like that. So this is really a poster child example of things that need to be updated.”
remaining obstacles
However, there are still several hurdles for the modernized agriculture bill to become law. Boozman’s proposal is technically a discussion draft. So although it has not been officially introduced, it will allow other senators and stakeholders to provide feedback over the summer.
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Boozman is now working to build more bipartisan support around the proposal to ensure he can pass the 60-vote threshold. Schmidt says he hopes to have a markup in committee by the August recess. At that time, the Senate version must be reconciled with the House version before time runs out at the end of the fiscal year. Schmidt says the current Farm Bill extension expires on September 30, but historically, the end of the calendar year has been a “drop-dead deadline” for passing a new Farm Bill.
“The really important thing is that they get it done by the end of the year. Because if they don’t, we’ll have to start all over again.”
