Senate farm bill doesn’t meet the needs of today’s farmers

(WASHINGTON) - Today, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry passed its Agricultural Act of 2026: farm bill 2.0 through markup. The bill redirects nearly $2 billion away from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).

"For years, farmers and ranchers have been facing increasingly difficult economic and growing conditions. Rather than meeting this moment with greater investment, this legislation would reduce support for voluntary conservation programs that farmers rely on to manage risk and strengthen their operations. Demand for these programs has already outpaced available resources: in fiscal year 2025, just one out of every four farmers who applied for EQIP were accepted.

"In the near term, these cuts would leave more than 56,000 farmers with approved EQIP applications without funding. Congress should be expanding access to one of USDA's most popular and oversubscribed conservation programs, not making it harder for farmers to get the assistance they have already been promised.

"Redirecting conservation dollars to fill gaps in other programs is not a sustainable solution to the challenges facing American farmers and opens the door to further cuts to EQIP and other conservation programs in the future.

"We continue to support efforts to pass a bipartisan farm bill that meets the realities farmers and ranchers face today - one that strengthens voluntary conservation investments, ensures USDA has the capacity to deliver assistance effectively and invests in the innovation and tools producers need to remain competitive and resilient for generations to come."