At the Thursday morning general session of the 2023 National FFA Convention, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack addressed students, agricultural educators, and guests before signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the organization formalizing a partnership to prepare more students for careers in food, agricultural science, natural resources, and related fields.
Afterward, Vilsack met with the media and gave an update on the Farm Bill.
“We are not going to have a Farm Bill passed before December 31,” Vilsack said. “But we do have to have an extension because we don’t want the program to lapse because if it were to lapse, there would be serious consequences to the farmers, but also very serious consequences to the economy and the consumers.”
Vilsack said he is confident there will be an extension, but how long the extension will be is yet to be known.
“I think the Senate leadership, in a bipartisan way, is suggesting a year,” Vilsack said. “I don’t think they think it will take a year to get the Farm Bill done, but they think that is the easiest and simplest format to get the 60 votes necessary to get it passed in the Senate.”
While the House may not have the same timeline in mind as the Senate, Vilsack said the House has recognized a Farm Bill will not be complete before December 31.
“We put a lot of emphasis on the Farm Bill, and we should, but the reality is there are a lot of other tools that USDA and the federal government have that sometimes people forget,” Vilsack said.
One example of this is Climate Smart Partnerships, which Vilsack said are not funded through the Farm Bill, but through the Commodity Credit Corporation.
“The challenge is that when you look at the Farm Bill, there is a defined amount of money called the ‘baseline’ that is established by the Congressional Budget Office,” Vilsack said.
This baseline, Vilsack says, is essentially the amount of money that can be invested in each part of the Farm Bill. If one part of the Farm Bill needs more funding, Vilsack said that funding will have to come from another part of the bill.
“The key here is for us to be a bit more creative in how we look at the full array of tools available to us so that when we do get the Farm Bill done, that we use all the tools and we use them in a way that helps to create an opportunity where most or many of the farmers see, ‘Hey, this is going to benefit me,’” Vilsack said.
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