August recess has arrived in Washington, DC, after a hectic few months of legislative activity that included a huge budget bill signed into law in July. Congress has left town until September, but that doesn’t mean nothing is happening in agricultural policy. House Agriculture Committee chairman G.T. Thompson (R-PA) has said he wants to introduce a new “skinny” farm bill as soon as this fall, and activity and speculation around this anticipated legislation is already ramping up.
What is he talking about?
How we got here
A quick refresher: In July 2025, President Trump signed a massive budget bill that slashed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which more than 40 million people rely on to help feed themselves and their families. The bill used money from these SNAP cuts to pay for additional farm subsidies on certain commodity crops, which largely benefit the wealthiest farmers in the country.
The budget bill’s decimation of SNAP funding has caused a deep rift in the traditional farm bill coalition of farmers and nutrition advocates, making a full-scale farm bill more challenging—if not impossible—to achieve. Plus, since the budget bill already addressed many issues typically left to a farm bill (like nutrition assistance), there’s less for a new farm bill to tackle—hence why a potentially slimmed-down (or “skinny”) farm bill seems the most likely option in the months ahead.
If some type of farm bill isn’t signed into law by the end of the year, Congress will need to pass another extension (this would be the third such extension, for anyone keeping score) in order to keep agricultural programs running. The current farm bill extension expires on September 30, so the clock is ticking.
The best-case (but highly unlikely) scenario
First of all, any farm bill needs to reckon with the damage done by the recent budget bill. It should begin by taking steps to restore SNAP funding and ensure that recipients are able to purchase healthy meals for themselves and their families with the program’s benefits.
But a new farm bill can, and should, do much more. It should also be a blueprint for a better food and farm system, as UCS has advocated for years.
Some priorities UCS believes any new farm bill legislation should include:
Conservation and climate
- A new farm bill should strengthen popular voluntary conservation programs such as the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), and the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) that support farmers’ engagement in an array of conservation practices on their lands, such as cover crops and no-till farming, that keep farms productive while preserving soil, water, and wildlife.
- The bill should strengthen efforts to prioritize soil health across CSP, EQIP, and other conservation programs.
- The bill should strengthen conservation technical assistance by setting aside funding to assist producers in mitigating and adapting to climate change.
Food and farm workers
- Any farm bill must ensure the safety and dignity of food and farm workers who form the backbone of American agriculture. It must prioritize workers by instituting workplace safety and health protections, as well as protecting them from harm and harassment.
Equity
- A new farm bill should support small, beginning, and diverse farmers by increasing access to land and credit, supporting agricultural programs at historically Black colleges and universities, ensuring farmers have access to training and technical assistance support, and creating an Office of Small Farms.
Nutrition
- Any new farm bill must restore cuts to SNAP funding made in the budget bill.
- It should also strengthen programs such as the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP), which provides incentives for eligible consumers to purchase fruits and vegetables, and the Local Agriculture Market Program (LAMP), which supports the development and expansion of local and regional food markets.
Agricultural research
- A new farm bill should support agricultural research by reauthorizing the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (SARE), with yearly mandatory funding of at least $100 million.
- It should also support the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), the nation’s leading competitive grants program for agricultural science, and add a research priority to AFRI focused on “research at the intersection of production, climate and the environment, and nutrition and health equity,” also known as sustainable nutrition science.
- Finally, a new farm bill should codify into law the national network of regional climate hubs.
The worst-case scenario
The priorities above should be a baseline for any future food and farm bill. But what would a bad bill look like?
Chairman Thompson hasn’t shared the full details of what he wants to include in his skinny farm bill. However, he has stated that he plans to base any new legislation on the House version of the farm bill he introduced in 2024. This bill passed in the House Agriculture Committee in May 2024, but never received a floor vote. UCS did not support it due to its elimination of climate-focused agriculture requirements in conservation programs, harmful changes to how SNAP benefits are calculated, and lack of protections for food and farm workers.
If a new skinny farm bill echoes the previous House version, that would be extremely unfortunate (if not surprising), and could be deeply damaging to our food and farm system. Such a bill would likely struggle to gain support from House Democrats, especially after Republicans effectively blew up the longstanding farm bill coalition by stuffing SNAP cuts and increased commodity subsidies for wealthy farmers into the budget bill.
We should not settle for less than what’s possible
For the past several years, UCS has advocated for a transformational farm bill that creates a better food system for farmers and farmworkers, for our environment, and for the food we eat. But UCS is also clear-eyed that such a bill may not happen in the current Congress, or under the purview of the current administration. Until we reach a moment when we can ensure that our country gets the legislation it deserves and needs to strengthen our food system, the refrain that “no farm bill is better than a bad farm bill” still rings true.