The House Agriculture Committee on Friday unveiled a five-year farm bill ahead of the scheduled Feb. 23 markup of a measure that could divide members across regional lines as much as political ones.
The draft bill would set intoxicant testing requirements for hemp, give the EPA sole authority for pesticide labeling, restrict states from setting animal cruelty standards that apply to other states, and move the orphaned Food for Peace program to the Agriculture Department from the shuttered U.S. Agency for International Development.
The issues are to some extent more regional than political, with members from both parties supporting provisions important to their states. The farm bill has historically balanced Republicans’ rural interests with Democrats’ urban ones to secure enough votes for passage.
The summary also includes several arcane provisions, including one that would make propane used for drying or in handling equipment eligible for a USDA program providing low-interest loans to finance storage facilities. Another would protect producers “from Washington dysfunction” by making sure they can use marketing assistance loans during a government shutdown.
Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson said Thursday the committee would begin marking the bill up on Feb. 23, indicating the drafting session could take several days. The bill, if enacted, would be the first long-term farm bill since 2018. The Senate hasn’t yet released its version of the new farm bill.
The initial reaction from the House panel’s top Democrat signaled there may not be much bipartisan support for the bill in its current form.
“The Republican majority instead chose to ignore Democratic priorities and focus on pushing a shell of a farm bill with poison pills that complicates if not derails chances of getting anything done,” Agriculture ranking member Angie Craig, D-Minn., said in a statement.
Hemp
The House draft would change laboratory testing standards for state and tribal governments regulating hemp products. State and tribal regulators would have to establish a procedure to test the total tetrahydrocannabinol concentration, or THC, a psychoactive compound in the plant. Current law requires the labs to only test for delta-9 THC.
The 2018 farm bill legalized hemp with less than 0.3 percent of delta-9 THC, leading to the proliferation of intoxicating hemp products and raising concerns about potential health risks.
The fiscal 2026 Agriculture spending law set that 0.3 percent limit on total THC content, effectively a ban on intoxicating hemp products that kicked off an effort from lawmakers in hemp-growing states to protect the industry. The ban takes effect in November.
The farm bill provision would effectively set standards to implement the ban even as lawmakers try to remove it altogether.
Rep. Jim Baird, R-Ind., introduced legislation that would delay the ban by two years, to November 2028. Lawmakers are trying to enact the change in time to allow farmers to make planting decisions for the coming growing seas.
The bill’s 28 co-sponsors include Craig. Baird said he would try to attach his measure to the farm bill but acknowledged he’s unlikely to succeed. Thompson says the hemp ban falls out of his committee’s jurisdiction. But Baird or Craig could introduce amendments to delay the ban.
Pesticides
The bill would require uniform pesticide labeling, giving the EPA sole authority to do so, a provision that many in the so-called Make America Healthy Again movement call a liability shield for pesticide manufacturers. The agency would also receive sole authority to make safety findings, the bill summary said.
The legislation would bar states from establishing individual labeling standards for pesticides.
‘Save our bacon’
The bill would keep a “save our bacon” provision from the 2024 bill that would curtail California and Massachusetts’s ability to regulate animal welfare standards beyond their borders. States could set animal welfare standards but can’t apply the standards to out-of-state produce.
The California rule, known as Proposition 12, requires breeding sows to have room to turn around in their enclosures, defining that space as at least 24 square feet and setting fines for retailers that sell products that don’t meet the standard, even if the products come from other states. Massachusetts similarly sets animal confinement standards.
The standards have divided the pork industry, with the National Pork Producers Council saying at a July hearing that it resulted in market fragmentation and increased production costs. Some pork farmers, however, say that they’ve already made investments and the changes result in increased sow longevity.
The Supreme Court in 2023 upheld Proposition 12.
International food aid
The bill would move the Food for Peace program to USDA from USAID, but maintain the substance of the aid after the Trump administration closed the agency that had long administered it. The summary said the bill would require 50 percent of the funding to be used to buy U.S. commodities and use U.S. ocean shipping.
Farm state lawmakers had come to the defense of the foreign food aid last year even as the administration was stopping it.
“This change returns the program to its original intent of addressing the global hunger crisis through the purchase of U.S. grown commodities and expands U.S. market access abroad,” the summary said.
The fiscal 2026 agriculture spending bill provided $1.2 billion for the program.
The bill would double the annual authorization for other trade programs including the Market Access Program, to $410 million; the Foreign Market Development Program, to $82 million; the Technical Assistance to Specialty Crops, to $18 million; the Kika de la Garza Emerging Markets Program, to $16 million; and the Priority Trade Fund, to $7 million, according to a summary.
The bill also includes a provision for specialty crops in its research title, saying the Agriculture secretary can waive a requirement for matching funds in its Specialty Crops Research Initiative that provides grants.
Domestic food programs
The legislation’s nutrition title would direct USDA to make an online purchasing pilot program for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, or food stamps, an option nationwide.
The pilot was established by the 2014 farm bill. Participating retailers include Amazon.com Inc., Safeway, ShopRite and Walmart Stores Inc., among others, according to the USDA.
The USDA would begin the transition within 120 days of the bill’s enactment. The summary says the provision is drawn from a bill sponsored by Rep. Mark Messmer, R-Ind.
One provision would also direct states to move to chip-enabled electronic benefit cards, a technology designed to reduce food stamp fraud. Only California and Alabama have issued EBT chip cards to beneficiaries, according to the USDA, and seven states have transition projects underway.
The legislation would direct the Government Accountability Office to investigate “skyrocketing SNAP administrative costs in the states.” The 2025 reconciliation law included provisions that would boost the state share of SNAP administrative costs.
The committee summary said the bill “codifies Trump Administration reforms to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans” that was unveiled in January and was a win for the MAHA cause.
The guidelines recommended that Americans avoid highly processed foods and refined carbohydrates, and encouraged eating “high-quality, nutrient-dense protein foods.” The administration called the guidelines a win for ending the “war on healthy fats.”
The summary noted that the farm bill would prioritize “whole, high-quality” protein for SNAP recipients, including “animal protein” and “full-fat fluid milk.”
The USDA and Health and Human Services Department are required to update the guidelines at least every five years. The farm bill would change that to every 10 years.
Financing aid, new farmers
The summary said the bill offers new resources for people wanting to go into farming or ranching by reducing requirements for real estate loans, giving farmers with two years’ experience access to the loans, down from three years.
The bill would also allow USDA to enter cooperative agreements with public interest legal services to resolve ownership records, and it would reauthorize cooperating lending pilot projects, beginning farmer and rancher individual development accounts.
The bill would also provide more financing options for producers who can’t get a loan from a commercial lender. According to the summary, that includes guaranteed operating loans, guaranteed ownership loans, direct operating loans, direct ownership loans and microloans.
The guaranteed operating loan limits would rise to $3 million and guaranteed ownership loans to $3.5 million, up from $2.3 million; direct operating loan limits would rise to $750,000 from $400,000; and direct ownership loan caps would rise to $850,000 from $600,000.
The bill also would boost aid to land-grant institutions, or 19 historically Black colleges and universities established under an 1890 law, by at least 20 percent. It would require at least 40 percent of appropriated funds for cooperative extension work at land-grant institutions under a 1914 law go to universities, up from at least 20 percent.
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