On Independence Day, President Trump signed into law the “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act,” a long-term budget package (or “reconciliation” bill) that extends tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, all paid for by serious cuts to the social safety net for the food and agriculture sector and beyond. Besides marking the largest single wealth transfer from working families to the corporate elite in American history, it fails to offer meaningful support for independent farmers – who face increasing challenges from low prices, trade wars, and the climate crisis – and the communities they feed.
As a coalition of farmers, ranchers, and fishers who advocate for fairness in our food system, we have serious issues with many of the provisions of this package and the uncertainty it leaves over future farm policy discussions. Amidst some of the most challenging times seen by farmers in recent memory, the bill perpetuates a decades-long decline of forward-thinking food and farm policy that has undermined independent agricultural producers to benefit corporate agribusinesses. As food providers who actively work the land and sea, we are disheartened by our U.S. policymakers’ lack of concern for working families made emblematic by this deeply partisan and unpopular legislative package.
This is the largest reduction to food assistance programs in American history. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as SNAP, will be stripped of $186 billion in funds through 2034. The reduction, nearly 20% of SNAP’s total budget, is predicted to result in over 22 million families losing some or all of their benefits. According to USDA, 67% of Americans who participated in SNAP in 2023 were a child, an elderly adult, or an adult with a disability. The program also has a higher enrollment in rural communities. All together, SNAP helps 42 million people struggling with food insecurity.
These budget cuts and the additional barriers it places on low-income families undermine Americans’ right to food and the economic security of farmers who rely on SNAP dollars as a sizable portion of their income. Many SNAP recipients use dollar-matching programs to purchase food from local farmers markets and independent grocers. When considered along with the reduction to Medicaid, these historic cuts to public benefits amount to $1.2 trillion dollars. The domino effect on people struggling with poverty cannot be overstated. This will devastate urban and rural communities alike.
It also sneaks in multiple provisions that benefit corporate agribusiness while ignoring the plight of family-scale farmers. This budget package paves the way for greater corporate control over our economy and government by further incentivizing the financialization of the food and agriculture sectors. By including provisions for special exemptions, extending market-based insurance schemes and propping up commodity programs with increased reference prices, the legislation increases the flow of public dollars to the largest, wealthiest farms. It does nothing to expand support for small-scale producers who are actively working the land and facing increasing challenges from trade wars and the climate crisis. And by slashing the budget for the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB), it hampers any hope for greater oversight of the agricultural credit space. Particularly for historically underserved farmers and ranchers, this increases the risk that farmers will experience discriminatory and predatory lending practices.
To add insult to injury, it does nothing to meaningfully address the consolidated dairy sector. Included in the mega-legislation is the extension of the Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) program. This voluntary risk management program assists dairy farmers when the price of milk is low and input costs are high. It’s a stopgap solution that does nothing to stem the tide of dairy farmers exiting the industry. Small and mid-sized dairies are being pushed out of a hyper-consolidated sector in which scaling up operations is the only way to turn a profit. This is a glaring missed opportunity for Congress to pursue an innovative supply management approach to U.S. dairy policy (like NFFC’s Milk from Family Dairies Act) that would stabilize prices through price floors linked to farmers’ cost of production, instead of our current ineffective, market-based system.
Lastly, this divisive budget has ruptured the long standing coalition needed to pass a Farm Bill. Congress has become increasingly polarized since passage of the 2018 Farm Bill. For the past half-century, the omnibus legislation united the agricultural sector with anti-hunger advocates so that food and farm policy could benefit as many people as possible. The dynamic set forth by this most recent reconciliation process could once again severely delay the immediate relief that independent farmers need. Solutions to problems like continuing market volatility, corporate consolidation, and burdensome credit processes are all addressed in our policy platform.
In these challenging times, our government should be improving protections for small farmers, not further casting them aside. Instead Congress has passed a budget that delivers $4.5 trillion in tax cuts to corporations and a few wealthy individuals – all at the expense of our most vulnerable communities. We call on our leaders in public office to remember who they serve – the people – not profit, not billionaires.
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