WASHINGTON, D.C. — One year late, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are planning to release the text of an updated farm bill by the end of May.

The Farm Bill is a sweeping package of legislation to set policy and funding levels for farm, food and conservation programs. Historically it has been a bipartisan affair, but in the last year Democrats and Republicans have clashed, particularly over the farm bill’s price tag.

The farm bill is usually renewed every five years and was up for reauthorization in September 2023. However, as lawmakers disagreed over funding and were preoccupied with avoiding a government shutdown and passing a foreign aid package through the fall, they instead extended the old farm bill another year.

Only about 20% of the farm bill goes to farm programs; the other 80% goes to nutrition programs, including food stamps.

If the farm bill’s current calculation for nutrition programs stays in place, the Congressional Budget Office projects the next farm bill will cost $1.51 trillion over 10 years. The previous farm was estimated to cost $867 billion over 10 years.

House Republicans on the Agriculture Committee recently revealed a plan to bring down that price tag by cutting $30 billion worth of nutrition program funding over 10 years.

The cuts would happen by updating the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP), the basis for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, based on current food prices, consumption patterns and dietary guidance for a family of four.

In all previous farm bills, the TFP and thus food benefits were determined following that “cost-neutral” benefit calculation.

In 2021 President Joe Biden used his executive power to increase SNAP benefits by $256 billion over 10 years to support families amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The change allowed benefits to increase in the future by whatever amount Congress approves each year, rather than on the cost-neutral calculation.

Ohio food banks, however, said any cuts to nutrition programs could hurt families already struggling. Kam McKenzie, the SNAP outreach manager at Freestore Foodbank in Cincinnati, said people who relied on the additional SNAP benefits offered during the pandemic were already receiving fewer benefits.

“Even though they’re trying to do a formula to do the increase with inflation, it still will be way below to actually meet the needs of the individuals,” McKenzie said.

The proposed cuts would also affect food banks themselves, which also assist people who don’t qualify for food stamps.

Visits to the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank were 30% higher in the first three months this year than the same time last year, according to vice president Katie Carver Reed. Many of those visitors do not qualify for food stamps, she said.

“We are seeing visits for our network higher than they were during the pandemic without that same level of support,” she said. “We wouldn’t advocate for any changes to SNAP as it stands now, but also there is a large population who don’t receive that benefit who still need support as well.”

Lawmakers are also working to address the farm bill’s provisions for farmers, such as additional safety net measures due to challenges that have developed since the last bill passed in 2018.

“The pandemic for one, inflation, rising supply costs, frequent extreme weather events, global events: these are all things that are beyond the farmers’ control,” said Ty Higgins, the Ohio Farm Bureau’s senior director of communications and media relations. “So risk management is a huge aspect of the farm bill for us.”

Extreme weather events like droughts have contributed to rising crop insurance costs, which the Congressional Budget Office predicts will go up 29% in the next decade.

Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture predicts crop prices to decline overall through 2027.

Safety net measures include subsidies for crop yield and natural disaster insurance, as well as commodity support programs to maintain a price floor for certain crops.

Other updates include a measure introduced by House Agriculture Committee member Max Miller, R-Ohio. The Farm to Fly Act would allow agriculture-based fuels such as ethanol to be used in aviation in order to reduce carbon emissions.

“We’re going to help our farmers turn corn, wheat, sorghum, soybean into ethanol and jet fuel and renewable energy subsidies, which is going to lower the cost of flights and travel for the American people writ large,” Miller said.

Lawmakers have until October to pass a new farm bill.