The Farm, Food and National Security Act of 2024 as it passed the House Committee on Agriculture is a win for Louisiana Agriculture. I encourage you to reach out to your representative in Congress and tell them we need this Farm Bill passed this year.

While commodity prices have increased since the last time Congress passed a Farm Bill in 2018, the costs for inputs have increased at a far greater rate. That makes profit margins razor thin, some years even in the red.

Thankfully, the pending legislation increases the reference prices for commodities to create a true updated safety net for farmers. Under the current reference prices, it’s difficult for farmers to show a positive cash flow when trying to secure crop loans. 

Updates to the safety net weren’t in the 2018 bill, so farmers’ risk protection is operating under 2014 law in a 2024 world. The improvements to reference prices are the pinnacle of this bill and give every American consumer the assurance that they’ll continue to have the safest, most abundant, and most affordable food supply in the world.

The proposed House Farm Bill also includes improvements to disaster programs. Congresswoman Julia Letlow filed the Emergency Conservation Improvement Act as a “marker” for this Farm Bill, and those ideas to improve both the Emergency Conservation Program and the Emergency Forest Restoration Program by providing more of these programs’ cost share up front, rather than months and months after a storm, is a common sense win for Louisiana agriculture and beyond. Other improvements driven by Farm Bureau advocacy include updates to livestock disaster programs, the tree assistance program, and more flexibilities in ad hoc disaster programming in the future. 

The legislation also expands crop insurance programs for Louisiana farmers. Crop insurance requires farmers to have “skin in the game” by paying premiums to protect the investments they have in their fields, but if those protections don’t fit the needs of the farmer, the entire system is jeopardized threatening the sustainability of the program. 

This bill updates premium discounts for veterans and beginning farmers, and maintains flexibility to utilize both insurance and Title I programs, and builds on the successes of hurricane and tropical storm policies, just to name a few.  Specialty crops are a big priority in this bill as well, offering more diversity opportunities for farm income, while still staying financially protected.

Lastly, the House version of the Farm Bill keeps the no-cost sugar program in place. That program costs taxpayers nothing, but ensures that Louisiana sugarcane farmers and the 11 sugar mills in our state can continue to contribute more than $1 billion annually to the state’s economy, which is especially important to the rural communities that depend on these dollars to keep grocery stores, equipment dealers and local governments alive. The bill includes monumental investment in research, conservation, and in food assistance and food aid. 

An extension of the current Farm Bill would place extreme uncertainty on our industry. Louisiana needs the improvements proposed in the Farm, Food and National Security Act of 2024 and Louisiana Farm Bureau needs you to tell your representative in Congress that you support it, too.

Jim Harper is the president of the Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation. He was elected in 2020 and announced earlier this year that he will not seek another term.

Editor’s note: This column has been trimmed for length.