What’s Ahead for Agriculture after Mid-Term Elections
Democrats could have their biggest majorities in the U.S. House of Representatives in about 35 years. Their political success in the mid-term elections of 2026 will rival their party’s success when Barack Obama became president and they held majorities in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. Democratic victories also bring back memories of their party’s sweeping success in 1974 following Richard Nixon’s humiliating resignation from the presidency for his role in Watergate.
But what changes are in store for agriculture when Democrats hold political power in Congress beginning in January?
How Dependent Is Agriculture on Federal Spending?
Farmdocdaily laid out how agriculture has become dependent on subsidies and bailouts, something made evident again during the Trump presidency as a way to counteract farmers’ losses during his trade policies and decision to go to war with Iran.
“Farmers are struggling in this economy and many of them are genuinely hurting. But farm policy has been narrowed to an absurd system of simply issuing more and more federal payments,” Jonathan W Coppess, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Agriculture and Consumer Economics Associate Professor, wrote.
He continued, “These payments mostly pass through the farmer’s hands into the bank accounts of landlords and massive, multinational corporations, keeping costs high and fueling demand for more payments. But the payments consistently provide too much to too few, and most often those who need it the least, while hurting too many, often those who need it the most, and damaging those farmers who represent the future.”
Coppess maintains that current policies hurt farmers longer-term as Congress fails to change. “This is a recipe for self-destruction, but it doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when Congress seems to only hear the clamors of factional interests, the lobbyists and consultants operating as hallway farmers roaming the Hill and USDA,” Coppess wrote.
“For them,” he continued, “the harvest is always more federal payments, no penny of which should ever be left on the taxpayer’s table if a shell entity can be created to capture it. It would only make sense to such hallway farmers to build up bureaucratic barriers between food and people (including kids) who need help paying for it, using the savings to cover the costs of bigger payments and prioritizing legal fictional entities with bureaucratic loopholes for the collection of even more federal payments.”
What Could Democratic Control Mean for Agriculture?
Here are some issues to watch as Democrats get ready to take over control of Congress in January:
A new Farm Bill – The U.S. House passed one, but the Senate has not been able to find enough Republican and Democratic support. Will Democrats limit cuts to food assistance programs that Republicans have supported and find agreement on a new five-year bill to finalize policy on conservation, crop insurance, rural development, credit, trade, and forestry?
Another emergency aid package for farmers and ranchers dealing with higher inflation, fuel costs, and input prices?
End or significantly change President Trump’s tariffs?
End the U.S. war with Iran and provide more support and negotiations to help end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?
New health care policy, which could involve restoring some of the enhanced premium Affordable Care tax credits and spending reductions in Medicaid and Medicare?
RELATED: Now that the political ads are taking a break, it’s a good time to see which foreign companies really own American farmland.
