The latest version of the U.S. Farm Bill could leave more than 1,000 Michigan farmers without federal conservation funding, according to an analysis by the University of Illinois.
The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) helps fund conservation projects on farmland. The federal program started nearly 30 years ago and was recently granted permanent federal funding.
John Burk is a farmer in Bay County. He said his sugar beet yields have nearly doubled since starting regenerative agriculture practices on his farm.
“You can reduce a lot of fuel and a lot of trips across the field with our tillage equipment,” Burk said. “And we can increase our yields at the same time.”
But Burk said implementing things like no-till, planting buffer strips and cover crops are costly and it can take years to reap the benefits.
“It's very hard for us right now to break even without adding that extra money being spent on cover crops,” Burk says that’s why EQIP funding is important to his farm.
But the most recent Farm Bill released by U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Chairman John Boozman (R-AR), proposes $1.92 billion in cuts to the program.
“The bill before you today, Farm Bill 2.0, is a sincere attempt to finalize our work for the farmers, ranchers, producers, and rural communities that are the backbone of our nation and give them the five-year farm bill they deserve," said Boozman during his opening remarks at the committee mark-up meeting on Thursday, Aug. 6.
The Farm Bill was due to be renewed in September of 2023. Partisan disagreements over the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) have been a major reason the bill hasn't moved forward.
Democratic lawmakers were pushing to grant states relief in the Farm Bill after several cuts to SNAP benefits have been made under the Trump Administration.
But a bipartisan agreement could not be made on Thursday, and now states with high-error rates will start paying for the federal nutrition program.
"I just want to say that this is really not about SNAP recipients," Boozman said before the committee voted on the bill. "This is about allowing states to continue making error rates that are unimaginable."
An amendment to keep original funding to the EQIP program were introduced by Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) and then promptly shut down with a vote.
Rebecca Bartels is the executive director for Invest in Our Land, a non-profit that advocates for conservation dollars on American farms.
"The bill as drafted continues to divert money away from EQIP to cover other priorities, reducing the program by nearly $2 billion below the levels Congress established just last year," said Bartels in a statement following Thursday's committee meeting.
If the current version of the bill passes when lawmakers return to capital hill in September, Bartels said 56,500 farmers who were approved for EQIP funds would not receive assistance in coming years.
“We're talking about farmers that are expecting to be using it in the upcoming cycle because they were approved,” Bartels said. “And now that funding won't be available to them.”
An analysis from University of Illinois estimates that roughly 1,500 Michigan producers could be affected, cutting around $30 million from EQIP funding within the state.
Burk, the farmer from Michigan, said he worries those growers would likely have to give up those eco-friendly practices.
“They're already budgeted way above where they should be now trying to pay their bills,” Burk said. “With the low prices for the commodities they're growing and the high input costs right now, there's nothing left at the end of the year to say, hey, we wanted to do these cover crops.”
Bartels said cuts to the program would trickle down beyond farmers and their yields.
“It's also a concern for everybody that works downstream of farmers. So the distributors, the retailers, the people on Main Street, anyone that buys the produce that comes off of a lot of these farms, they're all affected,” Bartels said.
Nothing is final yet, the Farm Bill still has to make it through committee and then vote on the Senate floor.
