As new Farm Bill makes progress, Rep. Dusty Johnson eyes work ahead

May 22—WASHINGTON, D.C. — Rep. Dusty Johnson said there's a lot to like about the currently-proposed Farm, Food and National Security Act of 2024.

Better known as the Farm Bill, the $1.5 trillion dollar omnibus, multiyear law governs an array of agricultural and food programs, providing an opportunity for policymakers to comprehensively and periodically address agricultural and food issues. Lawmakers pass an updated version of the law around every five years.

Lawmakers are getting closer to approving this latest version of the bill, with the U.S. House Agriculture Committee having published the text of its version of the bill last week. The committee is now expected to return to the bill Thursday for further discussion and potential amending before approval.

"I came into this Farm Bill process with five major priorities. Every one of those priorities has been integrated into the Farm Bill," Johnson told the Mitchell Republic earlier this week. "I'm one of the six subcommittee chairman that helped to draft the Farm Bill, and it's a good piece of work. I think it will serve rural America well."

Those efforts reflect Johnson's prioritization of issues like rural broadband expansion, working land conservation as opposed to idle land conservation, the acknowledgment of the different inflationary environment, the importance of the livestock industry and market access.

Johnson has several bills that were incorporated into the Farm Bill language, including the

SAVE Act,

which safeguards U.S. exports from unfair trade practices; The

Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act,

which ensures uniform labeling standards for pesticides nationwide; The

Healthy Dog Importation Act,

which ensures dogs coming into the country are in good health with proper vaccinations and medical treatment; the

A-PLUS Act,

which increases investment in small meat packers and the

Butcher Block Act,

which assists new and expanding livestock or meat processors.

Johnson said he also urged fiscal responsibility when drafting the massive, 900-plus page bill.

"It doesn't dump a bunch of new money in. We're currently in an environment where we're $34 trillion in debt. We do want to make sure that we're being fiscally responsible, and to the extent that we invest any new dollars into these programs, they're coming from savings we've found in other parts of the bill," Johnson said. "I think that's important."

The Farm Bill sets the tone for the farm and ranch industries throughout the country, but there are some points of the bill that Johnson thinks will resonate with South Dakota residents. He said he took time to listen to constituents from his home state when helping craft the current bill language.

"I really listened. When we did field hearings and listening sessions, I listened to what South Dakotans were telling me," Johnson said. "I think, particularly on the crop side, we got the voluntary base acre update and the increase in reference prices that farmers were asking for. I think that's going to have a big impact in making sure that we're using better data and that we're better positioned to weather disasters in our state. We do run into those every now and then, that's for sure."

Then there's rural broadband access, a topic that has been close to Johnson for some time.

He said reliable, high-speed internet access for everyone, particularly in rural areas of the country, has become as important as access to electricity or basic telephone service. The Farm Bill includes updates and modernizes United States Department of Agriculture broadband programs, providing faster buildout speeds and strengthening connectivity to real communities.

Progress addressing the issue has come quickly over recent years, and provisions included in the Farm Bill should only support that, Johnson said.

"In a five-year period, we went from 5% of Americans having access to 250 megabit per second high-speed internet to having 90% of Americans with those kinds of speeds. We're managing broadband deployment much, much more quickly than we did with rural electrification. Or with the universal service program that helped deploy telephone lines," Johnson said. "I think it's the most impressive infrastructure deployment story in human history, but that doesn't mean everybody's connected. We still have a ways to go."

Glenn "GT" Thompson, chair of the House Agriculture Committee, said in a statement last week that he is hopeful for strong support for the bill.

"This bill is a product of an extensive and transparent process, which included soliciting feedback from members of both political parties, stakeholder input from across the nation, and some tough conversations. Each title of this farm bill reflects a commitment to the American farmer and viable pathways to funding those commitments, and is equally responsive to the politics of the 118th Congress. The Committee on Agriculture will markup this bill on May 23, and I hope for unanimous support in this endeavor to bring stability to producers, protect our nation's food security, and revitalize rural America," Thompson said in a statement last week.

The text of the house version of the bill has received praise from a wide number of industry and agriculture organization leaders, including the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the U.S. Dairy Export Council, the National Milk Producers Federation and Pheasants Forever.

Not uncommon with such wide-ranging legislation, there has been some criticism, including from the National Farmers Union, which praised much of the bill while noting the bill does not include provisions to increase competition and transparency in the ag economy. It also said the current draft includes nutrition program provisions that will make it harder for the most vulnerable to feed their families as well as remove opportunities for farmers to play a role in fighting climate change.

Johnson himself also has areas he'd like to see improve.

"I'd like to see more reforms to the nutrition program. We know that programs like SNAP, which used to be called food stamps, are really important, but I'm a big believer in work, and I'm a big believer in nutrition," Johnson said. "I think there are some reforms we could make to those programs to make them stronger, to actually help families escape poverty. There are definitely some things that are done in this bill to encourage work, but I also understand we're in an era of divided government and that I'm not going to get absolutely every single thing I want every single time."

The House Agriculture Committee is expected to take up the bill again Thursday, when it will consider amendments and changes before taking a vote. That will finish this stage of work on the Farm Bill for the House until the Senate does the same with its version of the Farm Bill. After each committee passes its version of the bill, each chamber will debate and vote on its respective version before another committee melds the two bills into one version. Both chambers of Congress will then debate and vote on the combined bill before it is sent to the White House for the president's approval.

There will be hurdles to overcome before final approval, Johnson said. The Senate Agriculture Committee had not released the text of its version of the bill as of Wednesday.

"We're not going to be able to get a Farm Bill done until both chambers have passed a work product, at the very least, out of committee. It really, unfortunately, right now is the senate that is driving this slow timeline more than anything," Johnson said.

Then there will be the usual challenges of crafting a final bill that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle can agree on. Johnson said he wants the Farm Bill to focus on "farms and ranches in America" rather than policies that Democrats tend to push.

"I think Democrats are going to have a hard time voting for this bill because they really want to see — many of them want to turn the Farm Bill into another Inflation Reduction Act with a lot of Green New Deal type provisions," Johnson said. "Of course, we want to be good stewards of the environment, but so much of the IRA was bad policy. I'm simply not going to be able to support a Farm Bill that doubles down on some of those bad policies."

Crafting the new Farm Bill has been a slow, sometimes frustrating process, as all major legislative efforts can be, Johnson said. But he's generally happy with the work the House Agriculture Committee has put forth, and he thinks the politicians who focus on the issues at hand, like those addressed in the Farm Bill, can deliver policy that most benefits the public.

"Many Americans think that Washington doesn't get anything done. I would observe we've gotten a remarkable number of important pieces of legislation passed this year," Johnson said. "Congress getting its work done doesn't generate many headlines, but I think the Farm Bill is going to be another example, when we go to the committee on Thursday, of Congress triumphing over the show horses who just like to generate headlines."