MANTUA, Ohio — All of America knew that Sept. 30 was the deadline for Congress to reach a deal to avoid a government shutdown, something they were able to do in the short term, but that date also had significance for another reason — it marked the expiration of the 2018 Farm Bill.
The farm bill is sweeping legislation passed every five years or so since the Great Depression that covers everything from crop insurance and conservation initiatives for farmers to feeding those in need through SNAP. It essentially helps determine what is grown and what we pay for it. Every American is impacted by the Farm Bill.
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Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is the first U.S. senator from Ohio in 40 years to sit on the Agriculture Committee writing the Farm Bill. For over a year, he's held meetings with farmers, like one in Lake County last year, to get their input.
The Farm Bill usually is non-partisan, but, Brown said, "This year, some people are injecting partisanship into it. The same people that are doing — the extremists in the House of Representatives, and we've got to sit down and get this done, keep these programs in place.
"The extremists in the House want more money to go to agri-business and less money to go to small farmers and local farms and local food for people that are struggling, so that's what the fight's been about. In the past we've just done it, we've done it bi-partisanly," he said. "I pray that we do it that way this time."
Many of the provisions in the farm bill run until the end of the year, and while there's been talk of extending the current Farm Bill into next year if no agreement is reached, Brown said that would be a mistake. Congressman Max Miller (R-OH), though, said it remains a fallback.
"If we run into an issue, we'll look at an extension, but food security is national security, and as the only Republican on the House Agricultural Committee in the state of Ohio, I care a lot about our farmers, and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure it passes," said Miller.
Watching it all from the sidelines but impacted by the decisions are farmers like Portage County's Chuck Sayre. For the past five years, we've followed the local impact of the two "Ws" — weather and world events — with Sayre. He's been through global supply chain issues, the war in Ukraine and the trade war with China. As he gets ready for this year's harvest, he says the 2023 growing season has been a banner one, but as we know in all farming stories, there's almost always a "but."
"Our return, you know, what we sell our crops for is gonna be low, very low, maybe even all-time low," he said. Trade policies and global competition are largely to blame, he said.
"We're going to operate at a loss this year, even with one of our highest crops out here," Sayre said. "When you look out, our corn's beautiful. With one of our highest-yielding crops, we'll be at one of our lowest returns, probably a negative this year. We'll probably be operating in the red."
The Farm Bill is part of the support system some American farmers rely on to help them through tough times. They also look for provisions in the bill that find uses for their crops, like Rep. Miller's just-proposed "Farm to Fly."
"It's called sustainable aviation fuels, and this is going to be able to bring a steady stream of jet fuel by our farmers to these big airliners within our country and around the globe. This is going to be a wonderful relationship for our farmers in terms of helping them out because the plight and the regulations that they're going through right now are absolutely horrendous," Miller said.
Sayre, who also operates a helicopter crop spraying business, said he'd support that. He'd also just like to see lawmakers in Washington doing what they were sent there to do.
"When we sit here and look at the people we elect and the people we send to Washington, all we see is fighting," Sayre said. "They fight fight fight fight fight, and they're not getting anything done. I mean, here, this Farm Bill — it goes years in between. This stuff should have been resolved months or years ago, not this week. And then they start throwing each other out and fighting; what are we getting?"
