DA - Farm Bill Politics - Michigan 7 2023 CMFP

Farm Bill DA - Neg
The United States farm-eral government should substantially increase…
1NC Tools
Potential 1NC Shell – Food Security
Farm Bill will pass now BUT partisan gridlock and delays can put it in jeopardy
Steve White 6-23 {Bureau Chief of the Grand Island Newsroom at Nebraska TV who has covered several political campaigns and has extensive experience covering the State Capitol, working with three governors and countless state senators.} - ("Congressional Delegation Comes Together To Discuss Farm Bill Priorities But Outlook Unclear," KHGI, published 6-19-2023, accessed 6-23-2023, https://nebraska.tv/news/ntvs-grow/congressional-delegation-comes-together-to-discuss-farm-bill-priorities-but-outlook-unclear)//marlborough-wr/
LINCOLN, Neb. — Between the debt ceiling and defense spending, time may be running out to pass the farm bill this year.
All five members of Nebraska’s Congressional delegation got an education in autonomous agriculture during a visit to the tractor testing lab at the University of Nebraska. Farming has changed, and that could impact the hundreds of billions the federal government spends through the farm bill.
“We need to get this right heading into another five-year period, we do not want to tie the hands of producers unintentionally,” said Rep. Adrian Smith.
There was hope Congress would act soon, but when Republicans fought an increase in the debt limit, they pushed for cuts to SNAP, also known as food stamps.
“The biggest hurdle we've already dealt with is SNAP,” said Rep. Don Bacon.
But Senator Deb Fischer says lines have been “drawn in the sand,” plus Congress has defense and aviation spending to approve.
“I'm being more cautious and looking at everything we have to get done knowing there could be extensions, and things are moving slower than all of us planned,” she said.
Extending current programs is one option, although that raises concerns that the cost of production has risen, and programs may not keep pace. As they toured UNL, they expressed support for research. There's also broad support to prioritize crop insurance and safety net programs.
Bacon said, “We've had two years of drought. Many farmers could not have survived without crop insurance,” he said.
But farming is only a small piece of the farm bill. The debate could come down to food stamps and how the bill brings urban and rural together.
“Find that balance between 17 percent of farm bill that's farming and 80 percent that deals with nutrition programs. We're going to get there,” said Fischer.
“It'll be messy, but we'll get a bipartisan farm bill done,” Bacon said.
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Farm Bill needed now to solve urgent food crises globally
Grace Yarrow 5-25 {author at The Hill} - ("How the farm bill could alleviate food insecurity fueled by Ukraine war," Hill, published 5-25-2023, accessed 6-23-2023, https://thehill.com/policy/international/4021371-how-the-farm-bill-could-alleviate-food-insecurity-fueled-by-ukraine-war/)//marlborough-wr/
The war raging in Ukraine has exacerbated food insecurity across the world — and food aid experts are looking to the 2023 farm bill for solutions.
Ukraine’s massive grain supplies typically feed 400 million people per year, but the war has “drastically cut supplies” and driven up food costs for consumers in rich and poor countries alike, according to the World Food Program (WFP).
U.S. legislators are currently drafting the farm bill, an omnibus agriculture act passed every five years, which includes provisions for international food assistance.
The farm bill authorizes a number of domestic and international food aid programs. The legislation doesn’t fully authorize funding for this aid, which must be decided in separate appropriations, but it outlines how each program runs and how it can use future funds.
Lawmakers can use the must-pass farm bill draft to amend these programs as needed.
Experts like Rebecca Middleton, chief advocacy and engagement officer for World Food Program USA, are hoping to see “robust authorization” for food aid support in the 2023 farm bill — especially the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust, Middleton said.
The Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust builds up over time and then can be cashed out at the authorization of the secretary of Agriculture.
In April 2022, $282 million was withdrawn from the Emerson Trust to support countries in need after the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict threatened food supplies in six major countries facing food insecurity: Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Yemen.
The withdrawn money was used to obtain U.S. commodities and bolster existing aid in those countries, according to a U.S. Agency for International Development spokesperson.
The Emerson Trust was renamed to honor former Mississippi Rep. Bill Emerson in 1998 but was originally established in 1980 as a wheat reserve. Because of rising food prices, in 2008, the Department of Agriculture converted the trust into a cash reserve that can be used to purchase U.S. commodities in times of need.
The trust was most recently reauthorized in the 2018 farm bill, and Congress must reauthorize the Emerson Trust in the 2023 legislation. Congress also has the authority to replenish funds after they are withdrawn.
“For all of those accounts [in the farm bill], the one that we’re really interested in is the Emerson Trust because it’s an account that’s not very well known, but is absolutely vital in situations like the one that we found ourselves in in 2022,” Middleton said.
“It’s really absolutely vital assistance that the U.S. was able to provide because of that emergency account in this time of historic need.”
The 2018 farm bill did not account for such crises like the COVID-19 pandemic or the Russia-Ukraine conflict, both which have had severe effects on supply and triggered more aid from the federal government, so the Emerson Trust was an essential resource in recent years.
“I mean, the need was extraordinary and then just compounded with the shock to the global food supply chain with the Ukrainian crisis,” Middleton said.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), the former ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee’s subcommittee on nutrition, said in a statement that he supports keeping international food aid well-funded in the new legislation.
“The FY 2023 farm bill reauthorization needs to continue to build on the trajectory of the past two decades and ensure that the U.S., in partnership with American farmers and non-profits, can respond swiftly and comprehensively to global humanitarian emergencies and invest in longer-term resilience and sustainability, especially for small farmers, so that they may more successfully withstand future economic and climate shocks,” McGovern said in a statement to The Hill.
In addition to the Emerson Trust withdrawal, the Biden administration committed $2.76 billion toward global food security last summer, on top of Biden and other G7 leaders’ contributing $4.5 billion to the issue in 2022.
High prices for fuel and fertilizer, theft of farm equipment, destruction of agricultural facilities, and the blockade of Black Sea ports all threatened to push millions of people internationally into poverty, hunger and malnutrition starting in 2022, according to the White House. The Horn of Africa faced a particularly acute crisis due to prolonged drought and famine.
Dalton Henry, vice president of policy for U.S. Wheat Associates, is hoping to see solutions in the 2023 farm bill that prioritize using U.S. commodities as a “cornerstone” of donations to regions in need.
“We have a tremendous priority placed on making sure that hungry people around the world get fed and the farm bill programs do such a good job at doing that with commodities,” Henry said.
He added that it’s “hard to say” how much farm bill policies will change from past years, but that the Russia-Ukraine war has inflamed existing hunger and food insecurity due to global conflicts like those in Ethiopia and Yemen.
Henry said the war in Ukraine has made the need for international food aid more prominent.
“I think that, if anything, one of the big impacts is that the war has put global food security much more front of mind for a lot of folks,” Henry said, “and probably shone a little bit more of a light on some of these programs that normally kind of fly under the radar.”
Food insecurity goes nuclear.
Cribb ’22 [Julian; May 25; Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, the Australian Academy of Technological Science (ATSE) and the Australian National University Emeritus Faculty; “How food can end wars, repair climate and restore the Earth,” https://juliancribb.blog/2022/05/25/how-food-can-end-wars-repair-climate-and-restore-the-earth]
Humans have fought over food and the means of producing it for 20,000 years, as rock art in Australia shows. Food, water and land scarcity are primary drivers in two thirds of modern conflicts today. Indeed, many people seem to have forgotten that the primary German war aim in World War II was to take farmland from the Soviets and put German farmers on it. It is very likely that controlling the Ukraine’s bountiful and reliable food bowl is among Putin’s main aims also. In the short run this is imposing hunger and even starvation on hundreds of millions of people far beyond Europe.
Spreading hunger in turn snowballs into government failures, civil wars and refugee tsunamis around the world – as it did in 2008 when a shortfall in Ukrainian grain exports led to revolutions in three Arab countries. Already, a third of a billion people – equal to the entire population of Europe – leave their homes each year, either as refugees or economic migrants, to seek better lives in countries which seem more stable and food secure. War will add to the flood.
Thus, in developing a new food system for the world of the 21st Century, we also have to find a way to curb the human appetite for war.
In Food or War, I trace the links between food and conflict through human history, explore the role of food in recent conflicts and examine nine regions of the world which are at high risk of food failure and conflict in the foreseeable future – conflicts ranging from riots and government failure to nuclear war. My aim is to show that the link between food and war is inexorable – but that it can be broken. And that having enough good food is the most under-rated, under-recognised and precious ‘weapon of peace’ in the world today.
Uniqueness
Farm Bill Will Pass
Farm Bill on track now
Jesse Allen 6-20 {Farm and Ranch Director for the American Ag Radio Network} - ("Lucas Optimistic for on-time Farm Bill," American Ag Network, published 6-23-2023, accessed 6-23-2023, https://americanagnetwork.com/2023/06/lucas-optimistic-for-on-time-farm-bill/)//marlborough-wr/
A former chair of the House Agriculture Committee is optimistic that Congress will pass the next farm bill on-time. Representative Frank Lucas, an Oklahoma Republican, says he believes it is possible to finish the 2023 Farm Bill in 2023.
Lucas; “One of the most important things we had to do was pass a piece of legislation dealing not only with the debt ceiling but setting spending levels for the next few years. The allocation process in the House and Senate is going on. As we wait for those final numbers in the House, Chairman Thompson is now moving us in the direction of not just hearing here in D.C., but also field hearings around the country laying the groundwork.”
Lucas says there are just a few weeks left to legislate in the current fiscal year, but says the Farm Bill is on track. “I’m an international optimist, but we only have a few weeks left in June to legislate, there’s a few weeks in July, the traditional August work period back home, and that brings us around to September, and we are starting to get down towards the end of the year,” according to Lucas. “So, don’t be surprised, as has been the case in almost all the farm bills in recent history, if we wind up with an extension, but we are now on track.”
The farm bill is crucial but not guaranteed to pass Ballard 2-27—Mark, journalist and writer. (“Louisiana farmers worry a polarized Congress will challenge Farm Bill improvements”. NOLA.com, https://www.nola.com/news/politics/louisiana-farmers-want-insurance-changes-in-farm-bill/article_81cf7ef2-b494-11ed-b8e1-e3af264e74ca.html)//zd
WASHINGTON – Louisiana ranchers, sugar cane and soybean farmers cornered congresspersons and regulators last week as the Farm Bill began its legislative journey that will end on the president’s desk, they hope, sometime this year. A group of Louisiana rice farmers are expected to be on Capitol Hill this week doing pretty much the same. The Farm Bill, first crafted in 1933 to help keep farmers solvent during the Great Depression, has long subsidized farmers and ranchers. But it also has important implications for city dwellers, as roughly 80% of the money it authorizes pays for nutrition programs used largely by urbanites, such as food stamps and school lunches. The legislation also authorizes spending for conservation initiatives and a wide range of other policies. The current Farm Bill, a 1006-page instrument that passed in 2018, needs to be renewed by the end of 2023. It is one of the few must-pass bills when it comes up for renewal every five years. Generally, its passage is hailed as a triumph that bridges other nasty gulfs created by differences between Republicans and Democrats and between rural and urban representatives. This year, however, could prove challenging as Congress reflects a polarized nation that finds compromises increasingly difficult. It took 15 votes for Republicans, who control the U.S. House, to agree on a speaker. Immigration is a possible flashpoint. Congress will have to skirt between Republican rhetoric that porous borders fuel crime and the farmers’ reliance on immigrant workers to tend and pick crops. Federal employment requirements for distributing food stamps – formally called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP – is another issue where Republicans and Democrats, urban and rural representatives come from opposing corners. Those questions and others are big-picture items on the congressional fight card. What will really slow things down are attempts to work out the small yet complex issues, such as crop insurance, that are vitally important to individual farmers but difficult to boil down into a slogan. “We’re hosting farmers on Capitol Hill, and I’m hearing directly from ag leaders at home in Richland Parish,” said U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, the Start Republican who is on the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees Farm Bill funding. “I look forward to using the information from these critical conversations as I partner with my former colleagues on the House Agriculture Committee and work on the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee to ensure that this legislation meets the needs of our hardworking farmers, ranchers, and foresters,” added Letlow, whose 5th congressional district has 3.4 million acres of farmland – one of the nation's largest farm districts in the House.
--- Preventing Delays Key
Farm Bill will pass now BUT partisan gridlock and delays can put it in jeopardy
Steve White 6-23 {Bureau Chief of the Grand Island Newsroom at Nebraska TV who has covered several political campaigns and has extensive experience covering the State Capitol, working with three governors and countless state senators.} - ("Congressional Delegation Comes Together To Discuss Farm Bill Priorities But Outlook Unclear," KHGI, published 6-19-2023, accessed 6-23-2023, https://nebraska.tv/news/ntvs-grow/congressional-delegation-comes-together-to-discuss-farm-bill-priorities-but-outlook-unclear)//marlborough-wr/
LINCOLN, Neb. — Between the debt ceiling and defense spending, time may be running out to pass the farm bill this year.
All five members of Nebraska’s Congressional delegation got an education in autonomous agriculture during a visit to the tractor testing lab at the University of Nebraska. Farming has changed, and that could impact the hundreds of billions the federal government spends through the farm bill.
“We need to get this right heading into another five-year period, we do not want to tie the hands of producers unintentionally,” said Rep. Adrian Smith.
There was hope Congress would act soon, but when Republicans fought an increase in the debt limit, they pushed for cuts to SNAP, also known as food stamps.
“The biggest hurdle we've already dealt with is SNAP,” said Rep. Don Bacon.
But Senator Deb Fischer says lines have been “drawn in the sand,” plus Congress has defense and aviation spending to approve.
“I'm being more cautious and looking at everything we have to get done knowing there could be extensions, and things are moving slower than all of us planned,” she said.
Extending current programs is one option, although that raises concerns that the cost of production has risen, and programs may not keep pace. As they toured UNL, they expressed support for research. There's also broad support to prioritize crop insurance and safety net programs.
Bacon said, “We've had two years of drought. Many farmers could not have survived without crop insurance,” he said.
But farming is only a small piece of the farm bill. The debate could come down to food stamps and how the bill brings urban and rural together.
“Find that balance between 17 percent of farm bill that's farming and 80 percent that deals with nutrition programs. We're going to get there,” said Fischer.
“It'll be messy, but we'll get a bipartisan farm bill done,” Bacon said.
Farm Bill running out of time – preventing delays is key
Mike Davis 6-23 {Southern Farm Network news director} - ("Senator: Passing a Farm Bill in 2023 a Steep Challenge," No Publication, published 6-23-2023, accessed 6-23-2023, https://sfntoday.com/senator-passing-a-farm-bill-in-2023-a-steep-challenge/)//marlborough-wr/
Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE), a member of the Senate Ag Committee, admits that passing a Farm Bill in 2023 is a steep challenge.
“Things would have to come together pretty quickly, the House has to pass one, the Senate has to pass one, our bills are not going to agree, I don’t believe.”
Nebraska’s Congressional delegation visited the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s East Campus on Monday, to gather additional information from farmers and ranchers. As for the timing of the bill, the Nebraska Republican says she is not ruling out the possibility of an extension of the current farm bill.
“I’m not, I’m not, you know, we’re into late June, we’ll see what happens. We don’t have that many more days left before the August work period.”
Fischer says the Senate bill by choice and necessity will be more bipartisan.
“But the Senate has come together before. Last time the Farm Bill came up, we had 96 yes votes on it. So, I’m looking forward to getting it done. We’ve had a lot of hearings, and just have been working for the last three, four years on legislation that I want included in the Farm Bill as well like dealing with precision agriculture, looking at getting those disaster aid payments out earlier to our producers when they need those, making sure that crop insurance is there, all the safety nets.”
--- Preventing Funding Debates Key
Farm Bill has bipartisan buy-in BUT disputes over funding could derail it
Jared McNett 6-21 {online editor and reporter for the Sioux City Journal} - ("Rep. Randy Feenstra introduces 'Crop Insurance for Future Farmers Act' in U.S. House," Longview News-Journal, published 6-21-2023, accessed 6-23-2023, https://www.news-journal.com/randy-feenstra-crop-insurance/article_94f96dbf-3a2c-54c4-9b8b-1c199d7f7e54.html)//marlborough-wr/
WASHINGTON D.C. — Tuesday, Rep. Randy Feenstra, R-Hull, Iowa, brought forth a piece of legislation intended to extend crop and livestock insurance protections to 10 years for any new and beginning farmers.
The bill, known as the "Crop Insurance for Future Farmers Act," was int

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