WASHINGTON, DC – On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture convened to consider its version of the 2024 Farm Bill, formally known as H.R. 8467,
The Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024, ultimately passing the measure by a bipartisan vote of 33 to 21.
This “markup” process allows Committee members to vote to accept or reject amendments offered to the bill by other members of the Committee. The session lasted approximately 11 hours, with the Committee approving a handful of amendments that aren’t directly impactful to the U.S. rice industry.
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn ‘G.T.’ Thompson (R-PA) released draft text of the bill on Friday, May 17, and formally introduced the House measure on Tuesday.
USA Rice
endorsed the legislation as it addresses nearly all Farm Bill priorities the industry had been advocating for, including most importantly improvements to the rice farmer’s key safety net – the Price Loss Coverage program – through an increase in the rice reference price for long- and medium-grain rice from $14.00 to $16.90 per hundredweight and the Temperate Japonica reference price from $17.30 to $20.96 per hundredweight. The bill also modernizes and streamlines a number of commodity program provisions related to payment limitation provisions and increases the marketing assistance loan rate from $7.00 to $7.70 per hundredweight.
Further, the bill expands funding and improves working lands conservation programs, like the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and Conservation Stewardship Program, and ensures those programs remain voluntary, incentive-based, and locally led. The bill also provides much-needed administrative improvements to the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, which has beneficially impacted nearly one-third of U.S. rice and rice rotation acres.
Funding would be doubled for the critical trade promotion programs, the Market Access Program and Foreign Market Development Program, that USA Rice uses to build and maintain international export markets for U.S.-grown rice. Additionally, the in-kind, commodity-based international food aid bolstered by these programs is one of the United States’ most affordable and effective forms of humanitarian diplomacy.
Most of the bill disputes between Republican and Democratic Members of the Committee have persisted, particularly differences of opinion on provisions in the Nutrition Title, climate sideboards for conservation programs, and the restriction of the Secretary of Agriculture’s Commodity Credit Corporation discretionary authority.
“USA Rice applauds the House Agriculture Committee for passing the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024,” said Jamison Cruce, USA Rice vice president of government affairs. “This legislation will bolster the rice farmer’s safety net ensuring they receive modest assistance during prolonged deep price declines, allows rice farmers to continue their industry-leading environmental stewardship and address natural resource concerns through working lands conservation programs, expand exports worldwide, and feed those who are the hungriest. We look forward to continuing our work with Congress to pass a timely, effective, bipartisan, and bicameral Farm Bill this year.”
The 2018 Farm Bill expired last year and was extended for one year. The current one-year extension expires on September 30, providing a short runway in terms of the number of days legislators are scheduled to be in Washington. Floor time in the House to debate this bill has not yet been scheduled and the Senate has yet to release bill text or schedule a time for a Committee markup of their own bill.