On Tuesday, June 23, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman (R-AR) released the long-awaited text of the Agricultural Act of 2026 (the Agricultural Act). Clocking in at just over 900 pages, the Agricultural Act would update wide swaths of federal food and farm policy – yet NSAC’s initial analysis found that the draft falls well short of tapping its full potential. Earlier this year, the House of Representatives approved their own, separate version of the farm bill, the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026.
The most recent full farm bill – the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (2018 Farm Bill, PL 115-334) – was signed into law in December 2018. As of July 2026, we are in uncharted waters – over seven and a half years have passed since the 2018 Farm Bill was signed into law, the longest such stretch in recent memory. In 2025, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB, P.L. 119-21) split the traditional farm bill coalition by updating some farm bill policies while excluding the rest – from rural development and credit, to conservation and local and regional food systems – leaving them to an uncertain future.
As of posting, the Agricultural Act’s immediate prospects remain hazy. While Chairman Boozman has signaled that a Committee markup could be held in the near future, the hypothetical markup date has slipped repeatedly in recent months. Meanwhile, Ranking Member Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) has made clear that Committee Democrats want the farm bill to directly alleviate the OBBB’s impacts on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program before entertaining a broader negotiation. Ultimately, 60 votes are required to approve a farm bill in the Senate – and in the 119th Congress, that means a successful Senate farm bill must be the product of a bipartisan process.
The remainder of this blog post offers NSAC’s initial deep dive analysis of the Agricultural Act of 2026.
Title 1 – Commodities
The Agricultural Act discussion draft addresses select components of Title I programs, with the most significant changes being proposed to disaster assistance programs. In 2025, Congress approved and the President signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB), which addressed many of the policies typically included in Title 1 of a farm bill.
New Disaster Assistance Frameworks: Similar to the House’s Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 (FFNSA), the Agricultural Act includes two provisions that significantly impact the future delivery of ad hoc assistance: a Specialty Crop Emergency Assistance Framework and an authorization of state disaster block grants.
- Through the Specialty Crop Assistance Framework, the discussion draft establishes a consistent method for delivering ad hoc aid to specialty crop farmers. The proposed program – which shares some similarities with the Marketing Assistance for Speciality Crops (MASC) program, but is not identical – would calculate payments for future ad hoc assistance programs based on sales from the previous market year (Section 1304). However, while the proposed framework is a step in the right direction, as written it includes high payment limits of $900,000 for farmers deriving at least 75% of their income from farming activities. While specialty crop farmers may need higher payments than commodity growers due to higher costs, payment limits must still be structured to responsibly and equitably deliver program resources. The framework would also exclude new producers who were impacted by an adverse event but had no recorded sales in the year prior – the MASC program accounted for this by allowing for certified expected sales for the following year to qualify for payments.
- Separately, the Agricultural Act also gives the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) the authority to administer future disaster programs through state block grants (Section 1305). While block grants in theory provide flexibility to tailor programs to local needs, in practice, they often face significant delays in funding disbursement, create inconsistent standards across states, and reduce USDA’s ability to ensure compliance across programs and reduce duplicative payments. As written, the draft provides few protections to ensure these issues do not hinder relief efforts when administered through state block grants.
Limited NAP Improvements. Despite a continued need to improve risk management tools for farmers without access to traditional crop insurance, the Agricultural Act only makes a small improvement to the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) – allowing NAP payments for losses due to damage to shared community ditches used for irrigation. Instead, the bill should institute reforms – such as creating a revenue-based option within NAP – to streamline paperwork burdens for new farmers and to serve as an on-ramp to enroll in WFRP.
Title 2 – Conservation
The Agricultural Act discussion draft misses the opportunity to drive agricultural conservation forward by undoing generational reinvestments in popular, oversubscribed conservation programs, failing to address USDA staffing cuts, and leaving out provisions that could build the resilience of farm operations.
Cuts to Popular Conservation Programs. The Agricultural Act cuts over $1.9 billion from the first five years of the Environmental Quality Incentive Program’s (EQIP) budget window, and $500 million permanently from the Conservation Stewardship Program’s (CSP) baseline. Both cuts will result in an immediate reduction in the resources available to producers in 2027, though EQIP’s long term baseline budget is maintained after 2031. CSP on the other hand, takes a permanent, unacceptable cut. These reductions come as reports show producers are once again struggling to access CSP and EQIP due to lack of funding, with only 24-37% of valid applicants receiving contracts in 2025. Any farm bill that moves forward this year must not reduce budgets for these popular programs; rather, it should include additional resources commensurate with the high producer demand for conservation we see across the country.
No Staffing Fix. In order to effectively administer conservation program resources, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) needs field staff. NRCS lost 23% of its staff between January 2025 and January 2026, reducing its ability to give farmers a reasonable customer service experience. NRCS staff work directly with farmers and landowners to identify conservation practices that are well-suited to their needs and local natural resource concerns. They provide vital technical assistance for farmers and landowners and help them apply for and manage contracts with conservation programs that help share the cost of conservation practices. Any farm bill that passes this year must address the ongoing staffing shortages at USDA, and at NRCS in particular.
Updates to CRP. The draft includes a number of positive reforms to the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), and a few problematic omissions. The bill restores support for mid-contract management activities necessary to maintain the conservation value of enrolled acres, and further offers dedicated funds for cost share for grazing infrastructure to help ensure that appropriate acres remain in perennial cover at the end of a contract. Additionally, the draft adjusts the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program’s (CREP) authority to better tailor the program toward supporting producers transitioning to dryland farming in the west. These are positive changes that NSAC welcomes. However, there are a few significant omissions. The draft does not raise the overall acreage cap for CRP, despite the broad need for more CRP-enrolled acres at this moment in history. The draft also fails to renew funding for the Transition Incentive Program, one of the few conservation programs designed to transition land to the next generation of farmers and ranchers.
A Lack of Resilience. The Agricultural Act leaves out major provisions of the Agriculture Resilience Act, the comprehensive farmer-informed legislation designed to support more resilient operations. This includes no meaningful investments in perennial production systems, including agroforestry, which remain among the most powerful agriculture systems for mitigating the impacts of climate change while delivering a host of additional conservation benefits. It fails to provide mandatory funding for the Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative which would help grazers access dependable technical assistance. It also lacks support for alternative manure management practices to help midsized livestock operations shift to more ecologically friendly technologies. Disappointingly, the bill fails to add carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas reduction as a new goal to EQIP that states can seek to address when selecting priority practices for higher cost-share rates – provisions that were included in the House’s FFNSA. This is a common sense approach to targeting conservation funds to address the climate crisis. Any farm bill that moves forward this year must close these gaps and match the scale of investments producers desire to build long-term environmental resilience and economic viability.
Title 4 – Nutrition
The Agricultural Act discussion draft includes some positive, bipartisan provisions in the nutrition title – but falls short of following through thanks to a lack of guaranteed funding and provisions that would limit local food representation and market access.
Strengthening Local Food Security. The Agricultural Act discussion draft illustrates the clear bipartisan, bicameral support for creating permanent pathways that support local and regional markets for farmers. The draft includes a state-led local food purchasing program, the Strengthening Local Food Security Program (Section 4306), that would build upon the success of the former Local Food Purchase Assistance Program. While the Senate draft is modeled after the program including in the House-passed FFNSA, it modifies a few elements to reflect the priorities of Senators Justice (R-WV) and Reed (D-RI) from the Strengthening Local Food Security Act (S. 4223). This would ensure a greater share of food purchases (51%) are made from small and mid-sized farms, and beginning and veteran farmers. It also ensures funding can be used for all costs associated with implementation, including technical assistance to farmers. However, the draft fails to include schools as a recipient and significantly hinders the success of a future program without mandatory funding (Section 4306).
GusNIP. Other provisions in the discussion draft have the potential to limit local food representation within federal nutrition programs. The draft adds a provision within the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP) that would prioritize projects that offer all forms of fruits and vegetables year-round (Section 4303). This risks a larger share of incentive funding being spent in big box retailers rather than with farmers in local market settings.
SNAP. There are a number of proposed changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that would carry an uncertain impact on farmers. These include permanent authorization of online retail with greater restrictions on who is authorized to accept benefits online, and the addition of protein as an eligible food type for incentive programs (Section 4103, 4104, 4106). However, there is no inclusion of a sought after provision that would provide some states more time to address error rates and reduce their overall cost-share to their SNAP programs.
Title 5 – Credit
The Agricultural Act discussion draft includes several modest improvements in the credit title of the bill by streamlining access to credit and allowing for preapproval for some loans. The draft also increases some loan limits, but does not include a corresponding increase in FSA funding authorization, potentially resulting in bigger loans to fewer farms.
Streamlining access to credit. The discussion draft makes modest improvements to streamline access to farm credit, allowing for a preapproval pilot program for direct farm ownership loans, a prompt approval program for direct and guaranteed loans under $1 million, and increased funds for state mediation programs (Sections 5211, 5214, 213). Similar to the House’s FFNSA, the draft allows limited refinancing of guaranteed loans into direct loans, potentially forcing borrowers to the brink of financial crisis before qualifying for this refinancing opportunity (Section 5210). The draft reduces the prohibition on loan eligibility for farmers who previously received debt relief from a lifetime ban to a seven year waiting period, and removes the requirement for beginning farmers and ranchers engaged in cooperatives or other business arrangements to be related by blood or marriage (Section 5212). Unlike FFNSA, this draft does not reduce experience requirements for farm ownership loans, nor expand state mediation programs to Tribes.
Increased loan limits. The draft raises the limits that any individual borrower may owe to a lender for USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) direct and guaranteed operating and farm ownership loans, matching the changes included in the House’s FFNSA. These changes include increasing microloan limits from $50,000 to $100,000, direct operating loans from $400,000 to $750,000, direct farm ownership loans from $600,000 to $850,000, guaranteed farm ownership loans from $1.75 million to $3.5 million, and guaranteed operating loans from $1.75 million to $3 million. These changes are not paired with any corresponding increase to the total funding authorization for FSA to make these loans. This combination is concerning, as it could result in bigger loans to fewer farms, while adding to increasingly large debt burdens on borrowers without strong protections from overcollateralization. (Sections 5201, 5208).
Title 6 – Rural Development
Alongside relatively minor programmatic tweaks, the Agricultural Act discussion draft includes several bipartisan provisions which could enhance investments in small and very small meat processing plants, though these investments are undermined by an eligibility expansion beyond the original intent.
Investing in Meat Processing Capacity. The discussion draft includes strong bipartisan provisions for investment in small and very small meat processing plants and the resources those plants need to appropriately adopt food safety practices. The $25 million authorization of appropriations for a program prioritizing small and very small processors will continue to make investments to reduce farmer wait times, and improve processor viability. However, this investment is weakened by the fact that the bill expands eligible applicants to include land grant universities, state departments of agriculture, and other organizations with already existing capacities well beyond the small and very small meat processors for whom this program was intended. (Sec. 6315)
Resources for Rural Producers and Communities. Beyond the investment in meat processing infrastructure, the discussion draft addresses programmatic tweaks, such as expanding loan size and uses for the Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program (Section 6230), increasing training and resources for veteran farmers in the Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas Program (Section 6221), and standardizing multiyear grants for Rural Cooperative Development Grants (Section 6219).
The discussion draft would also codify the Rural Development Innovation Center with an emphasis on promoting efficiency and coordination among Rural Development programs with input from public and private stakeholders (Section 6234).
Title 7 – Research
Overall, the Agricultural Act makes little progress when it comes to investing in publicly funded research that benefits small to mid-sized farmers and ranchers.
Minimal Programmatic Improvements; Lack of Some Necessary Reauthorizations. The discussion draft reauthorizes the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program as well as the Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative while offering no additional funding or meaningful changes to either program. Furthermore, it makes few to no improvements to Agricultural Research Service research initiatives, including no reauthorization for USDA Climate Hubs or the Long-term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) network, as well as no authorization for the Organic Transition Program (ORG) or meaningful efforts to coordinate organic and sustainable agriculture at USDA-REE. (Sec. 7201-7203, 7209)
Resources for 1890s. The draft does, however, make meaningful strides to better support our nation’s historically black land grant universities. This includes the creation of at least three new 1890’s Centers of Excellence potentially focusing on climate resiliency, forestry resilience and conservation, food safety and value-added agriculture, food and agricultural sciences, and social sciences as areas of focus with an increase from $10 million to $20 million in discretionary funding. In addition, funding for 1890’s Extension was increased from 20 percent (as per the National Agricultural Research, Education, and Teaching Policy Act of 1977 (NARETPA)) to no less than 40 percent. (Sec. 7110)
Seeds and Breeds. The discussion draft also adds regionally adapted cultivar and breed development to the list of Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) research priorities. However, the bill does not include the funding NSAC and others have advocated for to ensure that regionally adapted seed and breed development receives meaningful support. (Sec. 7507)
Workforce Development. Meat processing plants are in need of workforce development, and while the discussion draft takes some steps by including meat processing as a topic area for AFRI – Education and Workforce Development Grants it doesn’t sufficiently expand funding to support this new area of focus. It also does not limit this workforce development funding to small and very small meat processors, opening the door for these limited funds to go to training for the largest plants and companies, and not benefit those with greater economic need. (Sec. 7507)
Food Safety. Investments in food safety education and equipment or training are essential to meeting ever-evolving market and regulatory food safety requirements. Without sufficient investments, these food safety requirements can prevent many smaller-scale producers from entering new markets. The discussion draft meets the bare minimum of reauthorizing some of the programs that provide these investments – such as the Food Safety Outreach Program (FSOP). FSOP, which funds education on a variety of food safety topics, includes an intentional focus on reaching underserved producer communities. (Sec. 7301)
Title 10 – Horticulture
The Agricultural Act discussion draft offers few if any meaningful strides forward for organic and urban agriculture, while missing the opportunity to help fuel local and regional food systems.
Organic Production and Markets. The Agricultural Act makes modest progress for organic producers by increasing the authorized funding levels for the National Organic Program, beginning at $26 million in fiscal year 2027 and rising in steps to $34 million in fiscal year 2031. At the same time, it leaves out several of the investments the organic sector needs most. The discussion draft does not provide meaningful relief from rising certification costs, increase mandatory funding for organic research, improve organic dairy data collection, or make the investments needed to help farmers transition to organic production and expand domestic organic markets. (Sec. 10105)
Urban Agriculture. The Senate discussion draft takes a similar approach to the House by clarifying and narrowing the scope of services of the Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production to emphasize the Office’s mandate to support farmers in urban areas navigating critical conservation and business technical assistance services. It authorizes cooperative agreements to maximize on the ground support, which is particularly important during a time of record low staffing levels. However, NSAC has concerns with particular provisions that would limit Urban FSA County Committees to the original pilot ten locations while there are twenty seven actively seated across the nation. Moreover, without a prescribed level of annual mandatory funding, the Office may continue to be underfunded and under-resourced (Section 10111).
Local Market Development. Despite a long and successful track record of the Local Agricultural Marketing Program Grants (Value-Added Producer, Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion, and Regional Food System Partnership Program), the Senate does not take the same opportunity the House did to expand upon the popular turnkey grants with additional activities. This, paired with no funding increases, limits USDA’s ability to meet program demand and risks underinvesting in local agricultural markets for the lifespan of the farm bill (Section 10103).
Specialty Crop Support. For broader specialty crop support, the Senate proposed changes to Specialty Crop Block Grants that respond to stakeholder concern. Earlier this year, USDA attempted to impose cost-share requirements for future rounds of grants; the Senate followed the lead of the House by including a provision that would prevent this in addition to requiring States to solicit annual input from producers and industry groups (Section 10109).
Title 11 – Crop Insurance
The Agricultural Act discussion draft takes limited steps towards improving crop insurance options for farmers and ranchers, largely failing to address well-documented barriers uninsured farmers face in accessing coverage.
FCIC Board & Specialty Crop Advisory Committee. The Senate discussion draft establishes a Specialty Crop Advisory Committee to inform the development and expansion of crop insurance, and makes changes to the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) Board. A Specialty Crop Advisory Committee can serve an important role in improving available options for specialty crop farmers. However, as written, the discussion draft does not require any appointees to specifically represent beginning, small, diversified, or organic farmers, and therefore may not reflect the specific needs of the full diversity of American specialty crop farms. The draft requires the inclusion of a beginning farmer member on the FCIC Board, but the newly required specialty crop representative is unfortunately added only as a non-voting board member (Section 11001).
Reimbursement rates for Approved Insurance Provider Administrative and Operating Costs. The OBBB Act passed last year increased administrative and operation (A&O) reimbursement rates for approved Insurance providers (AIPs), specifically for areas with high loss ratios. The discussion draft codifies those changes for the 2026 and subsequent reinsurance years, tying future rates for a given policy to that in place for the 2026 reinsurance year. However, as written, the language leaves open the possibility for new policies approved after 2027 to have no statutorily directed A&O rates, and thus an opportunity for higher reimbursement rates than currently permitted for any existing policy. Rather than taking meaningful steps to improve access to stronger risk management tools for currently uninsured farmers, the draft prioritizes guaranteed revenue for private insurance companies. (Section 11008).
Fails to strengthen WFRP or other insurance options for uninsured farms. The Senate draft fails to take any meaningful steps toward improving Whole Farm Revenue Protection or Micro Farm policies. The draft requires a review of the insurable revenue limit currently in place for the policy (Section 11013), but in no way addresses the program’s well-documented challenges and solutions. The draft instructs USDA to research several new crop insurance policies, including index based policies for specific weather events such as hurricanes, frost, or freezes. It also instructs USDA to publish a report within 18 months on the barriers for organic farmers to accessing crop insurance (Section 11014). While the discussion draft amends the eligibility definitions for the additional crop insurance premium discounts passed in the OBBB Act and now includes veteran farmers, such a change will have limited impact if not paired with solutions to the many barriers to accessing insurance these farmers face (Section 11006).
Title 12 – Miscellaneous
Food Safety Support for Small-Scale Meat Processors. The discussion draft requires USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) to establish a searchable database of all the peer-reviewed, publicly-available validation studies for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) plans for small and very small plants; create and make available to small and very small plants models of HACCP plans for multiple types of small plants, including but not limited to a HACCP plans for slaughter plants and processing only plants, and based on the different types of products processed by plants; and create and publish guidance for public comment and input on how to get your HACCP plan approved. (Sec. 12107)
Interstate Market Access. While the Senate proposal does provide for further outreach to state departments of agriculture regarding the Cooperative Interstate Shipping (CIS) Program, it does not change the federal cost share for that program or the state meat and poultry inspection programs – both of which are key changes needed for the program to better work with and regulate small and very small meat processors. (Sec. 12111). It does however, include some small steps towards greater market access for state inspected plants by including the DIRECT Act in this bill, which allows for online sales of retail quantities of state inspected meat to cross into interstate commerce, usually not possible for state inspected meat without further utilization of the CIS program. (Sec.12110)
No Limits on Vertical Integration. The discussion bill introduced new, potentially anti-competitive methods of ownership that might directly counteract the benefits of other investments in the bill. Including the A-Plus Act (Sec. 12106) would likely create more vertically integrated markets, where a stockyard is also the only meat processing operation in an area.
Farming Opportunities, Training and Outreach. The Senate Bill reauthorizes the Farming Opportunities Training and Outreach (FOTO) program, which includes 2501 and the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP). However, it does not offer increased funding or technical changes that would significantly benefit America’s underserved farmers or the next generation of farmers and ranchers. (Sec. 12511)
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