Page 40 2024 Fall Farm Outlook Lincoln Daily News Oct 2024 Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 Expiration and Politics The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, also known as the 2018 Farm Bill, was a bill passed by Congress and signed into law by Donald Trump in 2018. This law, a continuation/modification of the 2014 Farm Bill, changes programs from the Department of Agriculture that cover a wide variety of areas. These areas include crop insurance, nutrition assistance, energy, livestock, and a wide breadth of other areas. When initially signed, the majority of the 2018 Farm Bill was set to expire in 2023. Joe Biden signed an extension of this bill on November 16th, 2023. This extension lasted until September 30th of 2024. If you look at your calendars, you’ll notice it is now past September 30th. What happens now and what is the future of the farm bill going to look like? The first part of that question is fairly easy to answer: for the moment, at least, a lot and a little. Some programs covered by the 2018 Farm Bill are going to be affected immediately. According to the Farm Bureau's website, areas that could be immediately shut down include many international programs, several animal health programs, programs for “socially disadvantaged, veteran, young, and beginning farmers,” The National Organic Certification Cost-Share Program, and others. There are other areas, such as crop insurance, that will not be affected at all. This is due to some of the 2018 Farm Bill programs being protected by permanent laws, “meaning a law without a sunset date.” Some nutrition and disaster programs are also protected under permanent laws. Over time, especially starting after January 1st, 2025, some of the programs that were regulated by the 2018 Farm Bill could start to be covered by permanent law. The issue with this is that the permanent laws set to cover these programs were signed into law over seventy-five years ago, in farm bills passed in the 1930’s and 40’s. One of the first areas that would be impacted would be the dairy industry. To read more on that and what it could do to dairy prices, please see the above Farm Bureau link and scroll down to the section titled “The Farm Bill’s Dairy Cliff: Milk and Honey.” Continued --
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