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(Washington, D.C., March 31, 2026) — U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Secretary Brooke L. Rollins and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum today announced new actions aimed at boosting the supply of American born, raised, and harvested beef by supporting American ranchers with the signing of a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that will strengthen coordination, cut bureaucratic red tape, and deliver immediate, tangible support for America’s farmers and ranchers who rely on public lands.

Editor’s Note: This is the third post in a four-part blog series analyzing the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026, which was reported out of the House Agriculture Committee on March 5. The first post provides an overview of the markup process and the bill as a whole. The second post provides a deep dive analysis of the bill’s potential impacts on local and regional food systems. This post offers an analysis of its impacts on the farm safety net, farms’ ability to access land and capital, and fair competition. The final post will cover conservation, climate resilience, and sustainable and organic research. 

The Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 (FFNSA) fails to provide a robust farm safety net for all farmers. 

Many farmers find themselves at an inflection point similar to the farm crisis of the late 1980s. Today, high production costs, unstable markets, and low crop prices driven by uncertain export markets and overproduction have converged to create an economic climate in which farmers’ livelihoods are threatened.

While there are several proposals in FFNSA that the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) believes take steps in the right direction, misguided provisions and the absence of meaningful reforms – coupled with the commodity and crop insurance provisions from 2025’s H.R. 1 – only perpetuate the status quo of inequitable resource distribution in US farming. At a moment when we need to re-envision the farm safety net, FFNSA falls significantly short.

The following analysis is divided into sections addressing changes to disaster assistance, access to land and farm credit, crop insurance, and fair competition.

• Disaster Assistance 
• Access to Land and Farm Credit
• Crop Insurance
• Fair Competition

FFNSA includes a few notable changes to the structure of future disaster and economic relief programs. 

In the context of a stable and reliable farm safety net, disaster relief programs should be primarily used to respond to extreme weather or emergency circumstances, and to cover impacts beyond standard crop production losses. However, FFNSA takes a different approach.  Rather than taking necessary steps to strengthen and increase access to existing and permanent safety net programs, the bill moves the future of the farm safety net further in the direction of increased disaster and economic assistance programs delivered through ad hoc spending. 

Ad hoc spending creates a complicated web of programs, applications, timelines, and eligibility criteria that farmers and ranchers need to sift through to receive the support they need. This aid often leaves out a significant number of producers altogether and concentrates funds amongst a smaller number of large operations. Consequently, while NSAC generally agrees that creating consistent criteria for disaster and economic assistance programs would be beneficial, FFNSA would establish criteria that fall short for many farmers while also failing to reform the underlying current safety net – for example, through improvements to the Whole Farm Revenue Protection Program, or re-envisioning commodity programs entirely.

Specialty Crop Assistance Framework

For specialty crop farmers, the bill establishes a permanent framework for future emergency assistance programs in response to an adverse event, including economic crises or market disruptions. The program – which shares some similarities with the Marketing Assistance for Speciality Crops (MASC) program, but is not identical – would calculate payments based on sales from the previous market year, and establish a consistent mechanism and methodology framework to distribute emergency aid for specialty crop producers (Section 1003).

Specialty crop farmers are often left out of assistance programs for a number of reasons. As exemplified through the Assistance for Specialty Crop Farmers (ASCF) program, programs that provide assistance based on acreage for each given crop – a structure that typically works well for commodities – do not work well for specialty crop farmers. While the proposed framework is a step in the right direction, as written, Section 1003 does not adequately provide coverage for specialty crop farmers of all sizes and experience levels. It establishes high payment limits of $900,000 for farmers deriving at least 75% of their income from farming activities, potentially concentrating any limited funds made available to a smaller number of large producers. While specialty crop farmers may need higher payments than commodity growers due to higher costs, payment limits should still be structured to responsibly and equitably deliver program resources. The proposed program 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.

State Disaster Block Grant Authority

FFNSA also gives the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) the authority to administer future disaster programs through state block grants (Section 1004). State administered disaster programs often prove to be a double-edged sword: while they have the potential to offer more tailored support for a state’s unique experience with a disaster, 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. Many of these challenges arise from the lack of familiarity State Departments of Agriculture have with USDA disaster programs and vice versa. As written, FFNSA provides few protections to ensure these issues do not hinder relief efforts when administered through state block grants. An amendment offered by Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-CA-24) to address some of these issues by requiring standardization across future block grants – including proportional distribution of funds, consistent eligibility standards, and data reporting requirements, among other provisions – was filed but withdrawn without a vote.

Currently, USDA is in the process of administering nearly a dozen state block grants – first initiated by the American Relief Act in response to extreme weather events – to replace or supplement the Supplemental Disaster Relief Program. Highlighting the challenges of administering these programs, only two of these states have launched their relief programs to date. Virginia completed their program as of November 2025, and Georgia’s supplemental grant program recently opened applications as of March 2026. North Carolina will be next to open applications for part of its program by the end of March. Other programs for Northeastern states and Hawaii, which opted for replacement state block grants in lieu of eligibility through the national SDRP program, have yet to be announced, with no timetable for distributing funds. As a result, some farmers and ranchers who experienced losses as long ago as 2023 are still awaiting aid from USDA. 

Farming and ranching are among the hardest careers to pursue due in part to high barriers to entry. This makes it critical for the next farm bill to support farmers’ access to farmland and to finance high startup costs. The FFNSA takes some steps in this direction, and a couple of steps back. 

Notably, the bill 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. NSAC is supportive of increased limits to microloans from $50,000 to $100,000, and recognizes the need to increase direct operating and ownership loans to keep pace with rising costs of inputs and assets. FFNSA would also increase direct operating loans from $400,000 to $750,000, direct farm ownership loans from $600,000 to $850,000, and guaranteed farm ownership loans from $1.75 million to $3.5 million, and guaranteed operating loans from $1.75 million to $3 million. However, there are several considerations and potential consequences to these changes. Increasing such limits without conditions would continue to allow FSA-backed loans to finance the development of new and expanded Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). Further, FFNSA raises these limits without any increase to the total funding authorization of FSA to make these loans, subject to annual appropriations. This could result in bigger loans to fewer farms, and limit available funding for smaller operations (Sections 5105, 5202, 5203, 5402). 

FFNSA would problematically provide sole authority to the Farm Credit Administration to regulate the Farm Credit System (FCS) (Section 5504). This provision would remove any regulatory authority from other entities, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and further erode the CFPB’s demographic reporting requirements in Rule 1071 for loans administered through FCS. This provision would also limit public information regarding who is receiving agricultural loans and inhibit efforts to ensure that all farmers and ranchers have equal access to credit.

NSAC supports the authorization of FSA to restructure distressed guaranteed loans into direct loans for distressed borrowers. However, the provision would require borrowers to already be in monetary default, forcing borrowers to be on the brink of financial crisis before qualifying for this refinancing opportunity. A more expansive refinancing authority, as included in the Fair Credit for Farmers Act (S.3126/H.R. 6169), would provide more tools for farmers and ranchers to solidify their finances before reaching the brink. The FFNSA also leaves out other important protections for farmers and ranchers, such as requiring FSA concurrence prior to any asset liquidation (Section 5103).

The FFNSA does take small steps to streamline access to farm ownership loans for beginning farmers, including reducing the experience requirement to be eligible from three years to two years, with a series of conditions under which USDA may issue loans to farmers with only one year of experience. To help farmers navigate the rapid turnaround of land sales, the FFNSA also directs USDA to establish a pilot program for farmers to receive advanced pre-approval on farm ownership loans, and establishes an expedited approval process for loans under $1 million (Section 5102, 5110, 5111).

Further, while the bill does not include most provisions from the Fair Credit for Farmers Act to reform the imbalanced National Appeals Division (NAD) process, it would at least reform the current standard where individual farmers must carry the burden of proof to challenge their denial by a federal agency. Instead, USDA would need to prove that its decision to deny a loan to a farmer was righteous. That is an important step in the right direction (Section 12203). 

Finally, the bill meets the bare minimum of reauthorizing the Heirs’ Property Intermediary Relending Program, though it positively authorizes USDA to enter into cooperative agreements to provide legal services to underserved heirs (Section 5109).

Unfortunately, FFNSA fails to initiate any meaningful reforms that would alleviate bureaucratic red tape and streamline access to crop insurance for the small, diversified, and direct-to-consumer farmers and ranchers who are too often left behind. With only 13 percent of farms insured against worsening floods, droughts, and other disasters, the next farm bill must take steps to expand access to the federal crop insurance program, rather than exacerbating the program’s structural flaws and incentivizing risky farming behaviors. 

FFNSA requires an annual review of challenges to access Whole-Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP), but does nothing else to improve the program or reduce barriers to accessing this product (Section 11012). The provision is largely unnecessary, as such USDA reviews are already common practice, and the barriers and corresponding solutions to accessing WFRP are well-documented. An amendment to add the Save Our Small Farms Act (H.R.2435, S.1217), which would remove many of the well-established barriers and challenges with WFRP, was offered but rejected on party lines during the committee’s mark up. 

The bill amends the eligibility definitions for the additional crop insurance premium discounts passed in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB, P.L. 119-21), including veteran producers for the premium discounts (Section 11007). While this is an important investment for beginning and veteran producers, it will have minimal impact if not paired with more foundational reforms to streamline paperwork and address the disincentive that agents experience to sell insurance to small and diversified farms. 

The bill also establishes a Specialty Crop Advisory Committee to inform the development and expansion of crop insurance. But without conditions that any of its appointees represent beginning, small, diversified, or organic farmers, it will not reflect the specific needs of the full diversity of American specialty crop farms (Section 11001).

FFNSA also directs several research initiatives to explore new insurance products, including limited weather based index policies, but misses the opportunity to enshrine an index-based policy as comprehensive as found in the WEATHER Act (S.231) and the Save Our Small Farms Act (Sec. 11014). While failing to address barriers or reduce the costs of crop insurance for many uninsured operations, the bill codifies increased reimbursement rates included in OBBB for administrative and operating costs for private Approved Insurance Providers (AIPs) (Section 11009). 

The FFNSA fails to include any provisions that would combat consolidation in the food system. 

In fact, there are a series of concerning provisions regarding competition in the meat processing sector (Section 12111). These provisions create an exemption within the Packers and Stockyards Act regulations that allows market agencies – including stockyard owners – to purchase or invest in meatpackers’ operations. While this is ostensibly intended to generate more private investment within western cattle processing operations, this provision could also lead to instances in which the only stockyard owner in the area also has a controlling interest in the only meatpacking operation in the area. This leads to vertical integration and coordination along the processing supply chain. This possibility is concerning, especially considering that the FFNSA sets the size limit for the exemption at the point where plants or companies operating in the top quintile of processing could qualify for it. The FFNSA also includes a provision to restrict a state’s ability to set its own agricultural policies, specifically nullifying state laws such as California’s Proposition 12 (Section 12006). This would significantly harm smaller independent ranchers who have invested in and benefited from such policies for years, and serve to benefit the largest corporations and agribusinesses seeking to remove such regulations.

The post Unpacking the House Farm Bill: Part 3 appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Purchase Kosher Meat Safely

During Passover, many families serve kosher meat and poultry, which are produced under rabbinical supervision.

Editor’s Note: This is the first post in a four-part blog series analyzing the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026, which was reported out of the House Agriculture Committee on March 5. This post provides an overview of the markup process and the bill as a whole, as well as its likely (or unlikely) path to becoming law. Subsequent posts provide a deep dive analysis of the bill’s potential impacts on the farm safety net, local and regional food systems, and conservation, climate resilience, and sustainable and organic research. 

In the early morning hours of Thursday, March 5, 2026, the House Committee on Agriculture favorably reported the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 (FFNSA, H.R. 7567) out of committee by a vote of 34-17. FFNSA arrives at an undeniable crossroads for American food and agriculture. 

Across fields and communities nationwide, recent years have brought hardships not seen since perhaps the US farm crisis of the 1980s. Today, high production costs, unstable markets, and low crop prices driven by uncertain export markets and overproduction have converged to create an economic climate that threatens farmers’ livelihoods. Unfortunately, too many of these impacts stem directly and indirectly from actions taken by the current Administration. 

Meanwhile, in the halls of Congress, elected Representatives have been unable to pass a new, bipartisan farm bill. Since at least the mid-1960’s, Congress has reauthorized a new farm bill roughly every five years by bringing together a bipartisan coalition of rural and urban interests and the Members of Congress who represented them. Yet, 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 March 2026, we are in uncharted waters – over seven years have passed since the 2018 Farm Bill was signed into law, the longest such stretch in recent memory.

Opportunities to authorize a new, full farm bill during the 118th Congress – in 2023 and 2024 – came and went in both the House and Senate. When the November 2024 election delivered a governing “trifecta” for the Republican Party, they turned to the budget reconciliation process to pass a bill that updated some parts of the farm bill, while leaving most out. This reconciliation bill, commonly referred to as H.R. 1,  took the unprecedented step of cutting nearly $200 billion from one part of the farm bill in order to fund another part of the farm bill, effectively breaking the decades-old bipartisan farm bill coalition.

It is against this backdrop – unprecedented times in farm country and in federal food and agriculture policy – that the House Agriculture Committee introduced FFNSA. 

A single farm bill – as important as it is – cannot solve everything. Yet a single farm bill can set us on a better path. Judged within the inseparable context of this moment, FFNSA includes some promising provisions but ultimately falls short, choosing to double down on an agricultural system that simply is not working, rather than making real strides toward a system that does.

The FFNSA markup kicked off shortly after 6:00 pm EDT on March 3 and did not conclude until around 1:30 am EDT on March 5 – more than twenty hours in total. The vast majority of the markup focused on the debate of dozens of amendments offered by policymakers from both parties.

To understand the debate around many of the amendments, it’s important to understand that, due to the unique nature of current Congressional budgeting rules, any reauthorized farm bill cannot cost more than the most recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline of the current (in this case, 2018) Farm Bill. This means that to increase funding for one farm bill program, a corresponding amount of funding has to be cut from another farm bill program. Traditionally, this has meant redirecting funding from a program within the same Title (eg, Conservation Title) of the bill. Without such an “offset” for new or increased funding, however, many amendments offered during markup, which would have improved the bill, were rejected because they were not budget-neutral. During markup, several lawmakers from both parties took to deriding CBO – Congress’s nonpartisan official budgetary scorekeeper – when their amendments did not achieve budget-neutrality.

In reality, however, partial blame rests with Congressional leaders who have not been able to  identify and direct outside funding resources into the farm bill, even while Congress has simultaneously managed to move tens of billions in funding for ad hoc assistance programs since 2018. This inability to secure new, outside funding for a farm bill is, in part, why H.R. 1 resorted to slashing billions from nutrition assistance to fuel farm subsidies, and why the new version of FFNSA lacks the resources to set us on a better path. 

In total, just over 150 amendments were filed to FFNSA. 74 amendments received a vote of some sort – 29 of which were roll call votes and 45 of which were voice votes. Of those 74 amendments that received a vote, 44 were approved and incorporated into FFNSA – 3 by roll call vote, and 41 by voice vote. Find the full list of amendments here. Below is a list of amendment votes directly related to the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)’s priorities that were taken during the House Committee on Agriculture’s markup of FFNSA:

• Representative Dusty Johnson’s (R-SD-AL) amendment to expand eligibility for the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) to include larger co-ops, risking crowding out opportunities for individual farmers and rural small businesses. NSAC opposed. Approved by voice vote.
• Rep. Brad Finstad’s (R-MN-1) amendment to make significant changes to the Farming Opportunities Training Outreach program – including 2501 and the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program –  that alters priority areas and how applications are reviewed, ultimately undermining the effectiveness of both programs. NSAC opposed. Approved by voice vote.
• Rep. David Scott’s (D-GA-13) amendment to provide mandatory funding for the Scholarships for Students at 1890s Institutions. NSAC supported. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (27) opposed – all Democrats (24) in favor.
• Rep. Jahana Hayes’s (D-CT-5) amendment to improve the Whole-Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP) Program and Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) by establishing a simplified, revenue-based option within NAP, creating an “on-ramp” for producers to transition from NAP to WFRP, adding incentives for insurance agents selling WFRP policies, and authorizing the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to pilot new projects within NAP to develop innovative crop insurance options for RMA, among other changes. NSAC supported.  Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (27) opposed – all Democrats (24) in favor.
• Rep. Chellie Pingree’s (D-ME-1) amendment to remove harmful pesticide preemption language in FFNSA, thereby restoring the ability of communities to protect themselves from chemical exposure. NSAC supported. Failed by roll call vote, 28 opposed – 22 in favor.
• Rep. Nikki Budzinski’s (D-IL-13) amendment to restore full funding to the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) – a popular and oversubscribed conservation program – after hundreds of millions of dollars were siphoned off to other programs. NSAC supported. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (27) opposed – all Democrats (24) in favor.
• Rep. Sharice Davids’ (D-KS-3) amendment to ensure that farmers have access to local USDA offices by preventing their closure, and requiring USDA to rehire qualified employees who have been terminated since January 2025. NSAC supported. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (27) opposed – all Democrats (24) in favor.
• Rep. Shomari Figures’ (D-AL-2) amendment to strengthen land-grant universities’ ability to provide heirs’ property education and succession planning. NSAC supported. Approved by voice vote.
• Rep. Alma Adams’ (D-NC-12) amendment to increase funding for 1890’s Centers of Excellence. NSAC supported. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (27) opposed – all Democrats (24) in favor.
• Rep. Alma Adams’ (D-NC-12) amendment to ensure a reliable and accurate assessment of the prevalence of food insecurity among families, seniors, and children across the country by requiring USDA to continue its implementation of the Annual Household Food Security Survey. NSAC supported. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (27) opposed – all Democrats (24) in favor.
• Rep. Eugene Vindman’s (D-VA-7) amendment to authorize the Organic Transitions Program (ORG), which supports highly innovative research, education, and extension projects that help producers overcome barriers in undertaking the transition to become successful USDA certified organic farms. NSAC supported. Approved by voice vote.
• Rep. Eric Sorensen’s (D-IL-17) amendment to direct USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service to develop a standardized Soil Carbon Monitoring methodology and develop a Soil Carbon Monitoring Network. NSAC supported. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (27) opposed – all Democrats (24) in favor.
• Rep. Shri Thanedar’s (D-MI-13) amendment to restore the unexpected, unjustified cuts to nutrition education programs that connect low-income communities to nutritious foods by funding SNAP-Ed at $500 million annually in mandatory funding. NSAC supported. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (27) opposed – all Democrats (24) in favor. 
• Rep. Gabe Vasquez’s (D-NM-6) amendment to support wildlife habitat connectivity and migration corridors, increase payment limits for private land owners, and provide technical support for voluntary practices that improve landscape resilience. NSAC supported. Approved by voice vote.
• Rep. Jill Tokuda’s (D-HI-2) amendment to return rescinded funding that would bring farm-fresh food to students’ plates in schools and childcare centers by funding a local food purchasing program with $660,100,000 annually. NSAC supported. Failed by roll call vote along party lines, all Republicans (27) opposed – all Democrats (24) in favor.
• Vote on the final House Committee on Agriculture passage of the FFNSA. NSAC opposed. Approved by roll call vote 34 in favor – 17 in opposition.

In addition to the amendments listed above, numerous amendments that would have improved the bill were offered but did not receive a vote, including amendments that would have: removed the WFRP expansion limit (Salinas); created a New Producer Economic Security Program to support beginning farmers and ranchers (Budzinski); relocated the state assistance for soil health (SASH) program to the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (Tokuda); provided $50 million in mandatory annual funding for the Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production (Thanedar); and increased funding for the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Incentive Program (Rouzer).

Ultimately, the Committee markup resulted in some changes to FFNSA, but none meaningful enough to make it worthy of support. The remainder of this blog series reveals the extent to which key NSAC farm bill priorities are impacted by FFNSA’s proposals, or lack thereof.

As of posting, there are no concrete and immediately available details about the next steps for FFNSA. While movement on the House floor and in the Senate appears possible, it remains far from guaranteed. For any farm bill to find a legitimate path to becoming law this year, at least two factors will need to be present. First, any farm bill will have to make robust, new investments. The scattered policy improvements included in FFNSA ring hollow without the resources to fuel them. Second, the threshold to pass a farm bill in the Senate requires 60 votes, and thus, the path to a farm bill remains through a true bipartisan process.

More than 7 years removed from the 2018 Farm Bill, farmers, families, and communities still deserve – now more than ever – a new full, bipartisan farm bill that rises to the occasion. As always, NSAC will continue to steadfastly engage with lawmakers as the farm bill meanders its way through the 119th Congress.

The post Unpacking the House Farm Bill: Part 1 appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.