Farm bill hearings jettisoned amid U.S. House fiasco

The ripple effect of former United States House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s positional departure is being felt in Florida’s agriculture sector after a pair of Farm Bill listening sessions with state officials were postponed as the nation’s lower chamber grapples with an unprecedented structural reorganization.

State Commissioner of Agriculture Wilton Simpson announced via a prepared statement on Thursday morning that the previously scheduled hearings with Reps. Scott Franklin and Kat Cammack next week have been postponed amidst the ongoing scramble to appoint a new House Speaker. The sessions were intended to solicit recommendations from Florida’s farmers, ranchers, and growers for provisional aspects of the Farm Bill.

“The previously announced Farm Bill listening sessions have been postponed due to unforeseen and unprecedented circumstances,” reads the postponement memo.

The Farm Bill, a quinquennial, comprehensive piece of federal legislation, carries significance for Florida’s agriculture sector, which depends heavily on its provisions to address financial challenges. The forthcoming draft of the bill aims to allocate funding for specialty crop research, with a particular focus on harnessing artificial intelligence applications to enhance production efficiency within the sector.

In July, Florida’s bipartisan congressional delegation convened to discuss the needs of the state’s agricultural industry following hurricanes, citrus greening, and the illegal dumping of specialty crops, all of which the lawmakers seek to find remedies to in the Farm Bill.

This is a critical industry to Florida that supports an estimated 2.1 million jobs,” said Rep. Vern Buchanan during the July meeting. “As Congress considers the Farm Bill, I’m confident our state’s delegation will secure necessary wins for Florida’s farmers and ranchers.”

The bill’s influence on international trade policies also directly affects the state’s agricultural exports and access to global markets. During the meeting, lawmakers pressed industry representatives about China purchasing large swaths of Floridian farmland, as well as federal tax dollars being spent on foreign-produced commodities.

Florida lawmakers in Congress also coalesced to introduce the Restore Agricultural Investment, Stability, and Expansion (RAISE) Act of 2023 to Congress this summer, which seeks to amend the Agricultural Act of 2014 and authorize emergency assistance for high-value crop losses.

The bill, introduced by Reps. Scott Franklin, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Darren Soto, and Cammack, intends to provide emergency assistance to producers of high-value crops — including citrus — that have suffered losses in revenue, quality, or production due to various natural disasters and extreme weather conditions including drought, wildfire, hurricanes, and floods.

The measure further proposes that the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture establish a program to make payments to producers of high-value crops through block grants to individual states, meaning that the funds and responsibility for distributing assistance can be delegated to local governments.

“When extreme weather threatens our crops, as is often the case in the Sunshine State, we must be prepared to help our farmers recover and continue the important work of feeding our nation,” said Cammack.

The introduced legislation builds upon a piece of U.S. House-passed legislation known as the “Block Grant Assistance Act,” which aims to enhance the allocation of disaster relief funding for agricultural producers affected by natural calamities.