Chair opens Farm Bill 2.0 markup, pitches five-year plan for farmers

The Chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry opened the committee's business meeting to consider the Agriculture Act of 2026, calling the proposal "Farm Bill 2.0" and urging members to adopt a five-year authorization for producers and rural communities. The chair said the bill "gives producers the tools and the confidence they need to keep farming" and described the package as the result of input from farmers, ranchers and rural leaders across the country.

The chair framed the legislation as a broad, bipartisan product, saying it "incorporates more than a 100 bipartisan bills and priorities" and builds on a House-passed farm bill. He cited examples of program improvements from last year, including strengthened commodity programs, expanded access to affordable crop insurance, improved disaster assistance and animal health investments. The chair also warned that without action, producers face heightened economic pressure: he said Arkansas experienced more farm bankruptcies in the last year than in the previous four-and-a-half years combined.

The chair concluded by urging members to support the measure in committee, saying the bill offers long-term certainty for family farms and rural economies and represents, "the best and final offer I can make" on several contested items.