By Ellyn Ferguson, Roll Call
Congress will still deliver a farm bill but it won’t be in September, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told the Kentucky Farm Bureau on Thursday, voicing what was already looking inevitable as Congress runs out of legislative days left before the Sept. 30 expiration of the current law.
McConnell, a Senate Agriculture Committee member, is the most prominent lawmaker to date to say the timeline is shifting to beyond September for reauthorizing the five-year bill that sets policy for farm, conservation, nutrition, research and other areas overseen by the Agriculture Department.
“We’ll figure it out,” McConnell said.
The current bill expires on Sept. 30, but the new deadline for a 2023 farm bill appears to be Dec. 31. On Jan. 1, 2024, some farm policy would revert to controls on production and costly price supports adopted in the 1940s.
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