Farm Bill

“Inflation has increased prices for fuel and inputs for farmers and ranchers,” said James Ennis, executive director of Catholic Rural Life. “It’s putting a lot more pressure on (farmers). They are facing some more headwinds than they were in 2018.”

Even though there’s still 300-plus days until Christmas comes around again, those groups have recalibrated their priorities in light of a new, divided Congress, with Democrats taking control of the House and Republicans slightly increasing their heretofore razor-thin edge in the Senate.

The farm bill that passed both houses of Congress by wide margins doesn’t have money in it to protect endangered species, but it did preserve one that had been on the threatened list: bipartisanship.

When the House voted on the farm bill May 18, the measure’s merits were only partly considered. But what brought it down to a surprising defeat was not its content, but a vastly different subject: immigration.