While the farm bill debate in the U.S. Senate has tended to be rather bipartisan in nature, that has not been the case in the U.S. House of Representatives, at least not in recent memory. Invariably, at some point in the farm bill debate, the minority party in the House will accuse the majority party of “partisanship” that will “bring about the end of the bipartisan coalition needed to pass a farm bill.” In this article, we examine these claims in the context of voting history on the farm bill in the House over the last 40 years.
As noted in Figure 1, the 1985 and 1990 Farm Bills both had a significant share of minority (i.e., Republican) votes on the House version of the farm bill along with the conference agreement. With the Democrats in the minority for the 1996 Farm Bill – after having been in the majority in the House for 40 years – they accounted for just 20% of the “yes” votes on the House version of the farm bill but ultimately accounted for one-third of the “yes” votes on the conference report. The 2002 Farm Bill was very bipartisan in nature with the minority (i.e., Democrats) accounting for roughly half the “yes” votes on both the House version and conference report.
The significant departure came in the 2008 Farm Bill when Democrats regained control of the House. For the 2008 Farm Bill, the minority (i.e., Republicans) accounted for just 8% of the “yes” votes on the House version of the farm bill. Despite the partisan nature of the House version of the farm bill, Republicans ultimately accounted for 32% of the “yes” votes on the conference agreement. That dynamic persisted (and became even more pronounced) in the 2014 and 2018 Farm Bills, with the minority (i.e., Democrats) not voting for the House version of the bill in either case but accounting for 35% and 51% of the “yes” votes on the conference report, respectively. Notably, for the 2018 Farm Bill, more Democrats than Republican voted “yes” on the conference report, following the mid-term elections that resulted in Democrats retaking the House.
Bottom line: accusations of “partisanship” threatening to “end the bipartisan coalition needed to pass a farm bill” generally falls on deaf ears as partisanship around the House version of the farm bill has become standard operating procedure, largely starting with the 2008 Farm Bill. Despite the rocky process in the House, the final version of the farm bill reported out of the conference between the House and Senate continues to be widely bipartisan.
Figure 1. Voting History on the Farm Bill, U.S. House of Representatives a/Passed by voice vote
Farm Bill
Minority Party in House
Minority Share of House Seats
Minority Share of Yes Votes (House-Drafted Farm Bill)
Minority Share of Yes Votes (Conference Report)
Food Security Act of 1985
Republican
42%
35%
40%
Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990
Republican
40%
a/
37%
Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996
While far from over, the House version of the President’s reconciliation package—referred to by the President as the “One Big, Beautiful Bill”—contains significant improvements to the farm safety net. We have previously discussed in Southern Ag Today the dire need for an improved farm safety net for this crop year, either from a farm bill or through this process. As we write this, House leadership is still working to secure votes for passage. Once that happens, the Senate will need to pass their version of the bill. Assuming the House and Senate pass different bills, the differences would need to be reconciled and the conferenced bill would need to again be passed by both the House and the Senate before going to the President to be signed into law. This sounds daunting, but one of the key elements of reconciliation (and why it has been used by both parties) is that the Senate only needs a simple majority (51) to pass the bill, whereas a normal bill would require 60 votes.
The House reconciliation bill includes quite a few changes to the current 2018 Farm Bill that has been extended through September 30, 2025. In terms of the farm safety net, the two primary commodity programs—Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC)—are extended through the 2031 crop year. Most importantly, reference prices are increased 10% to 20% depending upon the commodity. Reference prices would also increase 0.5% annually beginning in 2031, recognizing the need to keep up with inflation in the future.
The ARC coverage guarantee would be increased from 86% of the benchmark to 90%, and the payment band would increase from 10% to 12.5%. The first change would make payments trigger sooner, and the second change would increase the amount of the payments. Loan rates for most commodities would also be increased.
Combined payment limits for ARC and PLC would be increased from $125,000 to $155,000 and would be adjusted annually for inflation. The bill would also eliminate the LLC penalty (i.e., eliminate the payment limit on pass-through entities while maintaining the payment limit on owners of the entity) as previously highlightedin Southern Ag Today.
Premium assistance for crop insurance would see increases for individual yield or revenue coverage across all coverage levels. The Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO) would also see an increase in premium subsidy from 65% to 80%.
The House bill also contains language to allocate a maximum of 30 million additional base acres to producers who have been planting more acres than they have base acres on farms.
The bill has many other agriculture related provisions, but those listed above—if enacted—would strengthen the producer safety net beginning with the 2025 crop.
Commodity programs in Title I of the Farm Bill and the Federal Crop Insurance Program (FCIP) are the primary risk management tools available to agricultural producers. In a previous SAT article, Fischer and Biram (2025) discussed the suite of risk management tools available to cotton producers, the intention of Title I programs to supplement tools in the FCIP, and the different combinations allowed for producers to use in a risk management strategy. Notably, they discuss how base acres enrolled in either Price Loss Coverage (PLC) or Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) cannot be enrolled in the Stacked Income Protection (STAX) program. Since 87% of historical seed cotton base acres have been enrolled in PLC (USDA-FSA, 2025), with nearly all base acres enrolled in 2019 and 2020, this discussion focuses on the complementary nature of STAX and PLC.
On the surface, STAX and PLC may appear to be similar programs authorized under different pieces of legislation. However, a closer look reveals stark differences. STAX is a tool in the FCIP which provides protection against revenue losses based on a chosen coverage level, a cotton lint futures price, and a county cotton lint yield. PLC is a counter-cyclical target price program under Title I in the Farm Bill which provides only price downside protection determined by the effective reference price (ERP) and a Marketing Year Average Price (MYAP) for seed cotton. The ERP is a function of the statutory reference price determined by federal law and historical market conditions. More specifically, the seed cotton price is a production-weighted average of upland cotton lint and cotton seed prices (see Shurley and Rabinowitz, 2018and Liu, Rabinowitz, and Lai, 2019a). STAX requires a premium to be paid by the producer while PLC requires no out-of-pocket cost for enrollment. STAX pays indemnities based on planted acres and county cotton lint yield and price, while PLC payments are based on base acres and MYAP for seed cotton.
While STAX and PLC both provide price risk protection, it is in different markets and under different conditions. STAX provides price risk protection against declines in the futures market between planting and harvest with different regions of the country facing different price determination periods – and only to the extent that those declines are not offset by yield gains (see Liu, Chong, and Biram, 2024). PLC provides price risk protection against declines in the cash market within a crop marketing year which is August 1st through July 31st of the following calendar year (USDA-FSA, 2023). PLC protection is triggered when the MYAP falls below the ERP with the PLC payment rate being the difference between the ERP and MYAP.
Since these two risk management tools provide different forms of price protection, it is no surprise that STAX indemnities based on price losses (i.e., in excess of any offsetting yield gains) differ from PLC payment rates. In the period authorized for risk protection in the 2018 Farm Bill (i.e., 2018-2024P), there was only one year in which both programs triggered, with 2024 projected to trigger at current prices. In 2019, the PLC payment rate for seed cotton was $0.0612/lb (see Figure 1) while the cotton lint STAX indemnity for price loss would have been $0.0310/lb (see Figure 2) which only would be for the 90% coverage level. There were three years when one program would have triggered when the other did not (2018, 2020, and 2022). The remaining two years saw no payments triggered by either program.
We acknowledge that these payment rates are based on different triggers (i.e., weighted average seed cotton price versus cotton lint price) and refrain from discussing the magnitude of the differences. Instead, we emphasize the fact that these programs often do not trigger in the same year, reinforcing the idea that these differences imply the need for risk protection in both the cash and futures markets, mitigating basis risk (see University of Arkansas fact sheet). As a result, Congress may wish to consider making both PLC and STAX available for a producer to use in the same crop year since they meet different risk management needs.
Figure 1. Historical Performance of Price Loss Coverage (PLC) for Seed Cotton (2018-2024P) This figure shows the years in which a seed cotton PLC payment triggered. The orange bars show the MYAP, while the yellow dashes show the ERP. The triangles denote the PLC payment rate recorded that year. When the orange bar is the below the yellow dash, a PLC payment triggers, and the triangle depicts the payment rate.
Figure 2. Historical Performance of Stacked Income Protection (2018-2024P) This figure shows the years in which a STAX payment would have triggered in a county with constant yields. That is, if the county yield did not fall, it depicts what the Harvest Price would have to fall to in order for an indemnity (i.e., insurance payment) to trigger. The blue and green bars show the price guarantee based on 85% and 90% coverage levels of STAX, respectively, while the red dashes show the RMA Harvest Price. The blue and green triangles denote the STAX indemnity recorded for the 85% and 90% coverage levels, respectively, in a given year. When the blue or green bar is below the red dash, a STAX indemnity triggers, and the triangles depict the payment rate.
References
Biram, H.D. and Connor, L. (2023). Types of Federal Crop Insurance Products: Individual and Area Plans. University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, Cooperative Extension Service Fact Sheet No. FSA75. https://www.uaex.uada.edu/publications/pdf/FSA75.pdf
Fischer, Bart L., and Biram, H.D. “STAX and PLC: Should Cotton Producers Have to Choose?” Southern Ag Today 5(15.4). April 10, 2025. Permalink
Liu, Y., Rabinowitz, A. N. & Lai, J. H. (2019). Understanding the 2018 Farm Bill Effective Reference Price. Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Georgia. Report No. AGECON-19-02PR. July 2019.
Liu, Y., Rabinowitz, A. N. & Lai, J. H. (2019). Computing the PLC and ARC Safety Net Payments in the 2018 Farm Bill. Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Georgia. Report No. AGECON-19-13PR. November 2019.
Shurley, D. & Rabinowitz, A. N. (2018). MYA Prices and Calculating Payments with the Seed Cotton PLC. Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Georgia. Report No. AGECON-18-03. February 2018.
Long before the 2018 Farm Bill expired on September 30, 2023, there appeared to be one voice among the entire U.S. food and fiber system asking Congress to get a new farm bill completed that would provide producers an improved safety net with meaningful protection from low prices, bad yields or both. Since that time, the economic condition of U.S. crop farms has deteriorated significantly due to low prices and high costs as reported in Southern Ag Today here and here. Now, the farm bill appears to be stalled behind other priorities, namely a budget reconciliation bill that will provide the funding needed to extend the expiring Trump tax cuts that were enacted in the President’s first term and to beef up border security, among other priorities.
As part of the budget reconciliation process, the instructions to the House Agriculture Committee were to cut $230 billion from the baseline over ten years while the instructions to the Senate Agriculture Committee were to cut at least $1 billion over ten years. Figure 1 provides estimates of the 10-year baseline from FY 2025 to FY 2034 to provide some perspective on projected spending across farm bill titles. The expectation is that Title IV (the nutrition title) of the farm bill is where the majority of savings will originate. It should be noted that the farm bill that passed out of the House Agriculture Committee last year and the Senate Republican farm bill proposal added around $55 billion (House) and $40 billion (Senate) in spending above the baseline to make the safety net stronger, in addition to other enhancements.
It appears that some parts of the House and Senate farm bill proposals might be able to be added to the budget reconciliation bill. The exact details of how that might happen are not entirely clear, but it does appear that option is being considered. Suffice it to say that, in our opinion, that is the only realistic pathway to achieving meaningful enhancements to the farm safety net for the 2025crop. There are some who worry this might fragment the farm/food coalition that has generally worked together to get a farm bill across the finish line. We would, however, point out that the coalition fell apart during the 2014 Farm Bill debate in the House of Representatives, where two separate bills (a nutrition bill and a farm-only bill) had to be passed out of the full House and then combined again during the conference process with the Senate. While we recognize the importance of all parts of the farm bill, in the name of trying to protect a very vulnerable crop production sector, Congress may wish to consider moving away from all or nothing this time around.
Figure 1.Farm Bill Titles with Mandatory Baseline, 10-Year Projected Outlays, FY2025-FY2034, billions.
Source: Congressional Research Service, What Is the Farm Bill?, RS22131,Updated April 9, 2024. Available at https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/RS/PDF/RS22131/RS22131.81.pdf
Outlaw, Joe, and Bart L. Fischer. “Does it Have to Be All or Nothing in Farm Policy?” Southern Ag Today 5(17.4). April 24, 2025. Permalink
The farm safety net includes a number of risk management tools that help producers navigate the risks they face, ranging from the Federal Crop Insurance Program to Title 1 of the farm bill. With crop insurance, farmers purchase the coverage which typically protects against price and yield risk within the growing season. By contrast, Title 1 of the farm bill authorizes programs – Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) in particular – that are designed to complement crop insurance, protecting against risks not otherwise covered.
Because some of the programs have features in common, Congress has chosen to limit the choices available to producers. For example, the Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO) is an area-wide crop insurance policy that protects against county-wide losses in prices and yields (depending on the underlying policy) within the deductible portion of a producer’s crop insurance policy (i.e., the portion not covered by the underlying individual policy). In addition, in the 2014 Farm Bill, Congress created ARC, an FSA-administered program that protects against shallow losses in county-wide revenue. Because of the similarities between SCO and ARC, Congress stipulated that a producer was not eligible to purchase SCO on a crop enrolled in ARC. By contrast, a producer that enrolls the base acres on their farm in PLC – which covers deeper declines in marketing-year average prices – is permitted to purchase SCO at their discretion.
What does this have to do with cotton? In the 2014 Farm Bill, upland cotton was removed as a covered commodity and cotton producers were left with no access to ARC and PLC. Instead, they were left with an area-wide crop insurance policy – very similar to SCO – that was known as the Stacked Income Protection Plan (STAX). Several years later, when seed cotton was added to the farm bill in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, cotton producers once again had access to ARC and PLC (albeit on seed cotton rather than cotton lint). An effort was made to eliminate STAX as a result, but policymakers recognized that not all producers have seed cotton base acres, so a political compromise was reached: STAX would remain available, but cotton producers would have to choose between STAX and ARC/PLC. According to the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, “[b]eginning with the 2019 crop year, a farm shall not be eligible for [STAX] for upland cotton for a crop year for which the farm is enrolled in coverage for seed cotton under [PLC] or [ARC].” Notice, the restriction did not simply prohibit a producer from having access two area-wide tools (i.e., STAX and ARC), it also prohibited producers from having access to STAX and PLC, despite the two options having little in common.
There is no prohibition on SCO and PLC, for good reason, as they cover different risks. We question the wisdom in deviating from that logic with respect to STAX and PLC. While we will explore the differences between STAX and PLC in detail in a future article, suffice it to say we would encourage policymakers to take another look at this requirement as they go about the process of reauthorizing the 2018 Farm Bill, especially in light of the current state of the farm economy.
Fischer, Bart L., and Hunter Biram. “STAX and PLC: Should Cotton Producers Have to Choose?” Southern Ag Today 5(15.4). April 10, 2025. Permalink
