Many of Idaho’s farmers and producers are dealing with skyrocketing costs to do business, but many of the nation’s support systems for them are outdated.
“We have pressure from the cost of fertilizer, the increased cost of fuels, the effects of tariffs on equipment and parts that we need to buy for our operations, and at the same time, the prices that we receive … it hasn’t increased in line with the cost of production,” said Jamie Kress, an East Idaho dryland farmer and president of the National Association of Wheat Growers.
Kress and other members of Idaho’s agricultural industry are advocating for Congress to approve an updated farm bill — a massive piece of federal legislation that addresses policies such as food assistance like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, low-interest farm loans, crop insurance, research, conservation programs, and rural development.
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The 2026 bill re-authorizes or increases funding for some of these programs, such as assistance for farmers like crop loss programs and financial assistance for purchasing agricultural lands and incentives for conservation programs.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a 2026 farm bill, which would update the policies and extend them for five years. Idaho’s Republican U.S. Reps. Mike Simpson and Russ Fulcher voted in favor of the updated bill, which passed in a 224-200 vote at the end of April. It’s now under consideration in the U.S. Senate.
“I regularly hear from farmers, ranchers, and producers in Idaho, and their main concern over the years has been when Congress will reauthorize the Farm Bill,” Simpson said in an emailed statement. “Thanks to a Republican White House, Senate, and House, we have officially delivered on our promise to provide certainty to those who feed our nation. While this legislation supports and invests in our rural communities, it also strengthens our national security by protecting our domestic food supply.”
The last major update to the bill was in 2018, and had typically been updated every five years. In recent years, Congress has approved short-term extensions.
“The biggest challenge of operating in an outdated farm bill is just uncertainty in agriculture,” Kress said. “A lot of our decisions are very forward-looking. There’s very little that we do in an impulsive manner, or just thinking about tomorrow … so that not knowing what parameters we’ll be operating under long-term is really difficult.”
What changes are Idaho farmers hoping to see in the updated bill?
The 976-page bill approved by the House touches many different agricultural programs, as well as others, such as rural broadband access and telemedicine access.
Braden Jensen, governmental affairs director at the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation, said the organization appreciates the broad spectrum of provisions in the bill because they cover Idaho’s broad spectrum of agricultural products.
“We recognize that Idaho agriculture is very diverse, growing everything from potatoes, sugar beets, wheat, our hay, our dairy products, cattle, specialty crops, we have a little bit of everything,” Jensen said. “So because of that diversity, really all these different titles in the farm bill matter to our producers.”
Jensen said the new bill added specialty crops, such as hops, seed crops and potatoes, to risk management programs. Additionally the bill increases borrowing limits on special agricultural loans to reflect increasing costs to expand or start new operations, he said.
Kress, the wheat grower, also highlighted the funding of a program to create and expand export markets outside the U.S., and another that allows groups to share the costs of overseas marketing and promotional activities.
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In 2025, Idaho agriculture exports generated about $3 billion in receipts, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported. Most of Idaho’s exports go to Canada and Mexico.
Idaho wheat growers export roughly half the state’s annual wheat production, Kress said. The Gem State typically ranks in the top 5 in the nation for wheat production.
“The trade title (of the farm bill) is very important to our industry,” Kress said.
She also highlighted that the bill not only important to the industry, but also consumers of American food products.
“This framework gives us what we need to continue to compete at a very high level,” Kress said, “but then that also ensures then that the American people always have a steady supply of food on our shores.”
Some program changes, such as to SNAP, already approved in ‘Big Beautiful’ law last summer
Some of the items that are typically included in the farm bill were addressed last summer in the major tax-and-spending package dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
SNAP, also known as food stamps, is one of the largest portions of the spending bill. More than 123,000 Idahoans receive food assistance through SNAP, according to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.
The budget package reduced the federal share of costs to administer SNAP, which will raise the costs for states, and extended work requirements under the program to more groups of people who were previously exempt. The farm bill maintains these cuts to SNAP, which drew opposition from many Democrats, the States Newsroom reported.
Fulcher, one of Idaho’s congressmen, wrote in the Idaho Capital Sun’s 2026 primary election candidate questionnaire that the farm bill’s delay had to do with disagreements about SNAP.
“The reason for the lack of support has been because about 85% of the +/- $1.5 trillion in spending has been ear-marked for the SNAP (food-stamps) program,” Fulcher said. “SNAP exploded in spending during COVID, and many of us believe that needs to be drawn back to pre-COVID spending levels. That said, critical farm programs, although the minority of spending in the bill – are very important to our AG industry and they need to be supported.”
The “big beautiful” law also funded some safety net programs for farmers and producers such as an expansion of crop insurance and disaster assistance, as well as some other program updates.
Controversial pesticide legal immunity rejected in Idaho, also removed from farm bill
Before the farm bill passed the U.S. House, it had provisions that would look familiar to Idaho state lawmakers. The bill included language that would’ve largely shielded pesticide manufacturers from allegations that chemicals in their pesticides cause cancer.
In 2024 and 2025, Bayer, the company that produces the herbicide Roundup, funded a major push in the Idaho Legislature to support legislation that looked very similar to the provisions included in the farm bill.
The group Modern Ag Alliance, founded by Bayer, reported more than $600,000 in lobbying expenses in 2025, according to data from the Idaho Secretary of State’s office.
The Idaho Senate narrowly rejected the bill in 2024, Idaho Reports reported. In 2024, a similar bill was introduced but failed to advance out of the committee.
Members of the U.S. House voted to remove the pesticide provisions shortly before approving the overall bill in late April. The amendment to strip the language came in response to opposition from Democrats as well as Republicans aligned with the “Make America Health Again,” or MAHA, movement led by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., CNBC reported.
Idaho congressmen Simpson and Fulcher voted against the amendment to strip the liability language.
Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com.