Op-ed: America NEEDS Farm Bill 2.0!

It’s 2026, and it’s time for the U.S. House of Representatives to pass America’s Farm Bill 2.0. 

On April 17, Farm Credit led a letter to House leadership underscoring the vital need for Farm Bill 2.0. Along with more than 330 agricultural organizations, including all Farm Credit banks and associations representing the 50 states and Puerto Rico, I was proud to sign this letter, representing Capital Farm Credit. My signature demonstrated my appreciation to lawmakers for supporting important parts of the Farm Bill included as part of H.R. 1, while emphasizing that critical work to pass a full suite of Farm Bill programs remains unfinished.

Since 2023, America’s farmers and rural communities have been left in limbo without a full, five-year Farm Bill. For three years, only temporary extensions and aid packages have existed to fill the gaps of an evolving — and increasingly strained — agricultural economy.

The next step is simple, and necessary: the House must pass the bipartisan Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026, which was reported out of the House Agriculture Committee in March.

A Farm Bill doesn’t just empower current producers and operations — it helps enable their future. The committee-approved Farm Bill 2.0 will bolster current and future next generations of agriculture by increasing and improving the tools available to them. 

The financial resources offered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) must be modernized to reflect today’s structure and costs of growing the food that fuels our nation. The current bill contains updates to increase USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) direct and guaranteed loan limits, plus make these programs easier and faster for farmers to use. These changes will also allow lenders to use every tool in their toolbox to respond quickly to the needs of producers and will create a more reliable and sustainable future for agriculture.

For more than 100 years, Capital Farm Credit has supported rural communities and agriculture with reliable, consistent credit and financial services that include home, land and agribusiness lending; equipment and facilities leasing, and insurance for crops and livestock. More than 600 CFC employees serve over 24,500 members in 192 Texas counties.

Supporting our producers also means supporting the rural communities where they live and work. Rural Americans deserve access to high-quality local facilities, such as hospitals, childcare centers, and rural clinics, just like their peers in urban and suburban neighborhoods. The bill before the House contains key provisions to boost investment in these essential facilities by allowing Farm Credit to finance rural community facilities and encouraging partnerships on these projects with community banks.

The time to act on Farm Bill 2.0 is now.  Since the full Farm Bill reauthorization in 2018, the world and our agricultural economy have shifted drastically. Today’s producers must navigate rising input costs, labor shortages and low commodity prices, plus global conflict and trade volatility. According to USDA data, producers have ridden a roller coaster of ups and downs since 2018. A zoomed-in look at the current agricultural economy shows that while some commodities, such as cattle, are bright spots, many others, including row crops and specialty crops, are incredibly strained. Input costs for things such as seeds, fertilizer and fuel cause additional pressures on our ag producers.

Capital Farm Credit has been a reliable partner in rural America for decades. As a customer‑owned cooperative, we are rooted in our rural community, and we reinvest our earnings directly into the farmers, ranchers and rural communities we serve — more than $195 million in patronage and allocated equities returns in the past year alone. In this critical moment, serving rural America also includes doing our part to advocate for passage of Farm Bill 2.0.

The Agriculture Committee’s approvalwas the first step. Now the full House must pass the bill to take the next step toward the paramount goal: signing the Farm Bill into law this year.

The stakes could not be higher. We encourage our U.S. representatives and senators from Texas, along with their colleagues in Congress, to act now, because no one can afford to wait longer for Farm Bill 2.0.

By Jeff Norte, president and CEO of Capital Farm Credit
College Station, Texas