Republican Representatives Celebrate on Campaign Trail After Leaving DC With No Farm Bill in Sight

DES MOINES – With the farm bill expiring in two days, Iowa lawmakers including Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Zach Nunn, Ashley Hinson and Randy Feenstra have left DC to campaign even though there’s no deal on a new farm bill in sight.

Zach Nunn and other Iowa legislators are headed to an ‘Operation Top Nunn’ campaign event in Clive this afternoon. Instead of focusing on the Farm Bill, which expired in 2023 and extended to the end of this month, Nunn, Miller-Meeks and all of the other Iowa representatives have been posting videos on social media all week about the political event.

The farm bill is the lifeblood of Iowa’s rural economy. It authorizes tens of millions in grants to support Iowa’s local food systems and provides farmers with incentives to improve soil quality.  It also provides access to nutrition for families, keeps Farm Service Agency offices open so farmers can handle their financial business, provides money for crop insurance, and impacts 19.6 million agriculture- and food-related jobs in the U.S.

House Republicans have yet to put forward a farm bill that has any chance of passage and have instead played political games. A previous version of the Farm Bill proposed earlier this year cut $30 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). If Republicans force through their version of the farm bill, 40 million Americans and 17 million children will see cuts to their benefits. The Farm Bill has been stalled ever since that partisan proposal was introduced.

“Iowa Republicans should put our farmers and our ag economy before politics and get back to DC to finalize a farm bill. Forcing our farmers to plan for next year’s crop without any idea of what’s happening is poor policy. Our legislators should be more concerned about supporting production agriculture, promoting soil conservation and feeding hungry kids than they are about going home to campaign,” said IDP Chair Rita Hart. “This has been the most do-nothing Congress in history and it’s time to send new leaders to Congress who will harvest a bipartisan farm bill for the benefit of the Iowans they serve.”