Farmers face uncertainty as Congress delays long-term spending legislation
By Ashley N. Soriano and Medill Illinois News Bureau
CHICAGO — The effects of President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on allies and rivals are yet to be seen, but farmers in Illinois are bracing for their impact – even as they wait years for Congress to pass long-term federal spending legislation.
Fourth-generation Illinois farmer Rick Nelson feels that uncertainty keenly. He learned how to drive a tractor at 6 years old. By age 8, he was preparing the ground for planting.
“I became a ‘tractor jack’ at an early age,” said Nelson, 72, who still operates his 2,500-acre family farm in Paxton, Illinois.
Now in his final farming years before passing the farm to his son,the Nelson family is anxious about the road ahead this year.
The Nelsons’ farm is one of nearly 71,000 registered farm operations in Illinois, the third-ranked state in the nation for agricultural exports, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
But the number of family-run farms is declining because the profit margins are slim and the industry is unpredictable, according to the Illinois Farm Bureau.
Farmers are biting their nails as they await a new Farm Bill – a piece of federal legislation that Congress passes every five years to set comprehensive agricultural programs and policies.
The bill expired in September 2023 and was extended through last year. Congress extended the 2018 version for a second time in December. That legislation, the American Relief Act, 2025, extended the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 for one year through Sept. 30, 2025.
First enacted under President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in 1933 to support struggling farmers and address Depression-era hunger, the Farm Bill allocates funding for crop insurance, disaster assistance and conservation programs for farmers. It also funds nutrition programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps, and school lunch programs.
The Farm Bill didn’t exist when Nelson’s great-grandfather started their family farm in 1910, but it’s become an essential part of farmers’ financial planning process.
“When we do any kind of planning, we have to be looking out one, two, three, even five years ahead in terms of purchases or cash flow needs,” Nelson said.
Another immediate concern is the impact already of the Trump administration’s halting of USAID purchase of crops for foreign aid, which could hit Illinois farmers hard.
China could impose retaliatory tariffs like it did in 2018, which led to a significant decrease in soybean exports at the time.
This go-around could increase the cost of producing farm machinery and equipment.
“Farmers are working in the 2024 economy with a piece of legislation that was passed in 2018,” Ryan Whitehouse, the Illinois Farm Bureau’s director of national legislation,said in December. “And with everything that's happened to inflation … It just needs modernized bills.”
“Congress, you know, they kicked the can down the road two times,” Whitehouse said.
Lawmakers in Springfield have also expressed frustration at Congress’ lack of an update to the Farm Bill.
“I think it’s really unfortunate that the federal government is not doing their part right now,” state Rep. Sonya Harper, D-Chicago, said. “That lends itself to hurting our farmer families, which we know the majority of them are in rural communities.”
Harper, who chairs the House Agriculture and Conservation Committee, said the delays are “disrespectful to farm families.”
The delay has caused budgeting pressure for Nelson, who is considering upgrading an aging tractor to a newer, $334,000 model.
“If I were trying to project ahead, am I going to try and replace that in 2025? Am I going to try and replace that 2026? I don't know where the safety net will be from the Farm Bill,” Nelson said. “It's a politically driven decision in D.C., and there's lots of parts to it.”
A new year looming: ‘There are repercussions’
Across more than 26 million acres covering 75% of the state’s land, farmers produced $10.8 billion in corn and $8.2 billion in soybeans in 2023, according to the USDA.
Each year, the state’s 274 million bushels of corn produce more ethanol than any other state, according to the Illinois Department of Agriculture.
Jim Niewold, a corn and soybean farmer in Loda, said he’s frustrated with the Farm Bill’s delay.
“Several years, or if not decades, most of it ends up getting delayed and put into these omnibus bills, and I wish they'd do it right,” Niewold, 69, said. “They call it the Farm Bill, but it's really much bigger than that ‘cause it's really like for food security for the country.”
Without solidified legislation, funding is in limbo. Farmers rely on crop insurance funding from the farm bill, which protects farmers from losses in crop yields and revenue due to disasters like drought and severe weather events.
“They want their dollars from the market, not from a government handout, but they want that crop insurance there in case there is a crisis or if there's a disaster or national disaster,” the Farm Bureau’s Whitehouse said.
Although Nelson, also a corn and soybean farmer, said he isn’t a fan of disaster payments, he would like the government to invest more consistent dollars into existing programs.
“Some folks get caught on the wrong side of the decisions that were made out of D.C., or in our case, Springfield, and consistency is to me a really important thing to have,” Nelson said.
Delays to a new Farm Bill also impact consumers, particularly those who rely on benefit programs like SNAP or have students who eat a school lunch. These food system impacts could also increase the cost of many grocery items.
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But a one-year extension doesn’t help much, according to farmers.
“I think we're always concerned because even with a five-year Farm Bill, people look at and say, well, that's a long-term farm bill, but it's really not when you're trying to set up things on the farm,” said Ron Bork, a corn and soybean farmer in Piper City, Illinois.
The 73-year-old grew up on his family farm and has had a hand in operations since he was 8 years old. He’s preparing to sell his farm and enter retirement, but he is still navigating the uncertainty that comes with farming.
“It's just like trying to steer a big ship in an ocean. You can't turn that ship around in a very short time. It takes a long period of time to get that turned around,” Bork said. “It's the same way with farming.”
Nelson and Niewold also plan to retire in the next couple of years, passing the reigns to their sons.
This could be the last Farm Bill any of them see as active farmers.
“Nothing these folks in D.C. do can change the rules. They can change the size and the speed of the waves up and down I think, but they can't completely change them, so (my son), like all of us, will have to go through some tougher times and then hopefully enjoy good times,” Niewold said.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
