Congressman Tim Walberg is hailing U.S. House passage of the latest U.S. Farm Bill, or the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026.
The legislation will guide federal agriculture and food policy through 2031. Walberg tells us it’s been in the works for more than a year. Some preparations were made for it in a budget bill approved last year.
“When we passed the One Big Beautiful Bill, we put most of the production agriculture issues and Farm Bill issues in that bill,” Walberg said. “So those were stabilized. But then the rest of the work came on the food program, specific SNAP, WIC, those types of things.”
Walberg says the Farm Bill is a win for Southwest Michigan with a bigger focus on specialty crops, or fruits and vegetables like grapes, cherries, blueberries, apples, and peaches.
“In the past, specialty crops have been seen as somewhat more limited than your dairy and cattle beef issues, as well as the rest of the row crops. It’s important that fruits and vegetables are given the opportunity.”
Walberg says the new legislation provides those specialty growers with more reliable disaster relief, more financial support, investment in research and pest control, and greater flexibility in how aid is delivered.
“That’s one thing we’ve gotten away from in the sense of subsidies and direct payments by putting crop insurance in. And that’s an expansion we’ve wanted to see for specialty crops that were in the cash crops that are out there, the row crops that we’ve already had.”
Walberg says the new Farm Bill seeks to protect water resources, extending programs that help farmers reduce runoff, improve soil health, and protect wetlands and watersheds. It also seeks to give farmers affected by tariffs and the Iran war a break.
“There’ll be some grant payments put toward farmers to help in areas of fuel and the additional cost for that. It won’t meet the whole need, including the tariffs that have gone on, but while we’re getting things back on track, I think that’s been encouraging for me in talking with my agricultural community.”
Walberg says many of the growers he speaks to support President Trump and aren’t too critical about the tariffs and fuel and fertilizer disruptions, but this bill will help.
Beyond those areas, Walberg says programs like SNAP will continue with updates to improve access and increase accountability.
“Solidifying savings for the SNAP program, forms that we put in H.R. 1, the one Big, Beautiful Bill. This bill was really able to be budget neutral because of those savings we put in formally. And those savings, to make it very clear, weren’t cuts. They were simply getting out waste, fraud, and abuse.”
The Farm Bill also invests in rural broadband, healthcare, and infrastructure.
The massive bill now goes on to the U.S. Senate, and Walberg’s optimistic it will be approved.
“It’s a big deal to get the Farm Bill passed, and so I’m hoping that the bill that should have been passed probably two terms ago with a senator from Michigan who was the chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, that being Debbie Stabenow, now hopefully seeing the reality of extending the negotiations and Farm Bill to the point that agriculture is really hurting and wants to get this thing done. I’m hoping that the Senate does pass it.”
