Andrew Zhang is a third year law student at Harvard Law School and a guest contributor to this blog. Earlier this November, with the passage of a continuing resolution that ended the longest government shutdown in United States history, Congress extended the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 (the 2018 Farm Bill—the nation’s current and most recent Farm Bill) for one more year. This extension—the third of its kind since the 2018 Farm Bill first expired…
Rachael Lange is a second year student at Harvard Law School and a guest contributor to this blog. In the midst of a tumultuous legislative session, the critical question for agriculture policy stakeholders and observers is: when will we get a new farm bill and what will it look like? Fallout from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), entrenched…
Matt Suzor is a third-year law student at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law and a guest contributor to this blog. Update: Since this blog post was written, the 2025 budget reconciliation bill passed. The impacts of the budget bill on the Thrifty Food Plan, effective immediately, call for cost neutrality every five years. This could prevent benefits…
Josie Dudzik is a PhD candidate in Nutrition and Dietetics at New York University and is a guest contributor to this blog. She was an intern in the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic during the summer of 2024. Background The 2018 Farm Bill paved the way for domestic hemp production by reclassifying hemp as legal to grow…
Kipper Berven is a law student in the HLS Food Law & Policy Clinic and a guest contributor to this blog. On Tuesday, March 7th, two law students and two instructors from Harvard Law School’s Food Law and Policy Clinic traveled to Washington D.C., joining a student from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law to attend the Farmers for Climate…
Though control of the House is still up in the air and Agriculture Committee Member Raphael Warnock is headed to a December runoff, we now have a reasonable idea of what the 2022 midterms will mean for the 2023 farm bill. Regardless of the outcome of Warnock’s runoff, Democrats will retain control of the Senate, and Senate Agriculture Committee Chair…
Jessica Grubesic and Naomi Jennings are law students in the HLS Food Law & Policy Clinic and guest contributors on this blog. To launch its ambitious five-pillar strategy to end hunger and increase healthy eating and physical activity by 2030, the Biden-Harris Administration held the first White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health in over 50 years on September 28. Below,…
While it’s currently a challenge not to keep up with the latest developments on COVID-19, you might not know that states have been tirelessly submitting requests to the federal government for major disaster declarations. At the time of this writing, New York, California, Washington, Louisiana, Iowa, New Jersey, Georgia, Oregon, Connecticut, Kentucky, South Carolina, Missouri, Maryland, Illinois, Florida, Texas, Colorado,…
Ms. Gaesser is currently pursuing a master’s degree in agriculture, food, and environment at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. About every five years, Congress passes an omnibus Farm Bill governing an array of agricultural and food programs. The historically bipartisan process has become more contentious in recent cycles, however, due to an increasingly polarized…
The 2018 Farm Bill just passed the House (368-47), after passing the Senate yesterday (87-13). The Bill now goes to the President’s desk. Here is the 10,000 foot view of the 2018 Farm Bill as it relates to FBLE priorities: Food Waste FBLE is thrilled to see that all of the provisions in the House and Senate drafts of the…