The House of Representatives is back in Washington, and the to-do list waiting for both legislative chambers is as long as it’s ever been. Lawmakers left town for the August recess with the farm bill unfinished, government funding unresolved, and a farm economy that has been running in the red for years. Now they have roughly three weeks — 16 legislative days, by most counts — to figure out how to handle all three before the fiscal year turns over on September 30. For wheat growers watching the calendar from the tractor seat, that math is not comforting.
Start with the farm bill. The Senate Agriculture Committee’s markup of the Agricultural Act of 2026 stalled last month over how to phase in state cost-sharing for SNAP, and Chairman Boozman wisely recessed the markup rather than adjourn. That keeps the bill alive. But “alive” is not the same as “done,” and growers have heard promises about a modernized, long-term farm bill for going on three years now. Frustration among growers who need a functioning safety net, not another short-term patch, is real. NAWG will keep pushing the Senate – and the House – to finish the job this fall. Wheat growers have waited long enough.
Not to mention, government funding runs out on September 30, the same date many farm bill authorities expire. That is not a coincidence anyone in agriculture finds reassuring. A shutdown or disruption in USDA programs and county office support does not pause the bills coming due on the farm — it just adds another layer of uncertainty on top of everything else growers are already managing.
And there is plenty else weighing on the farm economy. Input costs remain stubbornly high, and the pressures keep stacking up: fertilizer prices running well above last year’s levels, elevated diesel and energy costs, and continued disruption tied to global instability, including in the Strait of Hormuz. Tariffs that were supposed to strengthen our negotiating position have landed as an added cost on farm inputs — and I continue to hear growers share their experience that tariff costs passed on to them actually exceed the tariff rate itself.
Meanwhile, general inflation hasn’t given growers much room to breathe either, whether it’s the price of repair parts or the cost of running a household in rural America. Ad hoc federal assistance has helped some balance sheets in the short term, but growers are the first to say it: one-time payments are not a substitute for sound, long-term policy. They treat a symptom, but they don’t fix the underlying cost-price squeeze.
That squeeze is exactly why global trade matters so much right now. Whether it’s the ongoing conversation with China, the future of our relationships with long-standing customers, or the much-needed conversation about softening the economic blow farmers are experiencing from tariffs and duties, wheat growers need open markets and predictable rules. Every month that trade uncertainty drags on is another month growers are forced to plan around headlines instead of opportunity.
Here is the frustration we hear most often from wheat country: farmers feel that decisions coming out of Washington these days are too often measured by the next election rather than the next decade. This is not a new phenomenon; it has persisted across several election cycles. Farming doesn’t work on a two-year cycle. A grower deciding what rotations work best, what equipment to purchase, or what infrastructure to build (or not) for on-farm storage or value-added processing is thinking in ten- and twenty-year terms, not in terms of a news cycle or a midterm map. When policy whipsaws with the political winds — tariffs on, tariffs off; assistance promised, assistance delayed; a farm bill perpetually “almost finished” — it becomes nearly impossible for farm families to plan with any confidence. Good policy and good politics aren’t always in conflict, but farmers need reassurance that their voices are not being taken for granted.
This is not partisan axe-grinding. It’s a plea for durability. Wheat growers aren’t asking Washington to solve every problem overnight. They’re asking for policy that holds up regardless of who’s in the majority — a farm bill with real staying power, trade relationships built on more than a single meeting’s headlines, and a regulatory and fiscal environment that doesn’t reverse itself when political winds shift. NAWG will spend the coming weeks doing what we always do when Congress is in session: showing up, making the case, and making sure the realities of the farm economy are impossible to ignore. That means continuing to push for a finished farm bill, continuing to press for relief on input costs and tariffs, and continuing to remind lawmakers that “we’ll get to it next session” is not an answer growers can plant a crop around.
Congress has a full plate. So does every wheat grower heading into fall. The difference is that farmers don’t get to punt their deadlines to the next news cycle — and neither should Washington.