As the clock struck midnight and the calendar turned from September to October, the U.S. government officially shut down, with the Senate unable to strike any sort of budget compromise. Republicans control both the Senate and House of Representatives, but a budget bill requires 60 votes in the Senate, meaning such legislation will require some Democratic support. Reports from Capitol Hill indicate no clear path to a resolution.
On Wednesday morning, Senate Democrats again voted to block a stopgap funding bill that would have reopened the government until Nov. 21. The measure received 55 of the necessary 60 votes in both Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s votes. Three members of the Senate Democratic caucus – Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto, Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman and Maine’s Angus King (an independent who caucuses with Democrats) – voted to advance the Republican resolution. Rand Paul of Kentucky was the only Republican to vote against the measure, saying it would prolong Biden-era funding levels of which he disapproves.
With the shutdown, farmers, ranchers and others throughout agriculture face critical questions about programs that serve the industry.
According to the USDA’s shutdown contingency plan, more than 42,000 “nonessential” employees will be furloughed – close to half the department’s workforce. Food safety inspections, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and other operations deemed essential will continue, but the agriculture industry can expect a lot of data collection and research to cease for as long as the shutdown continues. Many producer-facing agencies – including the Farm Service Agency (FSA), Risk Management Agency (RMA), Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), Food and Nutrition Service, National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), Economic Research Service (ERS) and National Agricultural Statistical Service (NASS) – will see a majority of their work halted and employees furloughed during the shutdown.
Most of the remaining employees will be at the U.S. Forest Service, Food Safety and Inspection Service, and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). APHIS will continue border inspections, and the USDA will utilize emergency funding balances to manage the threats of New World screwworm and highly pathogenic avian influenza.
Critical USDA communications such as the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report and Cattle on Feed report are also likely to be put on hold until a funding resolution is reached.
The USDA reports that the shutdown will delay payments expected to producers under several commodity, conservation and aid programs. The FSA will stop processing payments through the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program (ECAP), Supplemental Disaster Assistance Program and Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). All FSA farm loan activity, from processing to closing loans, is also halted. The USDA has, however, announced that the final $2 billion in ECAP payments will go out to producers this week.
Oct. 1 also marks the expiration of the 2018 Farm Bill, which has already received two emergency one-year extensions in 2023 and 2024. Congress did pass legislation earlier this year that extended funding for some of the largest farm bill programs, like nutrition assistance and crop insurance. However, even without a federal shutdown, expiration of the farm bill means some USDA-administered programs, like the CRP, trade promotion and many research initiatives, would have stopped anyway because they no longer have legislative authority. Should Congress fail to extend or replace the farm bill by the end of the year, permanent law from 1949 would kick in, which has the potential to trigger large market disruptions.
