After being introduced earlier this month, the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 is making its way through the federal legislature.
The bill seeks to act as a slimmed down Farm Bill, the five-year piece of legislation that sets food and agricultural policies for the country.
Brantly Seifers, director of national government affairs for the Indiana Farm Bureau, said last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act covered about 80 percent of what would normally be in a traditional Farm Bill, and this piece of legislation addresses the rest.
“(It’s) definitely not the big title items that everybody kind of knows as the Farm Bill,” he said. “No commodity title for those crop protections, SNAP, all that stuff was taken care of, but several important things are still in the farm bill coming up next week for us to really focus and get across the finish line.”
Of most interest to Hoosiers, the bill includes a fix for California’s Prop 12, which seemingly limited interstate commerce on pork, uncapped money for land grant universities such as Purdue, and rural development programs including a pilot project for early childcare in rural areas.
Farmers have been waiting for a proper Farm Bill update since 2022, with last minute extensions put in place to hold over the industry until Congress could address it between political tensions and shutdowns.
“We've had to go by the 2018 status quo for a few years now,” Seifers said. “So there are a lot of ways that the farm economy can be benefited by the farm bill, but the real win is the certainty that this brings for the next five years.”
A title-by-title summary of the bill is available below.
