WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 at the end of April 2026. The legislation passed with a vote of 224 to 200, with 14 Democrats voting in favor.

Congress typically passes a new farm bill approximately every five years to guide agricultural policy. However, the 2018 farm bill expired in 2023, leading Congress to pass one-year extensions in 2023, 2024, and 2025. Legislators face a new deadline of September 30, 2026, when the most recent extension expires, with midterm elections scheduled a little over a month afterward.

The bill includes provisions such as new cost-sharing regulations and cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) due to Office of Budget and Budget (OBBB) provisions. SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, constitutes the largest share of the farm bill's cost, making up almost 80%. The OBBB makes some noncitizens, including refugees and asylees, ineligible for SNAP. Some Senate Democrats have stated their opposition to the House-passed bill, primarily due to these SNAP cuts. For the bill to pass the Senate, 60 votes are required.

The commodities section of the farm bill includes safety-net programs like crop insurance, which guarantees prices on some crops to help farmers manage risk. Crop insurance accounted for almost 9% of the cost of the 2018 farm bill. In 2024, 89% of the acreage of the eight major U.S. crops—barley, corn, cotton, oats, rice, sorghum, soybeans, and wheat—was covered by insurance through the Federal Crop Insurance Program. This figure more than doubled the acreage protected in 1990. Farmers can obtain subsidized insurance policies through this program, which compensates them for losses resulting from below-average production yields or revenue.

Food economist Parke Wilde of Tufts University's Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy discussed the changing political landscape surrounding the bill. Wilde stated, "So much major policy has happened outside the farm bill." He said in a podcast interview, "I used to tell my students that one of the joys of following farm bill politics is that it's less partisan than other areas of American policymaking, but that also isn't true this year."