AMP: Arkansas Senator Scores Wins, Pushes Colleagues to Deliver Last Section of Farm Bill

This press release from Senator John Boozman (R-AR) was published on 2026-04-21 and titled "AMP: Arkansas Senator Scores Wins, Pushes Colleagues to Deliver Last Section of Farm Bill". It focuses on taxes and touches on the environment, foreign policy.

AMP: Arkansas Senator Scores Wins, Pushes Colleagues to Deliver Last Section of Farm Bill It has been just four years since the American farmer was selling his or her products at record-high crop prices, but like a serial dieter whose weight swings in an ever-widening arc, the lows that have followed have plunged deeper than they have across four decades. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service-s December update to Commodity Costs and Returns, average total costs per acre are expected to increase for every one of the nine principal row crops in 2026. Costs for producing these crops, including corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, barley, oats, peanuts and sorghum, are forecast to be up 2.2 to 3.3 percent in operational costs, which include farmwide expenses such as equipment, land and management. Cost to produce is also expected to be up on an operational basis, which are the direct expenses of producing a crop, such as seed, fertilizer, chemicals, fuel and labor. The expenses are expected to bump upward from $160 per acre for wheat to $774 per acre for rice, the latter being particularly bad news for Arkansas ag, being a national leader in rice production. The report noted the drivers of the operational cost increase are led by interest expenses, up 71 percent since 2020; followed by labor, up 47 percent; fertilizer, up 37 percent; fuel and oil, up 32 percent; maintenance, up 27 percent; chemicals, up 25 percent; and seed and marketing costs, which are both up 18 percent. The subject of President Donald Trump-s trade spats during the first year of his second term did not help matters as rising tariffs impacted farm exports to major trading partners, including China and Mexico. However, sentiment on the measures is not that cut and dried. Purdue University in Indiana found last year that 70 percent of U.S. farmers believe the president-s tariffs will strengthen U.S. agriculture by pressuring China to boost its imports. Farmers are much quicker to blame the Biden administration for what they perceive as weak leadership and the lack of a comprehensive Farm Bill for aggravating the situation. A multiyear omnibus law Congress typically passes every five years, the Farm Bill includes such things as disaster support, loan and credit programs, and rural development and infrastructure. The Farm Bill has not been renewed since 2018; that measure expired in 2023 and has since been triaged along by extensions that have done nothing to bring the bill to current economic conditions. It does not take a Harvard MBA to do the math: Rising input costs married to sluggish-at-best commodity prices and a moribund response from Washington is a recipe that is leavening as we speak - to the detriment of ag land. Last year, farm sector debt reached a record $561.8 billion in 2025, a year-over-year increase of 3.7 percent, the USDA states. Researchers at the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, meanwhile, reported Chapter 12 bankruptcy filings - specifically for farmers and family fishermen - reached 88 in the first quarter of 2025, nearly doubling the previous year-s figure. Arkansas has a ringside seat to the gear-grinding in Washington when it comes to ag. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, Sen. John Boozman has been a key figure in pushing the needs of the farmer and agribusiness to the front of the line. Boozman-s persistence paid off with several key elements of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and various emergency relief, the latest of which was last December-s announcement of $12 billion in bridge funds headed to the heartland. Boozman sat down with Arkansas Money & Politics to discuss the work done thus far and the lifting left to do to help America-s farmers and ranchers keep the nation strong and the world fed. Arkansas Money & Politics : Some of the ag issues were covered in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and then in December, the president authorized some emergency funds. How much of that action covers what the Farm Bill would have? Sen. John Boozman: Well, what we did was essentially about 85 percent of the Farm Bill in the One Big Beautiful Bill. The things that we were able to get done were the things that cost a lot of money, and those are really reinforcing the safety nets that the farmers depend on - the risk management tools that they use, crop insurance, a number of different things that they use so that they can cut their risk as they plant crops,