Policy Updates and Issue News June 2026

Senate farm bill draft unveiled 

Senate Ag Committee Chairman John Boozman (R-AR) this week released the long-awaited farm bill 2.0 discussion draft for consideration by his fellow senators. The bill touts boosting support for a wide array of agriculture producers, enhancing transparency of fertilizer markets and foreign land ownership, modernizing USDA loan limits, strengthening healthcare access in rural areas, and expanding support for rural communities. What’s not included in the discussion draft are the most contentious issues that created divisions as the House crafted its farm bill 2.0 version. These include restoring sharp cuts to the SNAP feeding program, a pesticide exemption from state pesticide laws, year-round E15 ethanol approval, and a provision to nullify state animal welfare laws like California’s Prop 12. The House passed its version of farm bill 2.0 earlier this Spring. The Senate needs to pass its version of the farm bill 2.0 in order to complete the comprehensive farm bill process, which began with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year. The last comprehensive farm bill was enacted in 2018.

New World Screwworm is here now

For several months, we’ve followed the screwworm infestation migrate from Central America through Mexico and close in on the U.S.-Mexico border. We also knew it would happen sooner rather than later. The New World Screwworm (NWS) has now crossed the border into the United States, with several cases confirmed in Texas and New Mexico. Screwworm was previously eradicated from the U.S. in the 1960s. While NWS is a critical threat to the health of livestock, wildlife, and pets, it is important to clarify that screwworm is a parasite, not a disease, and it poses no food safety concerns for consumers. The risk lies in the screwworm larvae’s harmful impact on an animal’s welfare.

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Screwworm is a fly 

The NWS fly is about the size of a house fly. It has orange eyes, a metallic blue-green body, and three dark stripes along its back. It can travel on humans, vehicles, pets, livestock, and wildlife. The larvae feed on the living tissue of warm-blooded animals, entering through open wounds and burrowing into the flesh, causing severe wounds and animal suffering if not detected and treated quickly. The Food and Drug Administration has granted an Emergency Use Authorization for over-the-counter drugs to treat infestations in livestock and pets.

Now what?

America previously eradicated screwworm by developing sterile screwworm flies. Screwworm flies mate only once, so if the flies are infertile, no eggs are hatched and no larvae emerge. Even though the USDA began ratcheting up sterile fly production over the past year in anticipation of such an outbreak, supplies of sterile flies are still limited. USDA is developing methods to maximize the production of sterile male flies and using modeling to deploy existing flies. Construction of expanded production facilities has been in the works for the past year, which should begin coming online within the next year.

A boost for small meat plants 

The USDA has allotted $60 million in actions to better support small and very small meat and poultry processing facilities. These funds will go toward helping small plants improve customer service and responsiveness, make requirements easier to navigate, and reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens while still maintaining food safety. Increased support for small meat plants is a continuing priority for the National Grange.

Medical schools to teach nutrition... finally

Medical school curricula have been notoriously lacking in nutrition education for decades. Agriculture, food, and nutrition groups (including the National Grange) have been on a decades-long crusade to add nutrition courses to medical school requirements. Now, an additional group of 19 medical schools has agreed to require at least 40 hours of nutrition education or an equivalent, joining 54 others that have already made such commitments. The Departments of Health and Human Services and Education teamed up under the “Making America Healthy Again” banner to encourage this important change.

Are you kidding me?

We’ve seen massive cuts to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides food assistance to low-income families. USDA said these cuts were necessary to weed out waste, fraud, and abuse, and for budgetary reasons. To stretch the remaining SNAP dollars, USDA initiated a pilot program in five states that barred SNAP recipients from using their SNAP benefits to buy soda, candy, and other non-essential, non-nutritious food items. Now, a federal judge has vacated those purchasing restrictions, ruling that USDA exceeded its legal authority and bypassed required public notice procedures. In response, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said, “SNAP is for food—not sugar bombs fueling obesity, diabetes, and skyrocketing healthcare costs for low-income families.”