Policy Updates and Issue News March 2026
Agriculture and Food
Washington celebrates National Agriculture Day
American agriculture was in the spotlight on March 24 as the nation’s capital celebrated National Ag Day. An annual highlight of Ag Day is the celebration at the Department of Agriculture (USDA) headquarters. This year’s event drew the largest crowd at the USDA in many years. Participants included USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Director Dr. Mehmet Oz, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, and Kelly Loeffler, Administrator of the Small Business Administration. Other events included numerous meetings and receptions on Capitol Hill and around the city. Grange attendees at these gatherings included President Chris Hamp, her husband Duane, and National Grange staff.
Publicity for the Product of the USA label
During the Ag Day celebration at USDA, Secretary Rollins announced the launch of a public awareness campaign to inform meat, poultry, and egg producers of the “Product of the USA” voluntary labeling standard that went into effect in January. Under the standard, the “Product of the USA” label is reserved exclusively for meat, poultry, and egg products from animals that were born, raised, harvested, and processed in the United States.
Farm bill clears House Committee
The farm bill 2.0, or “skinny farm bill,” was adopted by the House Agriculture Committee in early March on a 34-17 bipartisan vote. Full House consideration has not yet been scheduled. The Senate Agriculture Committee is expected to take up the farm bill later this Spring. This legislation authorizes the remaining farm and rural programs not included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, which authorized commodity programs, crop insurance, and foreign market promotion. Corn farmers and biofuel producers lobbied hard for an amendment to ensure E15 ethanol year-round and nationwide availability was included in the farm bill. However, it was ruled that another committee, Energy and Commerce, has jurisdiction because it is a fuel additive. The farm bill legislation contains a controversial provision to invalidate California’s Proposition 12, which mandates and regulates animal husbandry practices for food products entering California from other states. There was considerable concern that the bill also moves $1 billion from the Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) to other conservation programs. EQIP is very popular with livestock farmers and ranchers as a cost-share program to install watering equipment, water crossings, stream fencing, cross fencing, manure storage facilities, and other working farm and ranch conservation practices.
Fertilizer prices test farmer patience
Soaring fertilizer prices in the wake of the war in Iran are a serious issue for farmers, who are making last-minute changes to planting plans due to higher input costs. A cutback in fertilizer applications puts crop harvests at risk, potentially squeezing world food supplies. There was volatility in the fertilizer market even before the war. Late last year, the Agriculture and Justice Departments announced a joint inquiry into high prices for fertilizer and other farm inputs. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) is leading a bipartisan bill to provide farmers with greater transparency into fertilizer prices. The Fertilizer Transparency Act of 2026 would require the USDA to collect and publish weekly fertilizer price data from manufacturers, similar to other USDA market reports.
Support for rural stress and mental health
The National Grange and Rural Minds have been strong supporters of the USDA’s Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network (FRSAN). The National Grange joined the National Farmer Union, National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, and others on a strong letter of support for funding to the leadership of the Senate and House Appropriations Committees. FRSAN is a program that supports a service provider network connecting farmers, ranchers, and their families to stress assistance and mental health resources. Four regional centers are increasing access to stress resources across the country by coordinating efforts to serve the unique needs of the rural populations in each region. A FRSAN help line is staffed by farm and rural-savvy professionals.
Farm to market gets boost
The USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service has awarded over $26.8 million in grants for projects through the Local Agriculture Market Program. The program helps local and regional food entities develop, coordinate, and expand producer-to-consumer marketing, local and regional food markets, local food enterprises, and value-added agricultural products. Participants are required to provide a 25% cost share of the federal funds being requested.
Bill Gates bets big on farmland
Microsoft founder Bill Gates now owns one out of every 4,000 acres of U.S. agricultural land. In addition to Gates’ Microsoft stock, he owns a number of private investments that include about 20,000 acres of farmland in Nebraska alone. But why is Bill Gates investing so heavily in land? One major reason appears to be that land is a hedge against inflation, meaning that land value rises alongside inflation, with its value often rising faster than the inflation rate.
Health Care
RealClearHealth publishes Grange editorial
An op-ed by National Grange President Chris Hamp and HealthyWomen President/CEO Beth Battaglino entitled “Women’s Health Progress Must Reach Rural America” was published in Washington’s RealClearHealth this week. Hamp and Battaglino noted that women make up 60% of caregivers and guide roughly 80% of healthcare decisions for their families. They help choose providers, navigate insurance, coordinate care, and manage treatment decisions. Nearly 20% of women live in rural or non-metropolitan areas where they face higher rates of poverty and uninsurance, poorer maternal and infant outcomes, lower uptake of preventive screenings, and fewer options for obstetric and gynecological care. The authors advocated for sustained investment in access and research for women’s health issues.
Grange moves to protect rural hospitals and clinics
Early this month, the National Grange supported the release of a new analysis by Magnolia Market Access that examines how Medicare hospital reclassification policies increasingly divert resources from rural hospitals to large metropolitan health systems. This resource diversion weakens the rural health care safety net and threatens access to care for millions of rural residents. The report, “Hospital Dual Classification: How Urban Hospitals Are Capitalizing on Medicare Reclassification Policies,” documents how geographically urban hospitals reclassify as administratively rural to access rural-specific Medicare benefits while simultaneously receiving higher urban wage index payments. According to National Grange president Chris Hamp, “Rural hospitals are closing at alarming rates, and yet federal dollars meant to keep them open are being syphoned away through a regulatory loophole.” Rural-focused support, such as the 340B program and other rural-specific Medicare benefits, was designed to benefit rural communities and should not divert scarce dollars from rural patients. The National Grange is working with rural hospitals, rural health care providers, and patient advocacy groups, calling on policymakers to close the 340B dual-classification loophole.
Grange calls attention to rural Alzheimer’s crisis
The National Grange has just rolled out a new report that examines how rural residents face a disproportionate and growing burden from Alzheimer’s disease. The report, “Leveraging Innovation to Improve Alzheimer’s Diagnosis and Care in Rural America,” was researched and written by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. The report highlights how rural populations, who are older, more medically vulnerable, and underserved by specialists and diagnostic infrastructure, are being left behind as Alzheimer’s care rapidly advances. Commenting on the release, National Grange President Chris Hamp said, “This report lays out both the scale of the problem and the path forward. Geography should never determine whether someone receives a diagnosis in time to benefit from treatment--and right now, for too many rural Americans, it does.” The report identifies a clear path forward to expand access and narrow rural health disparities. The National Grange is calling on Congress and federal policymakers to implement the report’s recommendations.
Court challenges recent vaccination guidelines
U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy (MA) has blocked Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy. Jr. from implementing a series of vaccine-related decisions made over the last year. In his preliminary injunction ruling, the judge also suspended the decision-making authority of the reconstituted Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, finding that HHS sharply departed from established procedure and likely violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The National Grange will continue to monitor the case as it moves forward. Grange policy supports the principle that vaccine policy must be guided by science and transparency.
Research
Ag research falls behind
The United States is at risk of losing its edge in agricultural innovation to China without an uptick in research and development investments, according to the Food Security Leadership Council. The U.S. share of global public agricultural R&D spending has fallen from 20% in 1960 to 11.5% in 2011. Researchers argue that the U.S. should pursue a new national strategy to spur R&D, with the goal of achieving productivity growth to boost exports, keep food costs in check, and protect against biological threats. The National Grange has historically been very supportive of agriculture and food research and lobbies Congress annually for appropriations to benefit the USDA and Land Grant Colleges’ research and Extension.
Transportation
Shipping gets a boost
The White House will temporarily suspend the requirement that goods moved between U.S. ports must be transported on U.S. vessels. This is seen as an effort to ease the burden of high oil and fertilizer prices. The Merchant Marine Act, better known as the Jones Act, is a century-old law that requires goods shipped between domestic ports to move on U.S.-built, flagged, owned, and staffed vessels. But transportation analysts and industry representatives are a bit skeptical in the short run because domestically produced fertilizer moves by rail, barge, truck, or pipeline now. Imported fertilizer generally reaches corn-growing regions through the port of New Orleans, where it is transferred to barges for delivery upstream.
Of Interest
Data center scrutiny
Many local Granges across the country are actively engaged in community discussions and investigations into local ordinances regarding the influx of data centers into their areas. Concerns range from ag land loss to landscape views to water availability to rising electric rates and more. Data centers are huge warehouse-type buildings that use tremendous amounts of water and electricity. As data centers draw additional power from the local electric grid, many communities have experienced rising electricity bills. President Trump has announced a data center “rate payer protection pledge” for large tech companies to pledge the production energy required for their own data centers. If companies take the “pledge,” they commit to supplying on-site energy for data centers to prevent rate hikes for consumers in the communities where the centers are located.
Perspectives
“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you tale your eyes off your goal.” ~ Henry Ford
“Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear, and obstacles vanish.” ~ John Quincy Adams
“Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.” ~ Booker T. Washington
“The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.” ~ Moliere
A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to preserve and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.” ~ Christopher Reeve