Caraveo pushes for bipartisan Farm Bill for Colorado ag

Congresswoman Yadira Caraveo, CO-08, voted to advance the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024 out of the House Agriculture Committee. The legislation, more commonly known as the farm bill, covers programs related to agriculture, nutrition, rural health and development, farm subsidies and conservation. The farm bill is reauthorized every five years, and the current farm bill statute expires on Sept. 30, 2024. 

As Colorado’s first member of Congress to serve on the House Agriculture Committee in over a decade — a position she lobbied for knowing the farm bill was forthcoming — Congresswoman Caraveo fought to ensure that the perspectives of Colorado’s farmers, ranchers and rural communities were reflected in the farm bill. 

Caraveo said she has some grave concerns about cuts made to the farm bill. As a pediatrician, she said about two-thirds of her patients in-clinic received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children and Medicaid benefits.

“The House Republican version makes some changes to SNAP, which I know they’re billing as not a cut, but over 10 years, it certainly will be,” she said. “There will be no adjustment for food cost for the time of preparation and others so over 10 years, it amounts to a $30 billion cut and hundreds of millions of dollars that won’t be coming to Colorado.”

Caraveo said she has championed rural health care accessibility funding, investments in infrastructure in rural areas, funding to increase access to childcare in rural areas, rural wellness and increased access to rural mental healthcare and farm transitions.

“I have heard from many farmers and ranchers how difficult it is to pass on the farm and land so that it can stay productive from one generation to the next,” she said.

She said sugar beet growers have communicated to her how the percentage of loans must be adjusted, and that, she said, is done in this version of the farm bill. It also includes increased funding for specialty crop farmers, foreign market development, funding to protect the livestock industry from foreign livestock diseases, and expanding what she called the farmers’ safety net.

She said the farm bill needs to return to a truly bipartisan structure. 

“It has been dismaying to see both parties not really come to the same table,” she said. “There has been debate about how much openness there has been between the two, but that’s a political game, I’m interested in helping to advance the farm bill out of committee and see the Senate and the House to sit down and look at the different aspects that are important to both parties and advance a farm bill.”

She said she fears cutting the climate sideboards out of the bill, which she said is a priority for her party, and cutting SNAP benefits, which she said are important not to one party or another, but to all constituents and the 55,000 people in her district who face food insecurity. Her greatest fear, though, she said is failing to pass a farm bill and extending the current one.

The climate sideboards, she said, are something that agriculture can support. Under both versions, the House and the Senate, the IRA money invested in conservation will be invested in the farm bill and will stay there.

There is a “light” version of the EATS Act included in the House version of the farm bill, though she said she worries about the constitutionality of the act. It’s important for states to decide policies locally, she said.

The House farm bill includes provisions of seven bills that Congresswoman Caraveo led or co-led which support northern Colorado’s farmers, ranchers and rural communities, including the Rural Wellness Act, Investing in Rural America Act, Increasing Nutrition Access for Seniors Act, Farm Transitions Act, Expanding Child Care in Rural America Act, Rural Health Care Facilities Revitalization Act, and the Future FARMER Act.

The House Agriculture Committee approved the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024 on a bipartisan vote of 33-21.

The House farm bill now advances from the House Agriculture Committee to the whole House of Representatives. Meanwhile, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry is working on a separate farm bill framework. Congresswoman Caraveo said she will continue to use her position on the House Agriculture Committee to fight for Colorado’s interests and shape the farm bill in forthcoming negotiations.