Gaining Ground: A Report on the 2018 Farm Bill Successes for Indian Country and Opportunities
Click to access the Gaining Ground Report
What is a farm bill?
The farm bill is a package of legislation passed roughly once every five years that has a tremendous impact on farming livelihoods, how food is grown, and what kinds of foods are grown. Every five years, the farm bill expires and is updated: it goes through an extensive process where it is proposed, debated, and passed by Congress and is then signed into law by the President from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
The farm bill’s chapters are called titles. The numbers and the substance matter of the titles can change over time. The 2018 Farm Bill has twelve titles: Title 1: Commodities, Title 2: Conservation, Title 3: Trade, Title 4: Nutrition, Title 5: Credit, Title 6: Rural Development, Title 7: Research, Extension, and Related Matters, Title 8: Forestry, Title 9: Energy, Title 10: Horticulture, Title 11: Crop Insurance and Title 12: Miscellaneous.
About This Report
The Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative partnered with the Native Farm Bill Coalition (NFBC) to author a report titled Gaining Ground: A Report on the 2018 Farm Bill Successes for Indian Country and Opportunities for 2023.
This report summarizes specific opportunities for Indian Country in each Farm Bill title. Some of these opportunities are left over from the 2018 Farm Bill process, while some are wholly new. In all cases, potential changes identified here would enhance Tribal Nations’ and Native producers’ access to important USDA programs and authorities that build communities, create jobs, grow economies, feed people, safeguard natural resources, and prioritize tribal sovereignty.