LITTLE ROCK (KATV) — Senator John Boozman, (R) Arkansas), on Tuesday unveiled Farm Bill 2.0, his draft of the overarching agriculture policy for the country. The Senate bill follows—and greatly differs from—the version passed in the House in May. 

A badly needed new farm bill is overdue—the current bill in effect was passed in 2018 and its safety net programs are no longer saving farmers amid the ongoing agriculture crisis.

Crop prices are low and input prices are skyrocketing. Arkansas farmers are losing hundreds of dollars an acre across the state's major crops, and the crisis is starting to have an impact on agriculture infrastructure. Rice dryers are closing—can Boozman's bill save Arkansas agriculture?

"Now, anybody that plants a seed in the ground has already lost money," said Dan Wright, president of the Arkansas Farm Bureau.

To help curb the bleed, Boozman's bill provides direly needed increases to federal funding farmers have access to—increasing loan caps by hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"Expanding these limits is going to help immensely. Our last farm bill was based on 2012 prices, and things have gone up immensely," Wright said.

But throwing money at farmers is not a long-term solution—finding markets for them to sell to is. The bill more than doubles funding for programs that help U.S. agricultural trade groups, cooperatives and state agencies build and expand international export markets for American farm products. Domestic markets, some outside the box, are being pursued as well.

"We've got to sell more products overseas, but we've also got to find domestic markets for the things that we grow too. So, using soybeans as fuel is one of those," Boozman told KATV.

The Arkansas Farm Bureau is grateful for Boozman's work with the bill but says it doesn't address everything they'd like it to, like federal aid for farmers to keep them afloat until farm safety net updates in the Big Beautiful Bill kick in this fall.

"So they're needing money now. This Farm Bill didn't address that. We've talked to them. They said they're working on this in a separate issue. So we're good with that," Wright said.

Arkansas corn farmers lost $274 an acre last year. The Farm Bureau wants E-15, or 15-percent ethanol gas made from corn, to be approved for year-round sale to help them.

"We want it year-round so that our corn farmers will have another market to be able to sell to and also save people some money at the pumps," Wright told KATV.

Boozman's bipartisan bill differs greatly from the more comprehensive and controversial House version, which has changes to SNAP food benefits that Democrats won't stomach, among other divisive proposals.

"To get a bill passed in the Senate, we need Democrat support. And so, because of that, the things that are contentious that Democrats don't support, we elected to leave out. Agriculture is not a Democrat or Republican thing, it's all about helping farmers. This is a true crisis, and because of that, we need to pull all the stops out to get this passed," Boozman said.

"If you eat, you need to be worried about the Farm Bill. Without the Farm Bill, agriculture doesn't have a roadmap to go by. We need to have this Farm Bill... Arkansas and American agriculture depends on it," Wright said.

Boozman says the final touches are being put in the Farm Bill, after which it will be voted out of committee and hopefully go to the floor and become law as soon as possible.

Click here to read the story on KATV's website.