Midland Daily News: McDonald Rivet backs 2026 Farm Bill’s advance, seeks to reverse SNAP cuts
Congresswoman Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Bay City) is celebrating the 2026 Farm Bill’s advancement through the House Agriculture Committee, while noting she wishes it also reversed cuts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funding.
The bill, which is expected to go before the full House of Representatives for a vote, would replace the 2018 Farm Bill, and the congresswoman said at a press conference at Ritter Farms in Saginaw on Tuesday that it is long overdue.
“Our family farmers have been stretched to the absolute breaking point, often getting silence from Washington,” McDonald Rivet told reporters. “The rules are outdated, the regulations are outdated, and …the way that the (2018) Farm Bill wants our family farmers to operate does not actually match the existing agricultural economy.”
In the big picture, the farm bill is a package of legislation passed roughly every five years which impacts many aspects of farming livelihoods. The 2018 bill was initially set to expire in 2023 before being extended. The new iteration received support from all Republicans and seven Democrats, including McDonald Rivet, on the Agriculture Committee.
Dan Keenan, Saginaw County Farm Bureau president and a fifth-generation farmer, said the new farm bill is needed as costs — both for living and farming — have risen while the revenue that farmers are able to bring in has not in recent years.
“Inflation has hit me on the input side, the production side, as well as at the grocery store,” Keenan told reporters. “The one thing inflation did not touch was crop prices.”
McDonald Rivet said key inclusions in the bill that led her to support it include preventing foreign adversaries, specifically China, from buying swaths of farmland, and strengthening access to financing in rural communities.
Still, McDonald Rivet said she was not able to get increased SNAP funding included in the bill, something she said she will continue to work on.
“We do need to reverse the devastating cuts to SNAP for hungry kids and families,” McDonald Rivet said. “I proposed multiple amendments that would have addressed those cuts, and I'm very disappointed that we couldn't get them included in the bill.”
McDonald Rivet said the bill’s bipartisan support in the Agriculture Committee is a positive sign, and she is hopeful about getting a new farm bill passed into law.
“I do have some optimism that we can get something, even in this year, to the president’s desk,” she said.