Editor’s note: Steve Brawner is the author of this report.

U.S. Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., said Thursday (May 7) that the Senate will mark up its latest version of the Farm Bill in the next few weeks and called farmers’ plight a “generational situation.”

The U.S. House of Representatives on April 30 passed its version of the Farm Bill, calling it the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026.

However, Boozman said that bill contains controversial provisions that would prevent the Senate version from attracting the Democratic support it will need to reach 60 votes and overcome a Democratic filibuster.

“The good news is, is that there’s tremendous sympathy in Congress,” he said. “If you look at what we’ve shelled out in the last year and a half, including $68 billion for 85% of the Farm Bill, it’s been well over $100 billion. That’s a lot of money by any standards.”

That $68 billion comes from the farm portion of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed last year. But many farmers can’t wait until October when that money becomes available. Boozman said farmers are losing money regardless of what they are planting, and they need bridge payments until more money arrives.

“Discounting Iran and anything else, when we talk to all of our economists, whether it’s the University of Arkansas, the Department of Agriculture, all of them, they feel like next year’s not going to get any better,” said Boozman, who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee. “So we’ve got to work hard to get new markets. We’ve got to value-add our products here in order to keep our farmers in existence.”

He said the previous 2018 Farm Bill is based on data from 2012, when the world was very different. He said rural America is dependent on farming.

Boozman made his remarks Thursday after visiting the Little Rock Police Department’s Real-Time Crime Center, a technology hub meant to improve emergency response, investigation and crime prevention.