This article is made possible through Spotlight PA’s partnership with NOTUS, a nonpartisan news organization that covers government and politics with the fresh eyes of early career journalists and the expertise of veteran reporters.
The vast majority of states are about to be on the hook to pay large sums for part of federal food aid. Democrats want a fix — and they’re hoping the pressure to pass a farm bill will convince Republicans to accept their demands.
The House passed a farm bill in April for the first time since 2018, but negotiations are ongoing in the Senate, where it needs 60 votes to pass. The need for a farm bill is mounting: Farmers across the country are in a precarious position, facing increasingly high costs, low crop prices and now extreme drought and wildfires in the southeast.
One key sticking point is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Senate Democrats want all states to receive more time to prepare to take on more SNAP costs, which is required next year under the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Republicans pushed through. States with the highest SNAP payment error rates are already getting additional time, but most states will start sharing the cost of SNAP with the federal government beginning next year. The error rate measures both overpayments and underpayments to recipients, not fraud.
“This is crazy,” Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, told NOTUS. “My error rate in Illinois is not low enough to get treated preferentially, or high enough — it makes no sense.”
Republicans aren’t on board just yet, but the pressure to get the farm bill passed and concern from states staring down high bills for their SNAP error rates may give Democrats just enough to win the battle at the right time.
Under the reconciliation signed into law last summer, states with SNAP payment error rates above 6% will be required to cover a share of costs for the first time beginning in fiscal year 2028, a dramatic shift from the program’s decades-long structure in which the federal government funded benefits entirely.
States with higher error rates face steeper cost-sharing obligations, topping out at 15% of benefits for states with error rates at or above 10%. Based on fiscal year 2024 data, 37 states would be on the hook under the new formula.
The law also includes a carve-out allowing states with especially high error rates to delay implementation by up to two years.
Democrats hope that Republican-led states with high error rates will pressure their Republican colleagues to consider giving all states more time. Ohio’s state Legislature acknowledged the expected incoming strain and passed a bill providing additional funding for the counties that administer SNAP in the state, while Texas found this week it may be facing a $700 million price tag of its own.
Senate Agriculture Committee Chair John Boozman has been unwilling to budge on SNAP changes in the farm bill so far, but acknowledged that compromise will have to happen somewhere.
“I’m committed to advancing Farm Bill 2.0, and in the Senate that requires bipartisan cooperation,” Boozman said in a statement. “We need 60 votes, so I welcome conversations with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle about how we can deliver long-term support for rural America. We all share the goal of getting a farm bill across the finish line and I’m focused on doing so in a cost-neutral way.”
Sen. John Hoeven, a Republican from North Dakota, told NOTUS delaying the cost-sharing for all states “would be very difficult to do.”
But he acknowledged Republicans will have to give something to the united Democratic front to gain support for the farm bill sooner rather than later.
“At the end of the day, you got to find a way to compromise and get together, that’s what we’re trying to do,” Hoeven said.
Meanwhile, farmers also addressed by the pending legislation are continuing to struggle.
Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies rose 46% in 2025, marking the third consecutive year of increases, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. Total farm debt is projected to rise to a record $624.7 billion in 2026, driven largely by the need for additional lines of credit simply to cover high input costs like fertilizer and equipment. Nearly 40% more new farm operating loans were opened in the fourth quarter of 2025 than in 2024, with the average operating loan 30% larger and taking three months longer to repay.
Many farmers seem to be growing frustrated with lawmakers: 73% of farmers in a recent Farm Journal poll of nearly 1,000 farmers and ranchers said their elected officials understand the realities farmers face “not very well” or “not at all.”