NCBA Shares Efforts on Farm Bill Items Remaining For Cattle Producers

The One Big Beautiful Bill, passed earlier this year, delivered several significant wins for the U.S. cattle industry. However, as lawmakers look ahead, some traditional farm bill issues remain unresolved and could still impact cattle producers. We caught up with Ethan Lane of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) to discuss what was included, what was left out, and what challenges remain on the policy front.

Lane noted that while other sectors of agriculture are still seeking support payments, the cattle industry is in a different phase of its economic cycle. “Still some challenges obviously with other parts of agriculture needing some support payments,” Lane said. “I mean obviously we’re in a different spot in our cycle for the cattle industry than row crop and some of those folks are.”

Even with many priorities addressed in the One Big Beautiful Bill, Lane pointed out that several outstanding issues continue to demand attention in Washington. One of the most significant is California’s Proposition 12 and potential fixes related to it. “There’s a lot of folks still on that I think in D.C. You have some some leftover issues like Prop 12, right, and the fix to Prop 12,” he said.

Lane also criticized pressure from activist groups that oppose modern animal agriculture. “You’ve got all the fake farmer animal rights groups, you know, in D.C. in their brand new cowboy hats,” he added. “So the the bad guys are out there definitely pushing the other direction on this.”