By John Darovec, Coty Keller and Marshall Ruetz, Florida Veterans for Common Sense
We at Florida Veterans for Common Sense advocate for a good farm bill. We want active-duty military, veterans and all people to have healthful food — and we insist that agriculture be done in ways that keep our planet sustainable for future generations.
Recent budget changes and the farm bill
The 2018 farm bill should have been updated about three years ago, but instead it has mostly been extended rather than fully renewed. In 2025, Congress passed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” a large budget package that moved many issues normally handled in the farm bill into a different law. That law significantly reduced future federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funding and increased the emphasis on support for large-scale commodity agriculture.
Because of these decisions, Congress is now working with a smaller set of farm bill issues. Even so, there is still an important opportunity — and responsibility — to rebuild a farm bill that supports nutritious food, strong communities and healthy land.
Commodity subsidies vs. nourishing food
Florida Veterans for Common Sense has called for redirecting or eliminating subsidies from commodity programs so that those funds support sustainable farming instead. We continue to believe subsidies for commodity products like corn and soybeans should be phased down when they do not contribute to nourishing food for people.
We recognize that many commodity farmers — including family farms throughout the country — are not “Big Ag” corporations and often operate responsibly. The concern is a subsidy system that overwhelmingly rewards production of corn and soy used mainly for animal feed, fuels and ingredients in highly processed junk food, rather than for healthy food like corn on the cob or edamame.
As author and professor Michael Pollan recently emphasized, current subsidies tilt toward “the least healthy calories in the diet,” and we need to shift support toward the healthiest calories and toward practices that protect both people and the environment.
Helping farmers transition to new methods
Government subsidies for farmers are nothing new. We believe they should now be used to help farmers move away from harmful “conventional” chemical-intensive practices and toward nonpetrochemical, nontoxic methods such as regenerative agriculture.
Drawing on the experience of small, biodynamic farmers, we support a policy of guaranteed income or transition support for two to three years for small farmers who commit to shifting from chemical-dependent methods to nonharmful, ecology-based practices.
This would give farmers the time and security they need to change how they farm — adjusting rotations, rebuilding soil, learning new methods—without risking the loss of their farms. In the long run, this would be a small price to pay for healthier food, healthier communities and a stable climate.
Practices that belong in a good farm bill
We support farm bill provisions that:
- Protect the health of farmworkers, including safeguards from extreme heat, pesticides and unsafe working conditions.
- Break up or curb food-processing monopolies that concentrate power and squeeze both farmers and consumers.
- Provide strong clean energy incentives for farms and rural communities.
- Promote clean water through better fertilizer and manure management, and protection of wetlands and streams.
- Invest in reforestation and agroforestry that restore forests and store carbon.
- Encourage and support ecology-based conservation and farming that rebuild soil, protect biodiversity and increase resilience to droughts, floods and storms.
- Maintain and strengthen SNAP so families — including many veterans — can afford nutritious food.
- Provide two to three years of guaranteed income for small farmers transitioning from harmful methods to ecology-based methods, as described above.
Practices that do not belong in a good farm bill
We oppose farm bill provisions that:
- Continue subsidies for commodity products (especially corn and soybeans) when they primarily feed industrial uses and ultra-processed foods rather than providing healthy food for people.
- Grant corporate immunity from liability for harm caused by pesticides, herbicides and other toxic agricultural chemicals.
- Preempt local or state authority from adopting stronger health, environmental or land-use protections.
- Exempt agricultural operations from review by environmental and public health agencies, allowing pollution and habitat loss to go unchecked.
The mission: Stand together for stronger farms and healthier food on a livable planet
We’ve defended our country before, and now we’re called to defend what keeps it alive — our food, our farmers and our future. A truly good farm bill puts people before profits, stewardship before exploitation and nourishment before neglect.
Let’s stand together — veterans, farmers, families and citizens — to demand a farm bill that feeds America with integrity and ensures that the land we love can feed generations to come.
John Darovec, Coty Keller and Marschal Ruetz are veterans and members of the Environmental Working Group at Florida Veterans for Common Sense, an all-volunteer nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy organization of veterans from Vietnam to the Afghanistan/Iraq era. Banner photo: A farmer tills a field (iStock image).
Sign up for The Invading Sea newsletter by visiting here. To support The Invading Sea, click here to make a donation. If you are interested in submitting an opinion piece to The Invading Sea, email Editor Nathan Crabbe.
Impressive! Thanks for sharing this.