Mars, Inc. has retained Squire Patton Boggs to lobby on Farm Bill trade provisions, according to a disclosure tracked by Legis1. The trade title governs export promotion, market access, and tariff policy within the five-year agricultural statute (the omnibus law that funds commodity programs, crop insurance, conservation, trade, and nutrition assistance).

The engagement places the McLean, Virginia-based confectioner and pet food manufacturer among an expanding roster of food and beverage processors hiring outside counsel as Congress works toward reauthorization. Mars, with annual sales commonly cited above $50 billion in private financial reports, posts revenue several times that of publicly traded peer Hershey, which reported $11.2 billion in fiscal 2023.

What is the Farm Bill's current status?

The 2018 Farm Bill, formally the Agriculture Improvement Act, expired September 30, 2023. Congress extended program authorities through September 30, 2024, via a continuing resolution (a stopgap measure that keeps prior-year funding in force). House Agriculture Committee chair Glenn Thompson advanced the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024 on a party-line vote in May 2024. The Senate Agriculture Committee has circulated its own framework, but floor votes in either chamber remain unscheduled. If no successor or further extension passes, the statute reverts to 1938 and 1949 permanent law, the original farm program statutes still on the books. Lawmakers in both parties have publicly committed to avoiding that outcome.

Why does the trade title matter to a confectioner?

Mars purchases sugar, cocoa, dairy, corn, wheat, and specialty ingredients through U.S. and international supply chains. The company exports finished products to more than 100 countries. That footprint exposes Mars to two sides of Farm Bill trade policy. On the import side, sugar program quotas (federal limits on domestic sugar marketing that hold U.S. prices above world levels) and country-of-origin labeling shape input costs. On the export side, the Market Access Program (MAP), a USDA-administered cost-share that funds overseas marketing for U.S. food and agricultural products, and the Foreign Market Development program (FMD), which underwrites long-term market building, set the public-sector support that complements private export budgets.

Sugar is the single largest commodity input line for most confectioners. A one-cent-per-pound move in the U.S. wholesale price, applied across the volume the largest buyers purchase, shifts annual procurement budgets in the tens of millions of dollars.

What is the firm's role?

Squire Patton Boggs fields a federal policy practice that regularly represents food, agribusiness, and trade clients before Congress and USDA (the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers most Farm Bill programs). The firm appears on multiple 2024 Farm Bill-related registrations filed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 (the statute requiring quarterly disclosure of paid federal lobbying activity).

The Legis1 notice did not name the registered lobbyists handling the Mars account, specify the engagement's duration, or detail compensation terms. Mars, a privately held company, does not publicly disclose lobbying expenditures.

What changes are processors watching?

The trade title is widely expected to attract amendments on country-of-origin labeling, sugar program allocations, and the funding trajectory for MAP and FMD. Producer groups and processors have split in past cycles over whether to expand or cap export-promotion appropriations. For a manufacturer with both import and export exposure, the title carries direct margin implications through input costs, tariff treatment, and federal support that underwrites demand-building in foreign markets.

If the committees fold trade-title revisions into a five-year package, Mars' new counsel will help determine how those provisions read for the next procurement and planting cycle.