Congress has roughly three weeks of legislative calendar left before a new Congress convenes in January, and Senate Agriculture Chairman John Boozman says that window decides whether farmers get a five-year farm bill this year or another round of drift.

The Arkansas Republican wants committee leaders to use the current five-week recess to lock down a bipartisan deal that can pass the Senate before year's end. Ranking Member Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and panel members from both parties say they are ready to negotiate. But a single issue — when new state SNAP cost-share requirements take effect — now sits between the parties with neither side showing movement.

The dispute dates to the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which requires certain states to pay a portion of SNAP benefit costs for the first time ever starting October 2027. States with SNAP payment error rates of 6% or greater face the new costs, including Klobuchar's home state of Minnesota. Republicans call the requirement an incentive for states to fix a broken system and get below 6%. Democrats argue states need more time and that the current structure favors states with the highest error rates, like Alaska, over those with mid-level rates.

A White House-backed compromise would give states a one-year delay. Boozman calls it the final and best offer.

"While I appreciate that Chairman Boozman acknowledged that there are problems with the SNAP cost shift to states and counties, the current proposal still advantages states with high error rates over states with mid-level error rates, and I am hopeful we can fix it," Klobuchar said in a statement to Agri-Pulse.

Boozman warns that rejecting the one-year delay risks leaving states with no cushion at all.

"If we're not careful, we're not going to be helping farmers, and we're not going to have any delay, and that's going to cost the states many billions of dollars," he told Agri-Pulse.

The longest reauthorization in history

Congress has not passed a comprehensive farm bill since 2018, relying instead on extensions and piecemeal actions. The most recent extension expired Sept. 30, though funding runs through the end of the year. According to the Congressional Research Service, the current reauthorization period is the longest in the legislation's 62-year history, and it is the first farm bill partly completed through budget reconciliation, which lets the Senate bypass the usual 60-vote threshold.

The 2025 OBBBA already updated key programs, including agriculture safety nets. The House-passed and Senate-proposed farm bills would address the remaining items, such as farm loan limits. The Senate committee bill, which advanced last month with no Democratic support, includes voluntary year-round sales of higher ethanol blends — E15 — and modernized loan limits, provisions Klobuchar flagged as "good things" in the legislation.

The National Governors Association and other state and local officials have called for delaying both the benefit costs and new administrative costs.

Lame-duck math

Boozman said he does not know whether the Four Corners — the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate and House agriculture committees — will talk directly over recess, but said they are "texting." His plan calls for working out a deal and bringing a final version to the floor after lawmakers return Nov. 9, following the Nov. 3 midterms.

"The bill is a good bill. There's 100 bills in there that were created by Democrats and Republicans. There's probably more Democratic bills in there than there are Republican bills, but it's good policy, so it's just a matter of getting the election over," Boozman said. "Farmers don't need to be a hostage; they have nothing to do with SNAP."

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, had pushed for a pre-recess floor vote to put Democrats on record before the midterms. "Democrats should pay at the ballot box for obstructing the farm bill, and the reason I say that is because this is the seventh five-year farm bill I've been involved with, and this is the first one that has never been bipartisan," he said on a weekly call with reporters. Some of the tightest races that could decide control of Congress in 2027-28 are in top farm states like Iowa and Ohio.

Democrats signal openness without conceding the timeline. "We have to find a way to pass a farm bill," said Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado. "I hope we're going to continue to have the conversations, not just in October, but through the election." Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont said he wants a bill while still pushing the two-year delay. Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota said negotiating over recess would position Congress to finish by year's end but deferred to Klobuchar.

"A two-year delay is already a massive retreat from the damage that's been done by these SNAP cuts," Smith said. "I think it's eminently doable, and it's of course really good for Republican constituents and red counties." She confirmed that if Democrats retake the House and Senate, their goal would be eliminating the cost-share requirement altogether.

For now, Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., put the burden on the majority. "The Republicans are in the majority, and I've not heard a word from them," he said.

Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., urged Democrats to take the one-year deal and keep working to extend or change it later. "They might as well take the agreement... and then they're not holding up our farmers," he said. "I think they're going to hear from our farmers over break."

If Democrats win one or both chambers on Nov. 3, they may calculate that waiting for full control beats cutting a deal now — a scenario that could push farm loan limit updates and the E15 provision into the next Congress.