Hoard's Dairyman:
Ag committees head toward new leadership
September 14, 2026
By Trey Forsyth, Vice President, Government & Regulatory Affairs
Whatever the outcome of this year’s midterms, agriculture is about to get a fresh set of hands on the wheel in Washington. Both the House and Senate Agriculture committees are heading toward new leadership in the next Congress, and the choices both parties make could shape farm policy for years beyond the current farm bill fight.
The clearest opening is on the House Agriculture Committee, where Ranking Member Angie Craig, (D-Minn.), gave up her seat this cycle to run for Minnesota’s open U.S. Senate seat, guaranteeing a new top Democrat on the panel next year. House Agriculture Committee Vice Ranking Member Shontel Brown, (D-Ohio), has already expressed interest with her colleagues in taking the top job, and others on the committee may throw their name in the ring as well.
On the Republican side, Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, (R-Pa.), has reached his six-year term limit under House GOP conference rules and has asked leadership for a waiver to stay on. If that request is denied, Republicans will be picking their own new leader as well, with Rep. Austin Scott, (R-Ga.), reportedly already making his case for the gavel.
The Senate is set for a similar transition. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, (D-Minn.), ranking member of the Senate on the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, is running for Minnesota governor this fall. If she wins in November, she’ll resign her Senate seat, opening a path for other Democrats on the committee to step into a bigger role. Sen. Michael Bennet, (D-Colo.), who lost his bid for Colorado governor earlier this year, is the next most senior senator on committee and is among those positioned to take on more responsibility for the panel’s Democrats.
All of this is happening as Congress tries to close out the farm bill. The last full reauthorization expired in 2023, and lawmakers have been filling the gap piece-by-piece — first through last year’s reconciliation package, and now through Chairman John Boozman’s, (R-Ark.), “Farm Bill 2.0” effort in the Senate, which follows the House’s April passage of the Farm, Food, and National Security Act. With only a handful of legislative days left before the election, and Congress not expected back until mid-November, there’s still a chance the bill gets finished during the lame-duck session.
That timing could work in farmers’ favor. Lawmakers who’ve spent months negotiating the details have every incentive to close the deal before new committee leadership resets the conversation. A lame-duck farm bill, built on the progress already made this Congress, could be the more efficient path, sparing the incoming chairs and ranking members from having to relitigate fights that are already close to resolved.
If the bill slips past the lame duck, it will fall to a new slate of leaders on both committees to pick the negotiations back up in the next Congress — a fresh cast of members getting up to speed on a bill that’s already been through years of hearings, markups, and compromise. That’s a real setback for farmers who need certainty now. The progress made this Congress is worth finishing this Congress, giving new leadership on the agriculture committees a clean foundation to build on rather than an unfinished fight to inherit.
This column originally appeared in Hoard’s Dairyman Intel on Sept. 14, 2026.
