Key priorities left out of final package, despite bipartisan support
Congress passed legislation in the early hours of the morning to fund the government through March 14, 2025, and extend the 2018 Farm Bill through September 30, 2025. The agreement avoids a government shutdown over the holidays and ensures that farm bill programs like the Conservation Reserve Program will be authorized to provide habitat enrollments throughout the next year, while also providing much needed economic assistance and disaster relief to agricultural producers.
Unfortunately, the legislation does not incorporate $14.5 billion in conservation funding from the Inflation Reduction Act into the conservation title of the farm bill, a move that enjoys bipartisan support and would provide highly successful and oversubscribed voluntary conservation programs with long-term, historic funding. Congress also failed to provide stopgap funding for the Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program, leaving the only federal program supporting public access on private lands without funding for 2025.
“Upland hunters and conservationists are pleased Congress reached an agreement to keep the government open and provide essential funding for agricultural producers, but we are profoundly disappointed that lawmakers squandered a critical opportunity to reallocate more than $14 billion into the farm bill’s conservation title. It is unfathomable that such a popular, paid-for, permanent boost for conservation was excluded from this year-end deal,” says Ariel Wiegard, vice president of government affairs for Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever. “We thank the Agriculture Committee leaders and the many members of Congress who have championed these investments, and we urge Congress to act swiftly in 2025 to lock in these vital funds for our producers, habitat, wildlife, and sporting community.”
About Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever
Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever make up the nation’s largest nonprofit organization dedicated to upland habitat conservation. This community of more than 477,000 members, supporters and partners is dedicated to the protection of our uplands through habitat improvement, public access, education and advocacy. A network of 754 local chapters spread across North America determine how 100 percent of their locally raised funds are spent — the only national conservation organization that operates through this grassroots structure. Since its creation in 1982, the organization has dedicated more than $1 billion to 580,000 habitat projects benefiting 28.8 million acres.
