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A Farm Bill Worth the Wait: What the Next One Could Mean for Specialty Crops

23 July 2026 | Crop Insurance 101, Thought Leaders

A conversation with Jeff Sands, Vice President of Federal Affairs at Rural Community Insurance Services (RCIS)

The next Farm Bill is taking shape in Washington right now, and for the first time in years, specialty crops are near the center of the conversation. It has been eight years since the last full authorization, a stretch in which lawmakers, growers, agents, and insurers have had time to study what works, learn from one another, and identify where the federal safety net can do better. The bills now moving through Congress reflect that learning, with more attention to specialty crops than the program has seen in a generation.

To understand what that means for growers and the agents who serve them, we sat down with Jeff Sands, Vice President of Federal Affairs at Rural Community Insurance Services (RCIS), for a view from Capitol Hill.

From agronomy to advocacy

Jeff’s path to crop insurance policy began in the field, not in politics. His first degree was in agronomy, and his first job was as an assistant golf course superintendent. That hands-on grounding carried him through two tours on Capitol Hill in the House of Representatives and a career on the input side of agriculture, including government affairs roles with the Agricultural Retailers Association, Syngenta, and the USA Rice Federation. He joined RCIS in 2021, where he advocates for crop insurance and the shared interests of growers and agents before the federal government. RCIS writes policies in all fifty states, which gives him an unusually wide window into how the program performs across every crop and region. During the 2025 budget reconciliation process, he played an instrumental role in securing provisions that strengthened compensation for agents and Approved Insurance Providers (AIPs).

“Crop insurance is probably the most fun thing that I’ve done in my ag policy career,” he told us. It is a sentiment we hear often in this industry, where the work is dynamic, the community is close, and the mission of protecting farm operations keeps people engaged for entire careers.

Where the Farm Bill stands

The last full Farm Bill was enacted in 2018, and Congress has operated on extensions since. That is beginning to change. The House passed its version, the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 (H.R. 7567), by a vote of 224 to 200 this spring. The Senate Agriculture Committee followed in late June with its own draft, the Agricultural Act of 2026, with committee consideration expected in July. Both build on the 2025 reconciliation bill, which Jeff describes as “a tremendous benefit to our risk management in the farm safety net.”

Jeff is optimistic that Congress can complete a bill by the end of the year, while acknowledging that the political environment makes any timeline uncertain. The stakes for growers are concrete: a finished Farm Bill would give producers and agents multi-year certainty about the safety net they plan their operations around, rather than another season of short-term extensions.

What encourages him most is what both chambers already agree on. The proposals “maintain private sector delivery as a pillar of the farm safety net,” he said, and they “protect premium support and affordability.” The program growers rely on is being reinforced, not renegotiated.

Making room for specialty crops

Federal crop insurance was built on large-acreage commodities with deep, uniform data. Four crops (corn, soybeans, wheat, and cotton) typically account for more than 70% of total enrolled acres. Specialty crops, by contrast, generated a farm-level market value of $115 billion across roughly 240,000 farms in the 2022 Census of Agriculture, yet specialty crop policies and Whole-Farm Revenue Protection combined accounted for only about 17% of the federal portfolio by liability as of the most recent Congressional Research Service analysis. Many high-value crops still lack individual policies, leaving Whole-Farm Revenue Protection as a catch-all.

So is the skepticism some specialty crop growers feel justified? Jeff’s answer: “It’s understandable, but I don’t think it’s necessarily justified anymore.”

His argument is that the challenge was never a lack of recognition. “When you think about specialty crops, in a lot of cases, it’s what people put on the table,” he said. The challenge is mechanical: thin actuarial data, enormous crop diversity, regional market variation, and limited loss history. Sound insurance products require sound data, and for many specialty crops that data simply has not existed in a usable form.

The difference now, in his view: “I feel like they have started asking the right questions.”

He points to specific provisions in the bills on the table: a specialty crop emergency assistance framework, new investment in specialty crop research, and a price discovery library in the House package that would build the pricing data infrastructure the USDA Risk Management Agency needs to develop new products. The House bill also expands research and development for blueberries, pulse crops, and other underserved commodities.

“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Jeff said. “But now I feel like there’s some building blocks that are acknowledged to maybe move this down the path.”

Your voice counts more than you think

For agents and growers who feel that policy gets decided behind closed doors, Jeff offers a different picture from inside the process. “Lawmakers are human beings, and so are their staff,” he said. His formula: be specific, be persistent, and get engaged.

In practice, that means joining the organizations that shape policy, such as the International Fresh Produce Association, Western Growers, your state Farm Bureau, or your commodity association. Local input feeds state positions, state positions feed national priorities, and national priorities move legislation. Even responding to an action alert makes a measurable difference. “Most people consider 30% a good level of response,” Jeff said. “Imagine if that’s a hundred. That goes in, that changes minds and influences outcomes.”

Agents have a particular role in this exchange. “They see the field level, and they have valuable information,” Jeff told us. He describes the relationship as symbiotic: he translates Washington for the field, and the field-level perspective he hears back informs what he carries to Capitol Hill. What is missing for growers, what products fall short, and where the program can improve are exactly the insights lawmakers cannot gather on their own.

The five-year view

Asked what the landscape looks like in 2031, Jeff is clear about what he is working toward: a stronger core safety net, better specialty crop access, faster product development, and a stronger role for agents and AIPs.

“This is without a doubt the pillar of the farm safety net that folks can rely on year in, year out,” he said.

Jeff hopes to be back talking to Insure.ag at the end of 2026, discussing a Farm Bill that has crossed the finish line and what its provisions mean in practice for specialty crop operations.

The takeaway for growers: The next Farm Bill is being written now, and specialty crops have more momentum than they have had in a generation. Talk to your agent, join your trade association, and respond to the next action alert that lands in your inbox. The process works better when practitioners are part of it.

 

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