This piece unpacks the passage of H.R.1, aka the “One Big Beautiful Act”, and what it signals for those funding food, agriculture, and community power in this political moment. For questions or to continue the conversation, contact Maggie Mascarenhas, SAFSF Public Policy Manager.

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In early July, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, and President Trump managed to unite their fractious trifecta in D.C. behind a reconciliation package that slashes trillions of dollars in federal funds that support millions of poor and working class people, rural economies, and the environment in favor of disproportionate tax cuts for the affluent and corporations, and funding for ICE. 

Trump’s signature on the $1.5 trillion in spending cuts and $4.5 trillion in tax cuts that make up H.R.1, aka the “One Big Beautiful Act (OBBBA),” and the razor-thin majorities in Congress that got it to his desk show yet again that elections, long-term movement building, and media narratives matter. Ultimately, only 5 Republicans — Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Susan Collins of Maine — voted no despite the bill’s unpopularity. The fact that this “Megabill” is now law also makes even clearer the need to invest deeply in the community organizations and frontline leaders who are doing the work to build power and counter Project 2025. 

Below are some of the most relevant aspects of the 887-page law for food and agriculture funders. 

Impacts on food and agriculture funding

SNAP — The OBBBA cuts funding for SNAP by $186 billion through 2034, amounting to the largest cuts in the program’s history. It also places unprecedented demand on state budgets. As a result, millions of people are at risk of losing some or all of their SNAP benefits. This includes food chain workers who produce, process, and distribute so much of the food we eat, who are 60% more likely to rely on SNAP and 35% more likely to rely on public health insurance. Children who receive SNAP are also automatically eligible for free school meals and summer EBT, meaning cuts to SNAP jeopardize their access to other essential benefits. 

Specifically, the OBBBA: 

• Requires states to pay a portion of SNAP food cost benefits based on their error rates beginning in the fall of 2027, in addition to increased administrative costs. States with an error rate over 10 percent will be required to contribute a 15% match. Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski secured a last-minute carve-out for Alaska by introducing a delay provision for states with the highest error rates, however, this is only a one-time option.
  • Note that error rates are unintentional overpayments or underpayments; they are not the same thing as fraud (which in SNAP is rare). Some states have high error rates due to a combination of factors, such as staffing shortages, application volume, outdated technology, and administrative challenges posed by the end of pandemic-era flexibilities and the return to pre-pandemic rules. The combination of mandatory food cost-sharing and increased administrative match requirements, from 50 percent to 75 percent, will place unprecedented fiscal pressure on states. It is deeply concerning that states may be forced to cut or opt out of the program altogether if they cannot make up these costs. All 23 Democratic governors and a bipartisan group of Nebraska state legislators have expressed how harmful this provision will be for their states. 

• Restricts future adjustments to the Thrifty Food Plan, the basis for SNAP benefits, meaning that they will increase by less over time, even as food costs rise. 
• Dramatically expands work requirements by increasing the age limit from 54 to 64 for able-bodied adults without dependents, and adding parents with children 14 and older to those who must work at least 20 hours a week. 
• Removes people granted humanitarian protections from SNAP eligibility. Before OBBBA, refugees, people seeking asylum, survivors of domestic violence, and others granted humanitarian protections by the U.S. government were eligible for benefits. 
• Eliminates funding for the National Education and Obesity Prevention Grant Program (SNAP-ed), the largest nutrition education program in the country.  

Farm Programs — Congress included $67 billion for farm bill programs in the OBBBA that:

• Raise reference prices that USDA uses to subsidize farmers who produce commodities like corn and wheat under the Price Loss Coverage program (PLC) and the Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) program. As the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) notes, these provisions “increase payments to a small number of American farmers while leaving the vast majority of growers without updated help.” 
• Increase USDA’s commodity program payment limits from $125,000 to $155,000 for individuals and $310,000 for married couples. This new limit is also indexed to inflation for the first time, meaning it will be adjusted annually. 
• Eliminate income caps for farmers or entities that draw at least 75% of their income from agriculture or forestry. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley introduced an amendment to close loopholes and tighten the “actively engaged in farming” definition that informs commodity program payments, but ultimately did not force a vote to include it in the reconciliation package. 
• The OBBBA also rescinds unobligated Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funds for USDA’s Conservation Stewardship Program, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, and the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program, and permanently includes them in the farm bill baseline. However, targets to support climate-related practices within these programs have been removed. 

Impacts on health funding  

• The OBBBA includes the largest cuts to Medicaid in the program’s 60-year history, reducing spending by around $1 trillion from 2025 to 2034. The largest cuts come from expanding Medicaid work requirements ($326 billion), limiting state provider tax arrangements ($191 billion), and restricting state-directed Medicaid payments ($149 billion).
• Medicaid’s many different names are causing confusion, but as many as 11.8 million people will be at risk of losing coverage. Medicaid and the ACA marketplace are also critical sources of health insurance for farmers and their families. 2024 data shows that in congressional districts in farm states, combined enrollment in the Marketplace and Medicaid ranged from 14% to 51% of the total population. Farming is a way of life that involves significant exposure to injury and healthcare bills can be financially devastating. Access to healthcare saves lives and farms. 
• Nearly a third of all rural hospitals in the country are already at risk of shutting their doors. The OBBBA has accelerated this. In early July, a community hospital in southwest Nebraska that had operated for more than 30 years announced its closure was “driven by anticipated federal budget cuts to Medicaid.”

Impacts on climate funding

• The OBBBA largely erases the landmark investments in clean energy, jobs, and communities made in the Inflation Reduction Act, including:
  • Ending incentives for purchasing electric vehicles and efficient appliances, and phasing out tax credits for wind and solar energy. 
  • Rescinding billions in unobligated funding for a large swath of IRA programs, including the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), Environmental Justice Block Grants, and Climate Pollution Reduction Grants; DOE’s State-Based Home Energy Efficiency Contractor Training Grants; and DOT’s Neighborhood Access and Equity Program. 
• It opens up federal land and water for oil and gas drilling. 

What’s ahead 

• Farm Bill? NSAC notes that this bill ultimately “undermines Congress’s ability to pass a full, fair farm bill under normal order that would serve the diversity of American agriculture and food systems.” Republicans are still looking to pass a “skinny farm bill” that includes key policies that haven’t been updated since the last farm bill was passed in 2018, but they can’t do so without Democrats. House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Angie Craig has noted, “The Republican budget cut nearly $200 billion from SNAP, which certainly upends the traditional farm bill process. I’ll work with anyone to improve the lives of our farmers, but you can’t decimate a title of the farm bill and think it won’t negatively affect the bipartisan farm bill coalition and make future farm bills harder to pass.”

• Congress is now turning to appropriations, which will require Democratic support to pass in the Senate. The House Appropriations Committee advanced its Ag-FDA funding bill at the end of June, which would cut more than 4 percent of federal funding for USDA and FDA for FY2026. Conversely, the Senate Appropriations Committee’s agriculture funding bill would maintain USDA’s and FDA’s budgets at current levels. If Congress cannot negotiate spending levels by September 30, lawmakers will be forced to consider another stopgap.

• The OBBBA creates a steep cliff for tax cuts and restrictions to social safety net programs, teeing up key advocacy campaign opportunities in the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election. Even some conservative lawmakers, such as Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, have suggested they do not want these cuts to take effect, though he voted for the bill anyway. Both Democrats and Republicans representing districts with high Medicaid and SNAP enrollment rates should face mounting pressure to protect these programs. 

As we continue to witness the implications of this new law and the political context in which it was developed, we must not forget: another world is possible. Collectively, philanthropy, impact investors, farmers, movement groups, and other stakeholders must recalibrate strategy and align on a long-term push for change. This work requires long-term, flexible funding for general operations and policy advocacy for organizations. 

It is difficult to underscore just how important it is for funders to step up in this moment and respond to the threats posed by the federal funding cuts we’ve seen throughout 2025, which will now be further exacerbated by the OBBBA. June 2025 data from the SHOT Fund, for example, shows that 83% of grant applicants will alter ongoing work, and almost 50% of applicants will need to terminate staff in Q3 of this year. 

Supporting anchor organizations and giving them the breathing room to strategize and regenerate in the face of major disruption and the rise of fascism is deeply needed right now. The moment begs the question: if now isn’t the time to deploy every resource (financial and institutional) at your disposal, when is?

SAFSF members can learn more about how to support policy advocacy in this four-part series with Bolder Advocacy.