When the U.S. House of Representatives voted down the farm bill legislation on May 18 for only the second time in modern history, but also the second time in the past five years, it confirmed a growing challenge for farm policy.

The House voted 213 to 198 against HR 2, the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018. Only Republicans voted for the bill. All of the Democrats that voted joined 30 Republicans to vote "no" and defeat the bill. Procedural moves after the vote laid the groundwork for another vote on the bill in late June, but the "no" votes told a story of the difficulty of developing and delivering this year's farm bill across the finish line.

The House Agriculture Committee marked up the legislation under similar strained debate, as Democrats on the committee offered speeches — but no amendments and no votes for a bill — over concerns with cuts to food assistance. Chairman Michael Conaway, R-Texas, proposed legislation that essentially kept budget dollars flat in the nutrition title, but shifted some spending away from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program toward job training and education programs for SNAP recipients.

The goal of transitioning people from SNAP benefits to gainful employment and education seems to be a readily accepted ideal. But when the policy changes to enforce work, or training requirements reduce benefits or enrollment, it also looks like and is often described by SNAP supporters as a cut in benefits. Additional language in the House farm bill to tighten eligibility rules and benefit calculations would definitely lead to a cut in SNAP support for some individuals and households. Even when the reduced benefits were reinvested in expanded job training and education, the overall response from Democrats was a unanimous "no" from those in committee and on the floor of the House.

The farm bill could still have moved through the House in May with only Republican support, and that seemed to be Conaway's strategy in veering to the political right with the proposed SNAP changes. However, about half of the right-wing Freedom Caucus voted against the bill, presumably not over specific complaints with the legislation, but as part of a political strategy to force a vote on a separate conservative immigration bill. When an about equal number of moderate Republicans also voted no, some with concerns over reductions in SNAP benefits for their respective constituents, the bill was doomed to fail.

Regardless of whether the House Democrats, the Freedom Caucus or Conaway's decision to push ahead to an uncertain vote are to blame, the failed vote was harmful to the farm bill process, even if it was no longer historic.

The House also failed to pass the last farm bill in June 2013 when it came up for a vote, and lost left-wing Democratic support over proposed SNAP cuts and right-wing Republican support over insufficient spending cuts to both SNAP and farm income support programs (commodity programs and crop insurance). After the failed vote in 2013, separate farm legislation passed in July.

A nutrition title revised with greater SNAP cuts to attract additional Republican votes was approved in September. However, for all the House action to fight for and eventually vote on significant cuts to SNAP, the bill still had to be compromised with a much more moderate Senate bill that had sufficient bipartisan support to pass out of that chamber. The final bill, signed into law in February 2014, settled on SNAP cuts much more in line with the Senate version than the House. That same fate seems likely to await the House legislation this time around, suggesting that both sides of the aisle in the House are fighting for legislation that can't effectively work in the final bill regardless.

The outlook from here is uncertain. The motion to reconsider the farm bill vote in the House suggests a late June vote, only after the Freedom Caucus has garnered its vote on conservative immigration legislation. In the meantime, the Senate Agriculture Committee was slated to begin markup on legislation in early June, with expectations for a much more moderate, bipartisan bill given the need for 60 votes to clear that chamber.

If both chambers move forward successfully, we could have both bills ready to go to conference between the time this column appears online in late May and the time it hits the mailbox in July. Even if we do, that doesn't guarantee a final bill before the current farm bill expires in September.

Given the expected major differences between the two chambers, the conference committee deliberations could be extremely difficult. Getting a compromise bill done and voted on before the end of September could give policymakers the ability to tout a completed farm bill back home on the campaign trail just in time for the November election. However, it also could be easier to campaign on what is being fought for in the final bill as opposed to what is accepted in a final compromise. That would point toward a final compromise and vote in a lame-duck session of Congress after the election. Then again, if the election creates a substantial power shift in either direction, there could be pressure to push a simple extension of current legislation and tackle the overall bill again in a new Congress in 2019.

The uncertainty with the farm bill debate and the rising partisan rhetoric simply adds more and more risk for producers. For a farm bill that is supposedly designed to help alleviate risk for agriculture, it is ironic and disappointing that the farm bill process itself has become so risky and unpredictable.

Unfortunately, that has become the case with more and more legislation in Congress. It is not just that proposals and deliberations have become more partisan, it is that even within each party, there seems to be sharper divisions and political battles over everything except which party to support for leadership. It makes crafting and delivering major legislation extremely challenging and makes it that much more important for agricultural producers and policy stakeholders to remain alert and engaged in the process.

Lubben is an Extension policy specialist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.