The Senate Agriculture Committee approved a farm bill on Tuesday, costing $500 billion over a decade, that would expand the scope of the federally subsidized crop insurance program and modestly trim spending on food stamps for the poor.
The 1,000-page bill now goes to the Senate floor, where a vote could be called as soon as this month.
The House Agriculture Committee was scheduled to draft its farm bill on Wednesday. The new five-year farm law is months overdue after an election-year deadlock in 2012.
Expansion of crop insurance in the Senate bill would be part of a broad remodeling of farm subsidies. Most notably the $5 billion a year direct-payment subsidy to farmers, long a target of reformers, would end.
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