America’s consumers want affordable food bills. Our country’s agricultural producers want dependable and stable markets. And American taxpayers want the federal government to cut wasteful spending.

These demands for affordability, market stability and government accountability create an opportunity as members of Congress put together a new federal farm bill, a task that must be done every five years.

The farm bill’s impacts touch every American household, which is not surprising for a federal program of this size. The last farm bill, passed in 2018, will likely cost taxpayers a record $1.4 trillion.

Crafting far-reaching legislation like this takes many months of meetings with agricultural stakeholders, the holding of congressional hearings, writing of reports and hard work by people around the country.

U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-15th District, chairs the House Agriculture Committee, meaning he is in the driver’s seat as stakeholders come together to negotiate the provisions of this year’s farm bill.

Chairman Thompson has a track record of calling for cuts in government spending, and since both political parties seek to prevent wasteful government spending, the new farm bill provides a rare opportunity to forge bipartisan consensus on this major legislative priority.

Members of Congress can enact common-sense, cost-effective cuts to wasteful farm subsidy programs while also trimming federal crop insurance subsidies. Cutting costly taxpayer subsidies to these two programs alone could save taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.

Cutting these wasteful subsidies would also provide benefits to smaller and beginning farmers, most of whom receive no federal subsidies at all. This is because in farm bills until now, most subsidies flow to large landowners and producers, so scaling back subsidies will alleviate upward pressure on land prices. This would provide significant benefits to new and beginning farmers and offer new prospects for rural communities and family farms around the country.

The agriculture sector as a whole has been incredibly profitable, with farm income growing faster than costs. In fact, net farm income in 2022 reached a 50-year high.

The profitable state of America’s overall agricultural sector shows this year’s farm bill offers opportunities to target federal support toward those in true need and toward actual farmers, instead of sending endless subsidies to millionaires, billionaires, nonfarmers and absentee owners who live in big cities or even foreign countries.

Targeted investments in the agricultural sector pay great dividends, and Agriculture Committee members should examine investments in cost-effective agriculture conservation projects that currently receive significantly more applications from farmers than the government has money to fund.

These targeted taxpayer investments could improve farmer profitability, reduce the need for expensive inputs such as fertilizer, and build resilience to various challenges that agricultural producers face.

As farmers in Pennsylvania and around the nation deal with increasingly frequent and costly extreme weather events such as droughts, floods and withering heat waves, building resilience into farm bill investments is more important than ever.

Building resilience into the farm bill would reduce or even negate the need for future federally subsidized disaster bailouts and other subsidies, saving taxpayers billions of dollars each year.

Agriculture Committee members can harvest many more ways to stretch taxpayer dollars further, such as implementing more cost-share programs — and Thompson has supported cost-share programs in the past. Technical assistance investments in conservation can also be increased, in addition to supporting education, university research programs and agricultural extension services.

Wise investments like these would help reach more producers at a lower cost and increase the impact of every tax dollar invested in local farmers and rural communities.

Taxpayers and farmers alike deserve a farm safety net that is focused on true need, is fiscally responsible and fosters resilience, instead of dependence, on federal subsidies.

Chairman Thompson can help make these goals a reality, saving taxpayer dollars and improving opportunities for farmers in his own district and around the country.