What the 2026 Farm Bill Means for Mills Like Ours

The House passed a farm bill this spring with some genuinely good-sounding programs. A new initiative to connect local farmers with food-insecure communities. Reauthorization of the Regional Food System Partnerships program. Simplified grant applications for local food markets. The names are encouraging. The funding is not.

What the Bill Actually Does

H.R. 7567, the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026, passed the full House 224–200 on April 30, 2026. The Senate has not yet acted on it.

The headline local food program, “Local Farmers Feeding our Communities,” authorizes $200 million annually. But authorization without mandatory funding is a placeholder, not a commitment. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, a nonpartisan farm policy organization, described it as “more mirage than reality.” Without mandatory appropriations, the program exists only if Congress chooses to fund it each year, which historically it often does not.

The Local Agriculture Market Program got streamlined paperwork but no new money. Value-Added Producer Grants, which help small producers like mills and creameries add processing capacity, were cut 56% in the FY2026 appropriations bill, from $11.5 million to $8 million. The bill does include a new Food Supply Chain Guaranteed Loan Program for processing and storage investments, which could in theory help small mills access capital. Whether it gets funded is a separate question.

Nothing in the bill specifically addresses regional grain infrastructure.

What Was Already Gone

While Congress was writing this bill, USDA was dismantling something else. In 2025, the agency terminated all 12 Regional Food Business Centers, a network that had provided market development, technical assistance, and access to capital for more than 5,000 farms and food businesses nationwide. Four centers were shut down immediately. The remaining eight continued until May 2026.

These were not abstract policy offices. They helped small food businesses navigate food safety requirements, find new markets, and access financing. When the funding was pulled, organizations had to cancel subcontracts, lay off staff, and leave farmers waiting months to find out whether promised grants would be paid.

The Regional Food System Partnerships program, which funded this kind of regional infrastructure work, is reauthorized in H.R. 7567. We received an RFSI grant through that program to install a new sifter, pneumatic conveyance system, and bulk flour bin at Woodson’s Mill. That equipment is on its way. The program that funded it is still technically on the books in the new bill. Just without guaranteed money behind it.

What Regional Grain Infrastructure Actually Is

The supply chain we operate looks like this: 18 farm partners across Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. Bloody Butcher corn from Five Maples Farm in Amherst County. Glenn/Bolles Red Wheat from 20/20 Farm in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. Buena Vista yellow corn from Buena Vista Farm in King & Queen County. Every bag we sell traces back to a named field.

We pay 3 to 4 times commodity rates, mill to order, and know every farmer by name. That’s not a policy proposal. It’s a working system that exists today, built largely independent of federal support, through farm relationships, wholesale accounts, and regional networks like the Common Grain Alliance, which connects farmers, millers, bakers, and brewers across the Mid-Atlantic.

What the farm bill is supposedly trying to build already exists at small scale across the region. The question the policy keeps failing to answer is whether it wants to support the real thing or just name programs after it.

The Gap Between the Name and the Money

This is not a partisan observation. The consolidation of American food systems, the gutting of regional milling and processing infrastructure, the squeeze on small farms — these have been bipartisan in practice across decades. The 2026 Farm Bill continues that pattern: programs authorized, underfunded, or cancelled.

We are not writing this as a complaint. Woodson’s Mill is operating, growing, and installing new equipment. Our farm partners are planting. Our bakers are baking. The regional grain economy in the Mid-Atlantic is more alive than it has been in decades, largely because people built it without waiting for Washington.

But if you buy flour from us and care about where it comes from, you should understand the policy environment these farms and mills are working in. The gap between what the farm bill promises and what it funds is the gap that small mills and their farm partners fill every season, whether the support comes or not.

Related: Why Woodson’s Mill Matters

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Deep Roots Milling ships nationally and delivers on regular routes throughout Virginia, DC, Maryland, and North Carolina. Learn more about wholesale accounts →