U.S. food policy is in flux. President Trump has not said much about the topic directly, but he has taken a private meeting with executives from Bayer and Monsanto, whose pending merger would reshape the global agrochemical and seed industry. His nominee for Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, appears to be a staunch supporter of Big Ag interests, and a Florida congressman introduced a bill in January that would effectively do away with the Environmental Protection Agency, despite its ongoing work on pesticide regulations.

Against this backdrop, the Farm Bill, a trillion-dollar omnibus law passed every five years, is once again on the table.

That is the assessment from Leah Douglas, a reporter and policy analyst at the Open Markets program at New America, a think tank focused on American politics.

Douglas was on hand as food and agriculture policy experts from around the country met to discuss the 2018 Farm Bill. The discussion was hosted by AGree, a biparti