The 2026 AgGateway Annual Meeting & Conference this week in Nashville featured an ag policy update from one of the most well-respected analysts in the industry. Mary Kay Thatcher has been working for agriculture in Washington D.C. for over 40 years between her work with American Farm Bureau and then Syngenta.
Considering the new Congress that will be taking over in January, Thatcher says there’s a lot of opportunity for agriculture to educate some new members. “We’re going to have more new members of Congress than we’ve had in a very long time, 20% in the Senate, new members, and 25% in the House. So certainly it’s going to be a lot of work to get to know those folks, to do some education, to try to get them on our friendship side, but the opportunities are really great,” said Thatcher.
While there will be many new faces on the agriculture committees, Thatcher says there are many other committees that impact the industry. “It’s always sexy to say who’s going to be on the Senate Ag Committee, who’s going to be on the House Ag Committee, and certainly those are important, but the fact is a lot of the issues that we really care about in agriculture don’t go through the Ag Committee,” Thatcher said. “Think about immigration policy, taxes, trade, water resources and all the money for transportation issues, environmental regs, oversight of EPA, none of those things come through the Ag Committee. They come through commerce and energy and commerce and environment and ways and means, et cetera. So we need to focus on making sure that we have people who understand agriculture represented on those committees, too.”
As far as the rest of this Congress goes, Thatcher does not expect much. “I don’t look for a lot to happen in lame duck, hence the name lame duck, but there are some things. I mean, we run out of federal government funding on December 11th, so we have got to pass an extension of that or the government shuts down….And then I think we have to do a farm bill extension. Everyone would like there to be a full skinny farm bill or farm bill part two, whatever you call it. I think that’s less likely than an extension. Extension will get done. And then beyond that, it’s kind of anybody’s guess about how hard do people really want to work.”
Hear more of MKT’s election reaction and comments on ag policy in this interview:
Interview with Mary Kay Thatcher 12:40