Republicans and Democrats have bickered over versions of the farm bill with both sides finding their largest disagreements remain over SNAP benefits.

The GOP favors less money for SNAP but more for farmers, while Democrats are weighing the opposite — potentially setting the stage for a delay in the bill’s renewal.

The bill is set to expire on Sept. 30, giving Congress over three months to decide on a new version, which was put off to this year after its scheduled renewal in 2023. The farm bill is decided on every five years and features a variety of stipulations designed to benefit the agriculture industry and several other programs such as SNAP.

Lawmakers say the bill’s current form may be extended to accommodate their disagreements, a move Democrats appear to be fine with given it preserves SNAP in its current form for longer.

“I’m not going to support a bad bill,” Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, told the Washington Post after agreeing on a delay.

The committee’s top Republican, Sen. John Boozman (R-AR), agreed.

“If we don’t make meaningful improvements, if we don’t put more farm in the farm bill, we’re better off not having a new farm bill,” Boozman said.

That extension could run until after the November general election into Congress’s “lame-duck” session before new members take office in January 2025. Even then, the impasse appears difficult to overcome.

The funding that Republicans need for farms, likely going toward raising price floors for agricultural commodities, would come from limiting increases in SNAP benefits.

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Former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the first farm bill, then titled the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, as part of the New Deal.

It became the core of critical legislation to support farmers over the years but has since evolved to include many other benefits to Americans such as SNAP and increasing availability of nutritious food.