SALEM, Ohio — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro signed the state’s 2025-26 budget on Nov. 12 after a four-month-long budget impasse. The $50 billion budget includes over $220 million for the agriculture department, $40 million less than the previous year.
The bulk of cuts to agriculture came from the Agricultural Preparedness and Response line item. Funding to that program dropped from $34 million in the 2024-25 budget to $9 million in the 2025-26 budget.
The program funds the state’s avian flu emergency response. Pennsylvania farmers received $15.7 million in funding this year through the HPAI Recovery Grant program to help them recover from bird flu losses.
Lawmakers, however, restored the Agriculture Excellence line item funding to $4.1 million; Shapiro previously suggested a $800,000 reduction, which would have threatened the Pennsylvania Beef Council’s PA Beef to PA Schools program that helps schools source local, nutritious beef from Pennsylvania farms.
The majority of agriculture funding was the same as last year. Food assistance saw the biggest funding increase, receiving $11 million more in funding than the previous budget.
This includes an additional $3 million for the State Food Purchase Program, $1 million to the Pennsylvania Agricultural Surplus System, $5 million for Pennsylvania food banks and $2 million for the new State Food Bucks program to supplement the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
SNAP has taken a significant hit after the federal government shutdown lasted over a month, halting funding and leaving SNAP recipients and food banks scrambling. Farmers’ Market Food Coupons also received a $7 million increase.
Additionally, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection received a $12 million budget increase for environmental protection operations and environmental program management.
The budget, however, excludes Pennsylvania from participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cooperative program made up of New England states that caps and reduces carbon emissions and requires power plant operators to pay for their carbon emissions.
Pennsylvania joined the initiative in 2022 following an executive order by former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf in 2019. But in 2023, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court struck down the state’s bid to join, saying it was unconstitutional.
The 2025-26 budget officially withdrew the state from the RGGI initiative. Pennsylvania would have been the first fossil fuel-producing state to join.
State Rep. Greg Vitali, a democrat and chair of the Environmental and Natural Resource Committee, criticized the move as a trade-off to pass the budget.
“Frankly, it’s a typical annual budgetary dynamic where the Republicans insist on bad provisions for the environment and the Democrats are willing to exchange that for other things,” Vitali said.
(Liz Partsch can be reached at epartsch@farmanddairy.com or 330-337-3419.)
Greg Vitali always has been a ridiculously “green” one trick pony. He needs to learn a second trick. He’s a doctrinaire ideological extremist, and has been from the moment he walked into the Capitol. I was a nominally Democratic staffer with the General Assembly from 2008 to 2020, and Rep. Vitali caused more nearly audible eye rolls than anyone, on BOTH sides of the aisle.