First she ordered a Vose corn dog, loaded it with mustard, then she milked a dairy cow — for the first time.

U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski, D-Springfield, embedded herself in Illinois’ top industry Friday, talking with farmers, food vendors and youth livestock exhibitors as she toured the grounds of the Illinois State Fair on Agriculture Day.

FarmWeek joined Budzinski for a few of her stops, and along the way discussed her outlook for the 2023 farm bill.

“There is a lot of will out there to do it and I think we just need to push through the political noise and get it done,” Budzinski said of the legislation that Congress is tasked with passing before current federal farm program funding begins to expire Sept. 30.

Budzinski, who sits on the House Agriculture Committee, said she expects to see draft legislative text “very soon,” but also acknowledged the House’s current schedule likely won’t allow for a floor vote on the bill before the September deadline.

At the very least, Budzinski said, a House vote would come before the end of the year, before all 2018 farm bill funding levels are exhausted.

“There’s just so much at stake, we cannot afford to wait,” Budzinski added. “I think a lot of my colleagues feel that way, too.”

Complicating farm bill negotiations to this point have been GOP calls to steeply reform federal nutrition measures, such as work and age requirements under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and to strictly limit spending on conservation and climate-smart ag initiatives.

Many of those reforms were included in a compromise reached under the budget deal to avoid a government shutdown earlier this year.

Yet Budzinski joined her fellow committee Democrats in sending a letter Monday to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., that called for him and House GOP leadership to cease the “continued threat of making additional changes to SNAP eligibility or benefits.”

The Democrats explained how disagreement over the nutrition title in the 2014 and 2018 farm bills led to failed votes on the House floor at the time and “caused a great deal of anxiety in rural America.”

“That should be enough of a reminder to you that playing partisan SNAP politics does nothing to address the needs of our farm and ranch families who depend on the other components of the farm bill, whether it’s the farm safety net, conservation, trade or other titles,” the Democrats’ letter reads.

There’s also a creep toward a potential federal government shutdown stemming from the House adjourning for the August recess without advancing a dozen or so agency appropriations bills.

The hangup was centered on changes in federal social policies being linked to the appropriation bills, which Congress must pass every year.

The USDA funding bill, for instance, was held in the House Appropriations Committee over included language on abortion access and massive cuts to agency programs that would have placed funding at 2007 levels.

“I think our farmers deserve better than that,” Budzinski said of the GOP-drafted bill, adding she wouldn’t support it.

As for similar issues making their way into the farm bill, Budzinski said the legislation needs to “stay focused on agricultural issues and not cultural issues … let’s stay focused on the issues that matter most to family farmers.”

Budzinski’s top priorities for the bill include maintaining farm safety net levers such as crop insurance and expanding farm credit and low-interest lending opportunities for young and beginning farmers.

“We need to be looking ahead and thinking how we are preparing that next generation of farmer (and) helping them break down barriers to get into agriculture,” Budzinski said.

Asked for her message to Illinois farmers watching as farm bill negotiations and, eventually a vote, play out, Budzinski said she’s calling on producers to make clear how the bill impacts their operations.

“I ask them to help with adding the urgency of getting it done, and to advocate that this is what’s at stake,” Budzinski said. “I want to get stuff done for our farmers and for our agricultural economy here — it is just so important.”