Is Ag Losing It's Lobby Power?

Is Ag Losing It’s Lobby Power? I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

By now you have heard that Congress did not take any action on getting a comprehensive Food, Farms and Jobs act put together leaving farmers hanging. It’s the first time anyone can remember that House leaders have failed to bring up a House Committee farm bill when one’s also been passed by the Senate. Questions are being raised as to whether the farm lobby’s lost its clout on Capitol Hill. But after next week - there will be no farm law - not even an extension of the expiring 2008 Farm Bill - though many farm programs won’t be immediately affected. American Farm Bureau Federation Deputy Director Mark Maslyn says the Congress has become more polarized through redistricting - leaving fewer in the middle to compromise.

MASLYN: There are huge issues that need to be dealt with and whether it’s the President or whether it’s the Senate or whether it’s the House folks aren’t coming together to step up and deal with them and elections are a major factor in that. The industry has changed. The demographics of the industry have changed.

Maslyn says operators have figured out how to manage risk and survive. At the democrat-leaning National Farmers Union - Chandler Goule denies ag has lost influence and says farmers are being held hostage to an intraparty spat between Speaker John Boehner and GOP Leader Eric Cantor. But Goule also agrees with Maslyn that the House is more polarized overall today.

GOULE: When we wiped out the middle we were left with the extreme left and a lot of the extreme right and you know the extreme right wants to cut the farm bill even deeper and the extreme left is not able to swallow the significant cuts of the SNAP program and without those Republican and Democrats that are in the middle or what I would call kind of mainstream, there’s no one there to bridge that gap.

And Goule points out that Speaker Boehner said last week the House would deal with the issue of the farm bill when it returns after the election - meaning there could simply be an extension - not a full farm bill. Maslyn says the changed politics of Washington certainly makes it more challenging for the farm lobby - but adds there are huge issues the country needs to deal with - including the debt and government spending.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.