Proposed Farm Bill

Proposed Farm Bill. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

Congress is comprised of mostly politicians from larger cities so you sometimes wonder how they could ever possibly write a farm bill that would really be good for farmers. Congress has also had to start all over again on writing a new farm bill. With a tighter budget it’s that much harder. The board of the nation’s largest general farm organization has sent a farm bill proposal up to Capitol Hill.

THATCHER: We have the ability to put forward a proposal that has to take into account every commodity just as the members of the Senate and House ag committees. We think it’s important to come up with something that will put some money towards deficit reduction, just like we did last year, and yet to provide a safety net over the next five years. So if we have another drought or a flood or a hurricane, there would be programs in place to provide a safety net, where farmers would not be forced to go out of business because of a weather disaster that they had no control over.

Farm Bureau’s farm policy specialist Mary Kay Thatcher says the plan costs $23 billion less than the current farm bill and could be a big help to House and Senate agriculture committees that are starting over writing a farm bill from scratch, since they weren’t able to get one passed last year.

THATCHER: I think it’s incredibly important that we get it done this year. We talked last year about the fact that it was going to be a whole lot more difficult and indeed it is. We just have less money to be able to spend.

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