Getting the Farm Bill Done

Will today be the day? We can only cross our fingers that the Farm Bill will move ahead today as the House and Senate conferees will be meeting for the first time today. Committee members will have to figure out how to take two very different bills and merge them. Not an easy tasks with the huge disparities. National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson says the meeting will mostly be just talking - with everyone given the chance for an opening statement. He believes a farm bill will get done this year.

JOHNSON: I kind of thought we would last year, too. So that tells you how much stock you can put in it. But I really think that there is a sentiment in Congress that members have to prove something and you know in the aftermath of the debacle that was the end of the year, the government shut-down and all that kind of stuff I kind of think there;'s a sentiment that we need to get some major legislation passed. So when you could that with the fact that just the attitude among ag committee members, both in the Senate and in the House, there's always been a relatively bi-partisan attitude I think you are going to see a lot of progress that's going to happen very quickly.

Johnson says everyone knows the nutrition title will be the big stumbling block.

JOHNSON: What the House went through was not at all helpful and that's probably going to be the last thing that gets resolved. I just don't know any other way. You certainly don't want to start off with an issue that you know there are just very deep divisions.

Johnson thinks the conference will begin with other items - such as conservation - of which there's a lot of agreement between both the House and Senate versions.

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