Shutdown Avoided
I’m Bob Larson. Farm disaster aid got a big boost as Capitol Hill lawmakers reached a deal to avert a government shutdown at the start of the new fiscal year.
The deal to extend government funding to December 3rd brought a sigh of relief in farm country, as billions worth of agriculture disaster aid hung in the balance with the stop gap’s fate.
House Ag Appropriations Chair Sanford Bishop says no government shutdown, plus much-needed disaster help …
BISHOP … “The legislation includes $10 billion for agricultural disaster assistance programs to cover events in 2020 and 2021.”
Bishop says the bill also includes $750 million for livestock, dairy and sugar losses this year. And there’s $275 million for the Emergency Watershed Protection Program, plus more for farm ownership loans and WIC program fruits and vegetables.
Meantime, American Farm Bureau Chief Zippy Duval says worry about the tax and inflationary impact of the larger Biden agenda, stymied by intraparty and cross-party differences …
DUVAL … “The fertilizer I put on my hay fields is up 40-percent, it’s huge on my farm. My farm in my area, I may be a pretty big farmer, but in the scheme of things, in other areas of the country, I’m still a low or medium-sized or small farmer, and I know how it affects my farm, it makes it very, very difficult.”
Duval warns some $2 trillion in higher taxes to pay for massive new social spending will only get passed along to producers who spend huge sums on farm inputs.
Senate Ag leaders added an extension of Mandatory Livestock Price Reporting to the stop-gap funding bill, meaning it will also run through December 3.
