Farm Bill Safety Net Pt 1
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson. Producing crops requires a lot of capital in a typical year, and costs are climbing even higher in 2023.
John Newton, economist with the Senate Ag Committee, spoke during the Agri-Pulse Food and Policy Summit about the capital needs of farmers in 2023 …
NEWTON … “Farm production expenses this year are projected at $460 billion. That's up from $442 billion last year. So, with farmers across the country taking out a lot of capital to put a crop in the ground or care for livestock, there's a lot of concern that the farm safety net, quite frankly, is not working well enough, is not robust enough, and does not reflect the realities today.”
In the last several years, Newton says too much aid hasn’t come from the farm bill …
NEWTON … “Since 2018, we've had $93 billion in ad hoc support to agriculture. Seventy percent of that came from outside the Farm Bill, so we know that we need to boost the safety net and make it more reliable. We cannot rely on ad hoc support that comes two years after a natural disaster, so that's been our emphasis for this farm bill. How do we find the resources that producers need to manage the risks of agriculture today and that reflects the production environment and the cost environment that we're in?”
Tune in tomorrow for more on the need for a Farm Bill safety net and why Newton believes it’s more important today than ever.
