Dairy Industry Group Hopes for Farm Bill Passage

With the start of 2024 comes hope and anticipation for a new farm bill to be passed this year. National Milk Producers Federation, Senior Vice President of Member Services and Governance, Chris Galan recaps what happened with the Farm Bill in 2023.

"They were supposed to completed that last year, and a lot of the attention last fall, if you recall, seems like a while ago, but in the House of Representatives, there was a big battle over the House Speaker Kevin McCarthy resigned and there was a fight over who to replace him. And the whole issue of the budget was what led to a lot of that put fighting. And as a result, there wasn't any time left really to deal with a new Farm Bill.

With an extension passed through most of the calendar year, the House and the Senate have to get really serious about making tough decisions, he says.

"They'll have a House version and a Senate version, and they compromise those two different versions together, reconcile any differences, and then they ultimately have to repass that compromise room in the House and Senate before the President will sign it. So that all has to happen here basically, by the summer, because if you get six, seven months from now, and they haven't done most of that, then it looks like they may have to look at yet another extension. I don't think that's what's going to happen. But because this is a presidential year, and there's just going to be some things that we don't even anticipate that will happen. Anything's possible."

Chris Galen with the National Milk Producers Federation.