Natural Disaster Assistance Bill Should Be Funded With Market Developments

Sarah Hastings, Illinois Corn board member, has information on a new federal bill currently under house review, which aims to provide relief for farmers and ranchers impacted by natural disasters in the US.

“One of the things that just recently popped up is Congress is working on this farm Act, which stands for farm assistance and revenue mitigation. So one of the things that came out of the two hurricanes that hit the southeast part of the country was it kind of started some side talks about farmers having kind of less or negative incomes than we have seen for the last few years. So they are projecting this formula that will basically be a disaster, ad hoc payment.”

While there are positive things about the bill, there's also negatives.

“One of the things that we think might happen is that retailers and landowners will see this disaster payment, and they will keep their land rents high, and they will keep input costs high. So seed won't come down, fertilizer inputs won't come down. And we think the market needs to kind of adjust to where crop prices are right now, rather than throw a payment at it that, you know, take money out of one pocket, distribute it out to a group of people. Doesn't ever really fix a problem. So we would much rather see Congress work to build better markets, better trade opportunities.”

Thereby letting the market adjust on its own, according to Hastings.