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Farm Bureau to debate direct payments
Direct payments—are they still necessary? That will be the big issue when the American Farm Bureau Federation business meeting gets underway Tuesday in Atlanta.
Iowa Farm Bureau is one of the state groups saying it’s time to do away with direct payments in favor of a stronger safety net for agriculture.
“What we’ve said from the Iowa Farm Bureau is that we need to look at direct payments in a different way,” says Iowa Farm Bureau president Craig Lang. “Not taking away from the support from USDA or the U.S. government to farmers and ranchers—but can we use the direct payments in a way that give us what we feel is a safety net though protecting our crops.”
And Iowa Farm Bureau will propose adding livestock to that safety net, as well.
“We have some language on Tuesday we’re going to add to bring livestock to that,” Lang says, “but we really think it’s time to look at the direct payments—that’s a baseline of five-billion dollars a year that can be utilized in a way to protect revenues sources for both livestock and crops.”
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