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Farm Bill needs more money, not less

Congressman Peterson addresses the House Ag Committee

The ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee says Farm Bill funding discussions should center on spending more, not less.

Minnesota Congressman Collin Peterson tells Brownfield he’s advocating for a heftier baseline because of the many financial challenges farmers are facing.

“We saved over $100 billion dollars from what the baseline was in the last Farm Bill (and) contributed $100 billion to the deficit.  So, a few hundred million dollars should help us fix some of the problems we have.”

A group of 500 organizations concerned about Congress allocating fewer dollars into the next Farm Bill wrote a letter to lawmakers this week requesting that no funding cuts occur.

Peterson says it will take additional resources to bring cotton back as a covered commodity and fix the Dairy Margin Protection Program, which he considers priorities.

“If the CBO hadn’t cut back on what we had in the feed cost calculator in the original bill, we wouldn’t have had the problem in the first place.”

Peterson would also like to see the Conservation Reserve Program return to the 35 to 40 million acre level, but he says the cost of expansion will probably draw contentious debate.

The Senate Ag Committee is holding its first Farm Bill hearing Thursday in Manhattan, Kansas.

 

 

 

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