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Spending bill will provide relief to some farmers

A government liaison for the National Farmers Union says the spending bill that passed both chambers of Congress last week will provide some relief to credit-stressed farmers.

NFU’s Senior Vice President for Public Policy, Rob Larew, tells Brownfield the measure will assist the USDA Farm Service Agency which has a backlog of more than $200-million-dollars in operating loan applications.  “Unfortunately they would not have had the resources to clear that backlog and look forward to loans if they did not include additional resources in the spending bill, thankfully they did complete that at the end of last week.”

Larew says there were some missed opportunities for agriculture that were not in the spending bill – including biodiesel blender credits and emergency relief for dairy farmers.  “Although the predictions are for prices to continue going up, I think the struggle continues to be that margins continue to be very low and that the existing margin protection program is just not suited for many regions of the country.”

He says the dairy Margin Protection Program (MPP) will be a major priority for their members as they discuss changes to the 2018 farm bill moving forward.

President Obama is expected to sign the spending package this Friday.

AUDIO: Interview with Rob Larew