Inside D.C.
It’s still too early to write a new Farm Bill
I blogged not too long ago that it’s way too early to start thinking about the next Farm Bill. My reasoning was that Farm Bills are painful exercises and frankly, agriculture broadly hasn’t done its due diligence relative to setting priorities going into the next omnibus farm program legislation. Heck, we haven’t even gotten through the November elections, so right now we haven’t a clue as to who’s going to call ag policy shots in 2017.
The problem is the ag economy, while not quite on its butt, is getting closer to full pratfall. We’ve got USDA stepping up its purchases of surplus eggs, cheese, salmon and other commodities simply because producers made the wrong call, over-produced, misread global production and demand, and seem to have forgotten the industry is cyclical – for every boom, there’s an inevitable bust. The goal should be to sacrifice a little of the pleasure up front to minimize the pain of falling prices later on.
When we went through the pain of the 2014 Farm Bill – which should have been the 2012 Farm Bill – producers of just about every stripe were making good money. Proving once again those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it, Congress and industry wrote a Farm Bill which reflected good times and big farm income, ignoring those whose advice it was to write a Farm Bill as if preparing for the Great Depression.
Folks would be well served to remember the sage advice of then-House Agriculture Committee Chair Colin Peterson (D, MN), now committee ranking member, who in 2010 warned collective agriculture that if it expected Uncle Sam to make it whole every time the markets went against them or they overproduced, then they were in for a big and not so positive surprise. “The money just isn’t there,” Peterson warned repeatedly – I’m paraphrasing here – “Sit down, be pragmatic and reinvent your programs.” The money still isn’t there and support for a Farm Bill version of an ATM is eroding quickly.
Despite the reinvention of several income safety net programs, the go-to strategy right now, with falling prices, income erosion and low program participation is a flurry of coordinated press releases warning of the demise of the “small, family producer” and a call for USDA to step in and buy what can’t be sold otherwise. To expect the federal government to step in and buy all surplus production an option, but is a short-sighted option. The $20-million surplus cheese deal announced this week is likely the first in a series of such USDA purchases. Keep in mind, the industry suggested a total cheese buy in the $150 million range. At the end of the year, it will be interesting to see how much cheese Uncle Sam owns.
It’s hoped no one decides a monster “emergency” funding package is the way to go, hoping to leverage election year politics and the lame duck session. To do so would give lie to claims our current Farm Bill is designed to make such emergency funding bills obsolete. It would also make the next Farm Bill that much tougher to fund.
The politics of the coming Farm Bill are destined to be radically different from even four years ago, and they promise to get even stranger. House Agriculture Committee Chair Mike Conaway (R, TX) herds one of the toughest panels, given agriculture seems to be where leadership assigns freshmen members with nowhere else to go. I forget what percentage of the ag committee in the last Congress had never experienced a Farm Bill rewrite, but that ignorance contributed mightily to the chaos and confusion that dogged that piece of legislation despite valiant leadership.
Remember the great pride that’s evinced in the bipartisan way the ag committee approaches big issues; however, the widening range of political philosophies within each party caucus threatens that comity. Some will try and trade farmer dollars for food stamp/entitlement dollars. Budget conservatives from both sides of the aisle can love farmers and ranchers, but refuse to pony up a dime.
It’s all about hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.
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