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AFBF stresses importance of timely farm bill

Farm Bureau leaders have acknowledged there will be many challenges ahead to get a farm bill passed this year.

American Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall says with so many new members of Congress, farmers and ranchers will have to put in work to help educate them about the importance of a farm bill.

“There’s 179 (members) that have never debated a farm bill,” Duvall said Sunday at the 2023 American Farm Bureau Convention in San Juan, Puerto Rico. “The biggest challenge is to get to know those people, introduce ourselves to them, and make them realize how important those farm programs are to our farmers.”

Iowa Farm Bureau President Brent Johnson tells Brownfield there’s now a balance of power. “That is actually going to be a very helpful thing when it comes to negotiating the aspects of the farm bill,” Johnson said.

Nebraska Farm Bureau President Mark McHargue (pictured above) says the farm bill already has strong polices, but some fine-tuning is needed.

“If we didn’t have crop insurance in Nebraska this year, our economy would be significantly different,” McHargue said. “It was just a good reminder of why we adamantly want to protect, and actually expand, crop insurance funding.”

McHargue says passing the farm bill on time would provide much-needed certainty for farmers.