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Corn, soybean leaders testify on commodity programs

Leaders of national commodity organizations addressed federal risk management tools during testimony before a House Ag Subcommittee hearing on the next Farm Bill Tuesday.

Texas farmer Wesley Spurlock, president of the National Corn Growers Association, says the Agriculture Risk Coverage-county program has worked as intended, but asked lawmakers to consider some administrative changes.

“In some situations, the Farm Service Agency switches to crop insurance data when NASS is unable to publish a county yield, resulting in underpayments.”

He says equitable payments depend on the most accurate, transparent, and consistent data sources.

American Soybean Association president Ron Moore of Illinois testified in favor of maintaining the current federal crop insurance model in the 2018 Farm Bill.

“The various signup options provided under crop insurance have proven their net worth in recent years.  Even as the cost of the program is now projected by CBO to decline by about $1 billion dollars a year.  Crop insurance isn’t broken, and it doesn’t need to be fixed.”

Moore also asked the Committee to improve and build upon the current ARC-county and Price Loss Coverage commodity title programs, and repeated the importance of including nutrition alongside agriculture in the next Farm Bill.