News

House Ag Committee hits the road for farm bill input

The House Agriculture Committee will hold farm bill listening sessions this week in Texas, Minnesota and California.

The listening sessions are another step in developing the 2018 farm bill, a process committee chairman Mike Conaway hopes to complete by the end of this year or early next year.

American Farm Bureau president Zippy Duvall says he confident the farm bill can be completed in 2017.

“It sounds encouraging that we may get something done,” Duvall says. “Chairman Conaway and Chairman Roberts are looking forward to try to get something done this fall—and we’re working hard on it.”

Duvall tells Brownfield Farm Bureau’s top priority is to protect current farm bill spending.

“We all know that crop insurance is the cornerstone of our risk management tools in the farm bill—and we want to make sure the funding stays there,” Duvall says. “Of course, County ARC has had some problems, so we have proposed a way to possibly fix those problems with county averages, from county-to-county.”

Duvall says Farm Bureau is also calling for substantial improvements to the dairy and cotton programs.

Iowa Farm Bureau president Craig Hill says the sooner the 2018 farm bill can be completed, the better.

“Going into the 2018 elections, it’s going to be a tough time and this country is going to have some budgets concerns in 2018,” Hill says. “That will make it very difficult to pass any spending bill.”

The farm bill listening session in Minnesota will take place Thursday in conjunction with the FarmFest farm show near Morgan, Minnesota. Brownfield’s Mark Dorenkamp will provide coverage of that event.

AUDIO: Zippy Duvall on farm bill

 

AUDIO: Craig Hill on farm bill