News

Missouri Farm Bureau sets top Farm Bill priorities

Missouri Farm Bureau delegates adopted a set of principles for the next federal farm bill at their recent annual meeting.

Their president, Blake Hurst, tells Brownfield Ag News there are several top priorities, “Missouri Farm Bureau members supported considering cottonseed as an oil seed and emphasized the fact that the most important part of the Farm Bill to our members is crop insurance.”

Hurst says members say the Margin Protection Program for dairy producers must be changed or replaced, “One of our members spoke rather passionately on the floor about the decline in numbers in dairy producers and it is – it’s a problem. It’s a long standing problem but this latest Farm Bill that we’re operating under did not – tried some new things with dairy and they haven’t been totally successful so I think some improvements are going to need to be made.” [Hurst also says the Missouri Dairy Revitalization Act needs to be fully funded next year.]

Hurst says with hearings on the 2018 farm bill coming up in Congress next spring, Missouri Farm Bureau members want to be ready.