By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Worries about the Farm Bill extend into next year when Congress will make another run at approving nutrition programs as well as agricultural policy.
Chief Economist Roger Cryan at the American Farm Bureau Federation says the Bureau is pleased Congress didn’t allow the Farm Bill to just run out, but insists a new Farm Bill must be passed, sooner rather than later.
“We’re happy that there’s an extension, because it’s much better than letting programs expire and stop working,” Cryan tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “It’s much better to have some certainty for planting season than to have it all up in the air. But we really need those adjustments, those updates and our hope is that we’ll get a Farm Bill early next year.”
Cryan says the focus cannot just be on extending the nutrition program in the form of food stamps. It must, according to Cryan, be on the crop commodity programs, providing farmers with a safety net now that inflation has increased the cost of production without increasing the prices farmers receive. Cryan says inflation makes extending current commodity price programs problematic.
“I mean, inflation is what has essentially triggered the need for more money for the Title 1 program (commodity programs),” Cryan says. “If we hadn’t had the inflation, then the commodity prices wouldn’t have gone up as much and there’d be a little easier to work with what we’ve got.”
Cryan says nutrition programs have gotten a boost, but several agricultural programs now are outdated and are badly in need of revision.
“We support the nutrition programs. We support resources being made available to folks to have enough to eat. It’s important,” Cryan says. “But, for the world as a whole, you’ve got to keep production going. You’ve got to maintain ag productivity and make sure there’s enough food being produced. If nobody’s producing it, all the money in the world won’t buy it.”
Chairs of both the Senate and House agricultural committees have pledged to pass legislation early next year in order to pass a Farm Bill before presidential politics makes it impossible to find compromise. In fact, Cryan says the conventional wisdom in Washington is that if legislation cannot be passed early next year, it will have to be put off until 2025.