Farmers want to see farm bill passed to provide “peace of mind” heading into 2014

(Herald-Whig) – Todd Hays probably hoped to have his soybeans planted and a new farm bill in place by the end of June.

The Monroe City, Mo., farmer still needs one more day in the field to finish the soybeans, but getting the farm bill could take weeks, if not months, after the House rejected the measure just over a week ago.

Farmers hope legislators will get back to work soon and pass a new farm bill before the current bill’s extension expires in September and farmers need to finalize plans for 2014.

But most of what’s in the farm bill, and the bulk of the cost, has little to do with production agriculture. It focuses instead on food and nutrition programs, like the Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps.

“That’s where a lot of the hang-up is in Congress right now with some wanting to make cuts in the SNAP program who wouldn’t support the farm bill,” said Hays, vice president of Missouri Farm Bureau.

Illinois Republicans Rodney Davis, Randy Hultgren, Adam Kinzinger, Peter Roskam, Aaron Schock and John Shimkus supported the legislation while Illinois Democrats from Chicago urban and suburban areas opposed the bill. Missouri Republicans, including Sam Graves and Blaine Luetkemeyer, also supported the bill while Democrats were opposed.

“Passage of the bill would have marked a critical step in moving us toward a conference with the Senate and ultimately passing a five-year Farm Bill to provide certainty to farmers and growers,” Graves said in a statement. “The fact of the matter is everyone relies on farms three times a day, so it is in our best interest to finally pass a long-term farm bill. This cannot be the end of the process.”

Graves hopes to see a revised bill that can pass the House and then work through differences with the Senate version of the bill, formally known as the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013.

“The whole farm bill is less than one-half of 1 percent of the federal budget. We won’t balance the budget if we do away with the farm bill completely, but it gives farmers peace of mind,” Hays said. “We have enough uncertainty with Mother Nature and the things we’re doing on a daily basis. We’d sure like to see them pull something together and get something passed before fall.”

Putting the focus on the farm aspects of the bill is tough with less than 2 percent of Americans actively involved in farming.

“So many don’t have ties to ag at all. It’s pretty tough to get them to vote for something if they don’t see a need for it,” Hays said.

The food and nutrition programs became a major component of the farm bill “so everyone has kind of a stake in the game,” Adams County Farm Bureau Manager Shawn Valter said. “Now that it’s escalated to such a large number that are receiving assistance, that has become a major issue, and ag just happens to be getting pulled along with that. Really the people that voted against the farm bill were not voting against the agricultural issues that were in the House version. It was more of the SNAP funding.”

To counter that, some have suggested lawmakers strip the actual farm issues from the bill for a separate vote.

Politico.com reported the House Republican leadership is actively pursuing a strategy of splitting its failed farm bill into two parts so that the nutrition title and food stamps funding can each be considered on its own. Speaker John Boehner’s office signaled that he is open to the two-bill strategy and a final decision will be made after the July 4 recess.

“If you pull out that component, then do you have enough discussion to have it as a standalone bill?” Valter said. “I don’t think you can decouple them. The agricultural sector of the bill would have to be put into some other larger bill.”

Most of the farm-related pieces in the bill found support among farmers and legislators. The bill called for doing away with direct corn payments but still providing risk management with crop insurance.

“There’s so much more volatility in ag than there was years ago and so much more cost associated with putting in an acre of corn or beans that we need some certainty in what we’re doing to give us some safety net to help us plan,” Hays said. “At the end of the day, we’re just looking at ways we can continue producing enough food in this country in a safe way without getting food from a lot of other countries.”

Valter said farm groups remain optimistic something can be done before September.

“What the agricultural community wants is a new farm bill,” Valter said. “We really don’t want to go forward with a year extension of what we have. Some changes they have in place for the ag sector would be positive.”