NPC: The road to the Farm Bill

Last Thursday kicked off at least a two-year process to rewrite the Farm Bill.  Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts held the first hearing in Manhattan, Kansas.  It lasted for three hours and spanned a variety of different programs under the expansive bill’s authority. This was considered a “listening session” where members of Congress take input from the public about what they want to see in a new bill. The next field hearing will be in Michigan, hosted by Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), the committee Ranking Member. Once these traveling sessions are complete by late summer, the Committees will begin the work of drafting, with the intention to complete their work by the current bill’s expiration at the end of September 2018.

The cost of the current bill and the related amount of budget authority that is available to the Committees to write the new farm bill will be a major factor in defining policy options.  Three years ago Congress passed a bipartisan farm bill that made a significant contribution to deficit reduction. This was the first time a farm bill voluntarily reduced spending before Congress began considering the bill. Despite that great contribution, the Committees get no credit for those past efforts and must start again based on the cost of the current programs. Once their overall budget amount is known, the level of ambition to increase or cut various programs will become much more clear.

Given the volatility of the process during the last Farm Bill rewrite, it is hard to predict whether the full Congress will deliver a new bill to the President before the current one expires. Certainly the Committee leadership on both sides wants to have their work completed well in advance of that expiration. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway (R-TX) told the USDA Ag Outlook Conference that “there’s no reason whatsoever that we won’t get it done.”

NPC anticipates that specialty crops will have an increasingly important seat at the table for this upcoming Farm Bill. Research, nutrition, pest and disease prevention and consumer promotion will all be high priorities for the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance and the potato industry specifically.

Source: National Potato Council