It’s farm bill time againIt’s farm bill time again

Farm bill rookies. With the swearing-in of the 118th U.S. Congress, there are more than 200 members of the U.S. House and several in the U.S. Senate who have no experience in writing and negotiating a farm bill. Retired Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., isn’t there to herd this through, although his colleague Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., is still there with her experience. Farmer-led advocacy organizations are starting the outreach and education already, but you can help them by calling your representatives and adding your thoughts.

Friendly fire. National Cattlemen’s Beef Association government affairs folks repeated several times that a lot of the work they and others in the ag sphere do is try to educate individuals on how what might seem like a good idea to include in the farm bill has unintended consequences that can harm farmers in real life. For example, adding a livestock title seems like it would be a great idea, but consider how anti-animal agriculture interests would then get a bigger foot in the door on writing legislation that could affect your farm and ranch.

The money question. In their rules, House Republicans negotiated a switch from PAYGO (pay as you go) to CUTGO (cut as you go) — in short this means that instead of writing a bill and finding new tax revenue to pay for that bill, you now must find cuts to other current programs in order to pay for that bill. The CBO estimated the 2018 Farm Bill cost $428 billion over its five-year life span. Farm organizations are telling members the next farm bill could hit the $1 trillion mark. So if you want something new added to the farm bill, you’d better be prepared to have something lined up to cut.

The nutrition vote. Yes, more than 75% of the farm bill is nutrition spending, and that’s by design. If less than 1% of the U.S. population is actively farming, and more than half of our citizens are now four generations removed from the farm, that is reflected in the members of Congress. However, everyone has hungry children, senior citizens and underserved populations, and a vote for this bill takes care of those constituents.

Climate-smart agriculture. We use crop insurance to bridge troubled-weather events and to manage risk. We have the conservation title to help farmers and ranchers use cost-share measures to manage natural resources. But with new emphasis from this administration on climate-smart agriculture, there’s likely to be sustainability measures discussed in these negotiations.