A finished farm bill is one step closer to reality with the U.S. House's approval Wednesday of a motion to proceed to a conference committee for the 2018 Farm Bill. The process sets in motion the process by which the House and Senate members will settle the stark differences between their chambers' two bills, most notably the work requirement differences for participants in the nutrition assistance program.

“Today, we move one step closer to delivering a strong new farm bill to the President’s desk on time, as he has called on Congress to do. America's farmers and ranchers and rural America are struggling right now, and they deserve the certainty of a strong farm bill to see them through to better times,” said House Agriculture Committee Chairman Michael Conaway, R-Texas.

House Republicans have stacked their conferee lists with a total of 29 Republican members, 23 who serve on the Agriculture Committee as well as a handful of others who serve on key committees such as transportation and education & workforce committees.

Outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., may try to get one final “welfare reform” score before this fall’s elections with the farm bill. In a tweet July 12, he said: “There are more than 12 million able-bodied Americans who do NOT have small kids at home, are NOT in school, and are NOT working or looking for work. A mild work/school requirement of 20-hours/week to receive government assistance is as reasonable and common sense as it gets.”

While speaking at an Axios forum on Tuesday morning, Conaway recognized the most contentious divide between the two chambers is the scope of work requirements for food stamp recipients.

“I need 70% of Democrats in this world who believe work requirements are a proper thing and 90% of Republicans in this world who believe work requirements are a proper thing to tell their senator, ‘Hey, that work requirement makes a lot of sense,’” Conaway told the audience.

When the Senate took up its farm bill, it decided not to take the partisan approach to work requirements. Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., has defended the Senate’s approach to improving the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The Senate bill addresses other issues such as waivers and abuse of bonus payments.

He actually called the House provision’s training requirements to be “premature” because it would try to implement what is being done in pilot programs before it has been fully evaluated from the last farm bill.

In a statement following the House vote, Roberts and Ranking Member Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said they were pleased to see the House move ahead on the farm bill. “In order to be successful in passing a final bill, the conference committee must put politics aside and focus on the needs of our farmers, families and rural communities. We are eager to go to conference so we can move quickly to provide certainty for American farmers and families. Rural America is counting on us to get this right,” Roberts and Stabenow said in a joint statement.

Bloomberg reported that Conaway told reporters July 10, “‘I can’t get a conference report through the House without some pretty strong work requirements.”

Animal disease funding

In a floor statement earlier in the day on Wednesday, House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Collin Peterson, D-Minn., said attention is needed to protect the U.S. agriculture industry in the event of an animal disease outbreak. Currently, the House bill provides $450 million in mandatory funding over five years for programs such as the National Animal Health Laboratory Network, the National Animal Disease Preparedness & Response Program and the National Animal Vaccine Bank. The Senate provides an authorization for appropriations, but no mandatory funding.

Peterson said conferees should “insist on 10-year funding for Animal Disease Preparedness & Response Program to provide the certainty that both farmers and consumers need.”

“While the appropriations committees deserve credit for providing some funding for these programs in their bills, animal health is not a short-term issue or an issue we should short change,” Peterson said. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service as well as “state officials and producers need to know that adequate funding for these programs is going to be available for their work to pay off. Animal disease programs are important investments in the health of our nation’s animals, our people and the security of our food supply,” he added.

National Cattlemen’s Beef Assn. (NCBA) President Kevin Kester welcomed the motion instructing conferees to support mandatory funding for the foot and mouth disease vaccine bank and the other important programs included in the animal disease preparedness/response requests in the bill.

"The animal agriculture industry stands ready to work with House and Senate conferees on a final farm bill that funds these vital programs at a level adequate to protect America’s farmers and ranchers, the nation’s food supply and the U.S. economy," according to a joint statement from NCBA, the National Turkey Federation, National Pork Producers Council, American Veterinary Medical Assn., United Egg Producers and National Association of State Departments of Agriculture.

Conferees named

The House also named the members who will serve on the conference committee, and the Senate is expected to follow suit next week.

The House has already named many from the House Agriculture Committee, plus some additional representatives from other panels. Roberts indicated that the lead conferees -- the chairmen and ranking Democrats on the Senate and House agriculture committees -- will meet next week to discuss the negotiations.