Agricultural News
AFR President, NFU Committee Trying to Overcome Congressional Inertia on Farm Bill
Thu, 14 Feb 2013 16:27:44 CST
Terry Detrick, president of American Farmers and Ranchers is in Washington, D.C., this week speaking with members of Congress. He and the other members of the National Farmers Union executive committee are trying to encourage the House leadership in particular to get the farm bill moving once again. He spoke with Radio Oklahoma Network Farm Director Ron Hays about their lobbying efforts. (You can hear their full conversation by clicking on the LISTEN BAR at the bottom of this story.)
"We've just got to get them busy with a farm bill. The farm bill now, some of them seem to have put it on the back burner-a lot of them have put it on the back burner because they got a little extension. They don't realize that this thing's going to take a while to work out."
Detrick says that many of the Congressmen they have spoken with say the farm bill has waned as an issue among their constituents.
"One of the things we're hearing now is that they're really not hearing from their constituency. And our constituency back home is 'We've got a farm bill to extend us a while now,' and they've let off the pressure. It's going to take some real negotiations to come up with a farm bill as far apart as everything is up here. And they can't wait until the last minute to do it or we're going to be in trouble again when this extension expires."
Detrick said everyone knows that passing a farm bill through both houses of Congress will entail a lot of compromises and require a great deal of negotiation, but they just need to get down to the job at hand. He said the biggest obstacle still appears to be in the Congressional leadership.
"All the ag committees, both Senate and the House, they know they're going to have to come together in the middle. They're prepared to do that. They've just got to have the leadership to put it on the floor so they can get something passed to go to conference committee and write the bill."
Detrick said the Congressional leadership is not feeling the pressure, so they are reluctant to act. Unfortunately, time is not something that farmers and ranchers have a lot of at this point.
"We have got to have got to have some drought disaster-especially for livestock. Remember, livestock doesn't have the insurance program. Our livestock disaster programs expired. The thing I'm hearing is, 'Well, it will be in the farm bill.' Well, how many fatalities are we going to have out there of operators going out of business while they're trying to get a farm bill when they're not putting it on the front burner?
"So it's an urgent, urgent situation and we've got to get our constituents out in the countryside to start calling our Congressmen. Even from other states, people in leadership need to be urging their membership to get on the ball. Let's get a cooperative attitude and let's get things going so we can get them together."
Detrick said failure to pass a farm bill in a timely fashion has severe negative consequences for the agriculture industry as a whole.
"We've got to get partisan politics out of the way and we've got to deal with reality and deal with the issues. And if we don't, our standing in the global food supply is going to deteriorate in a hurry."
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