Agricultural News
Former House Ag Committee Chair Larry Combest Keynotes First Ever Oklahoma Wheat and Sorghum Conference
Mon, 10 Dec 2012 05:49:32 CST
Former Chairman of the US House Ag Committee, Larry Combest, was the keynote speaker for the first ever joint meeting of the Oklahoma Wheat Growers Association and the Oklahoma Sorghum Association held this past Saturday. We talked exclusively with the now retired longtime Texas lawmaker about the farm bill process that apparently depends on a grand deal between President Obama and Speaker John Boehner to avert the so called Fiscal Cliff. Ag leadership has urged the President and the Speaker to include a farm bill package in any such deal- as it would provide budget offsets of as much as $35 billion over a ten year period.
Combest calls this an opportunity for agriculture, saying that if we can take advantage of the pressure of the hard deadline that the fiscal issues demand of Congress, it's smart for House Ag Committee Chairman Frank Lucas to do so. Combest believes that the President and the House Speaker will cut some sort of deal- and that there is a "reasonable chance" that a five year farm bill could be part of a final deal- allowing the farm policy measure for the next five years to avoid a nasty House floor fight that could wreck the compromise assembled by Lucas and his ranking member, Collin Peterson, this past summer.
We also talk with Combest about critics of US farm policy taking aim at Crop Insurance and the difference in Washington when he helped guide the 2002 Farm Bill through Congress versus the 2012 Farm Bill process.
Click on the Listen Bar below to hear the full conversation with former Congressman Larry Combest that Farm Director Ron Hays had on Saturday morning.
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