March 2009 Articles

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Farm Bill Update

Farm Bill Update Source: LSU AgCenter
After the Senate passed its version of the Farm Bill in June 2013, there was some renewed hope that Congress would move quickly in getting a new farm bill legislation passed. However, the process has not been as easy in the House of Representatives. After failing to make much progress on significant differences regarding funding for nutrition programs, House leadership decided their best course of action was to attempt to eliminate the nutrition programs of the bill and vote on a bill that contained only commodity, conservation, crop insurance and rural development provisions. While this move was a significant departure from the past 40 years of Farm Bills and was viewed with much apprehension by many, the House was able to pass a Farm Bill last week with the agreement that they would develop separate legislation that would address the nutrition programs.
The next step in the process to getting new Farm Bill legislation was taken this week as the House sent its version of the farm bill to the Senate for its review. The Senate will then have to either accept it as is or with amendments and then request the House for a conference. The conference committee has the task of taking to the two versions of the Farm Bill (the Senate’s and the House of Representative’s) and attempt to come up with a single compromised bill. However, with the Senate’s version including nutrition programs and the House version not addressing those programs (and no immediate plans for the House to debate additional legislation to address the nutrition programs), it may be difficult for a conference committee to make any real progress. With only about 6 weeks left in the session, the lack of progress and the potential for additional roadblocks is starting to bring some real concern of whether a farm bill will be passed before the extension of the 2008 Farm Bill expires on Sept 30, 2013.