Thursday marked the House passage of the Farm Bill. Wait a minute, actually it only passed the agricultural portion of the Farm Bill, which is the smaller part of it. House leadership was badly embarrassed last month when it failed to pass the Farm Bill due primarily to last minute amendments affecting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which forms the largest fiscal portion of that legislation.
The Farm Bill (which should really be called the Food Bill now) has historically been a bipartisan effort, and the agricultural committees really do normally try to accomplish that, no matter how partisan other issues have been leading up to a new Farm Bill. However, last month’s defeat was clearly a partisan issue.
Majority leader Eric Cantor and Speaker John Boehner correctly believed that they would be able to pass a bill if the food and nutrition portion was separated from the ag portion. This breaks with nearly 50 years of combined bills. Thus, the ag part of the bill was narrowly passed (216-208) with no Democratic support, but with the amendments passed last month and rules which did not allow any changes to the bill. This partisanship reflects the expectation that House Republicans will bring forward a Food and Nutrition Bill with even deeper fiscal cuts than was attempted last month.
What does passage of the House Ag Bill mean? Not much yet, in reality. It is positive to have movement, but it is a long way from becoming law. This bill will have to be conferenced with the Senate’s version, and that Democratically controlled body may not be inclined to face a separate and dramatically leaner Food and Nutrition Bill later on. And, whatever comes out of conference would still have to be voted on by both the Senate and the House. If that isn’t enough, President Obama has indicated he might be inclined to veto a bill that doesn’t include the Food and Nutrition language.
Remember that this should have been done a year ago, as we are operating on a twice-extended version of the previous Farm Bill, which expired in 2012. Last summer, the House could not get a Farm Bill passed either, with the original extension already having expired, as well. The Senate has indicated it will not pass another extension when the current one expires on Sept. 30. Moreover, there won’t be any strong motivation to act until we get to Christmas and the threat of a new dairy cliff and $38 milk looms once again. It’s beginning to feel a bit like the movie “Groundhog Day.”
Not having a full Farm (think Food) Bill in place does cause problems for farms and for families in Oconto County. Producers and dairy industry personnel make decisions that can be significantly impacted by provisions of a new Farm Bill, causing a once-solid plan to become the incorrect one. It also impacts families, as the food portion of the Farm Bill funds programs such as school lunches, Women with Infants and Children, and many other programs that help maintain food and nutrition security for thousands of county residents.
Author’s note: This week’s article is partially paraphrased from a message to University of Wisconsin-Extension agriculture staff written by Mark Stephenson, UW-Madison/UW-Extension dairy policy analyst. You can see his information by going to dairy.wisc.edu.
Categories
