No fast track for 2018 Farm Bill

Don't expect any quick action on a Farm Bill that's due in 2018. That's the view of federal agricultural policy analysts who were panelists on a “Food Policy and Farm Bill” program at the 2017 Dairy Forum sponsored by the International Dairy Foods Association. Approving a new Farm Bill in 2017 would be “a heavy lift” and even doing so in 2018 could be “a long shot,” according to Krysta Harden, who was chief of staff for Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack during the Barack Obama administration. That players with many different interests and preferences would like to have a role in creating the next Farm Bill was pointed out by panelists Randy Russell of the Russell Group and by Dale Moore, an agriculture and food policy director for the American Farm Bureau Federation. Within the current budget parameters, Russell cited a commitment of $5.3 billion over five years to the peanut industry compared to $775 million over 10 years for the dairy sector. He added that the allocations for both sunflowers and canola are about equal to those for dairy. Harden noted that cotton growers are not happy with their treatment in the current Farm Bill. In addition to the conflicting interests of the agricultural sector commodity groups, there are also strong differences within the Congressional bodies, Moore observed. He noted that 60 votes will probably be needed in the Senate to approve a new Farm Bill. Russell, who was the chief for staff for the Secretary of Agriculture during the Ronald Reagan administration, pointed out that some 30 very conservative members of the House of Representatives are strongly opposed to current levels of spending. He noted that only 34 members of the House represent a district in which at least 50 percent of the population is rural.