House Ag Approps Focus on Potential Conflict of Interest Among Some Ag Economists

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House Ag appropriators this week included some interesting language in their measure. Basically some farm-state lawmakers are going after situations where some ag economists at some universities are playing both sides of some issues like crop insurance, and profiting by it.

For example, one university economist is well known for writing papers against crop insurance and the farm bill for the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and then is also under contract with USDA’s Risk Management Agency to review and craft crop insurance policies.

The language would require the USDA Secretary to put a stop to such developments.

This week, sources note, several of the same ag economists were back at it again, trying to replace crop insurance with an area wide disaster program. Sources noted that in 2008, some of the same economists tried to create a free disaster program in lieu of crop insurance and the plan was rejected. Now, those same individuals are back at it again, trying to replace crop insurance with an area wide disaster program – think ARC.

NOTE: This column is copyrighted material; therefore reproduction or retransmission is prohibited under U.S. copyright laws.