John Newton, former Senate Ag Committee economist and now executive head at Terrain, shares what will move the Farm Bill out of the Senate Ag Committee and toward finalization.
“Chairwoman Stabenow could release bill text whenever she’d like. On the Republican side, I was happy to be part of that team and we released our framework earlier this year,” Newton says. The ball is obviously in the chairwoman’s court to do something on the Senate side.”
In addition to no bill text on the senate side, there’s no floor vote scheduled in the house. But Newton highlights three priorities and a time frame for a final farm bill:
- More “Farm” in the Farm Bill: “I was part of a team that put together a Republican Farm Bill framework based on feedback we have received from over 23 states that Senator Bozeman visited. And in every single one of those states, what farmers and ranchers said is we need more farm in the Farm Bill,” Newton says.
- Improved Safety Net: “There are real needs in agriculture to make safety net tools better,” Newton says. He sees the need to enhance crop insurance and cites how many reference prices are more than a decade old.
- Bipartisan effort: “I would hope that there would be a bipartisan agreement in the Senate to move a farm bill that recognizes the challenges farmers and ranchers are facing right now. Net farm income is down over $50 billion over the last two years, net cash farm income is seeing the steepest two years’ decline of all time,” he says.
As for when the farm bill could make progress, Newton expects next month’s campaign trips home to help with some momentum.
“Folks are going to go home during October, and they’re going to hear from farmers and ranchers on what their needs are,” he says. “I think they’ll come back motivated to get something done, whether that’s a short term bridge or whether that’s a full five-year farm bill over the finish line. I think members can be motivated to do that when they get back in November.”
Hear more from Newton on ARC and PLC programs as well as the nutrition and conservation titles in this AgriTalk segment:
Your next read: Ag Economist John Newton Named Executive Head of Terrain
