House gathers farm bill information in Iowa
By Jean Caspers-Simmet
simmet@agrinews.com
Date Modified: 05/13/2010 8:59 AM
E-mail article | Print version
DES MOINES —The House Agriculture Committee's first field hearing to prepare for writing the 2012 farm bill attracted 100 people to the Iowa State fairgrounds April 30.
Ag committee members and the panelists who spoke to them sat in the ring where the fair's livestock champions are sold.
"We're trying to figure out how to provide the best risk management and safety net with the money we have," said House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson of Minnesota. "I'm not sure we're going to be able to do it the way we have been. We may have to look at doing things a little differently, and that's what we're trying to figure out."
The 2012 farm bill will be a baseline bill, Peterson said. No new money will be available.
"We might not even have that much depending on what the Deficit Commission does," Peterson said. "That's part of the reason why I thought it was smart to start this process early."
The committee will start writing a bill a year from now.
Peterson said the committee needs to look at all farm programs to see if it's the best way to provide a safety net.
"It it's not, we need to find a better way," he said. "Dairy has decided that their program isn't working for them, and they have to do something different," Peterson said. "We have to do something with cotton because of the cotton case with Brazil."
Peterson has asked commodity groups for ideas on how to do a better job of providing a safety net.
"I don't know if programs need to be the same across all commodities," Peterson said.
He thinks the farm program should provide a risk management safety net whether a farmer has 100 or 10,000 acres.
"I'm not one of those who believes we can decide how big a farm should be," Peterson said. "I'm for any farm that makes economic sense. We need them all."
U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell hosted the hearing, which was in his district. He chairs the Agriculture Committee's Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management.
"The field hearing was an important opportunity for my fellow members of the Agriculture Committee and me to hear from the very farmers, producers and agriculture players in Iowa who are impacted by the farm bill," said Boswell.
"My goal for the next farm bill is simple," said ag committee Ranking Member Frank Lucas of Oklahoma. "I want to give producers the tools that help them do what they do best and that is to produce the safest, most abundant, affordable food supply in the history of the world."
U.S. Reps. Tom Latham, a member of the Appropriations Committee, and Steve King, a member of the ag committee, both from Iowa, attended the hearing as did U.S. Reps. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota and Jim Costa of California.
The ag committee is holding seven field hearings in the coming weeks including one May 18 at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D.
Peterson encouraged farmers to fill out a farm bill survey at www.agriculture.house.gov and click on the feedback link.