On April 9, House Agriculture Committee Chair Collin Peterson (MN) announced the appointment of representatives to the Farm Bill conference committee (Senate members were appointed on February 5). The committee, charged with reconciling significant differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill, convened for the first time on April 10. No substantial progress was reported. Both bills currently maintain wasteful trade-distorting subsidies that disadvantage small independent American growers, impair international trade negotiations, and cause poverty abroad.
The current extension of the Farm Bill expires on April 18. Points of contention center around increasing available funding, disaster aid, and subsidy caps. Some of the proposed compromises would increase poverty-causing subsidies. In response to one such proposal, the Daytona News-Journal declared, "Counterproductive subsidies like that, and the few lawmakers championing them, are holding hostage a bill that would benefit 28 million food-stamps recipients and 30 million children a day receiving free or discounted meals at school."
As Daniel Imhoff recently wrote, "There is still time to let everyone in Congress know that they should vote on the farm bill as if the nation's very health, future and security is at stake. Because it is. And we deserve better." Contact your member of congress to ask for a fairly reformed Farm Bill that funds essential conservation and nutrition programs at home through reducing trade-distorting subsidies causing poverty abroad.
More Farm Bill News:
CQ, Long-Delayed Farm Bill Conference Begins
Daniel Imhoff in the Los Angeles Times, We'll reap what we sow
Daytona Beach News-Journal, Cut farm subsidies, raise food supports
Economist, The farm bill: Long time in germination
Wisconsin State Journal, Plant farm bill on new ground
