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Conner: farm bill program updates critical

The president and CEO of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives says it’s critical the House Ag Committee updates farm bill programs as they go through the reconciliation process.

Chuck Conner says for now, reference prices are expected to get a 10 to 20 percent increase.

“I’m not anticipating changes to that, but we won’t know until they vote the bill out.”

Other commodity title programs are expected to get an update.

The House Ag Committee started the mark-up on Tuesday and continued that work on Wednesday.

Lawmakers have proposed a reduction in nutrition spending to boost reference prices and commodity title payments. Conner says it’s a tough call.

“For better or for worse, the real money for the farm bill is in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program so you about have to look here, but it needs to be done thoughtfully.”

He says if the marked-up bill passes the committee, the farm bill will be split. Conner says only a few key farm bill provisions can be addressed in the reconciliation and other parts of the farm bill won’t get an update.

Historically, Congress hasn’t been able to successfully pass a split farm bill, but Conner says lawmakers don’t have another option this year.

“The opportunity to debate and pass a separate farm bill in the House and Senate and signed by President Trump between now and the end of the year is virtually impossible,” he says. “Reconciliation isn’t the preferred way to do a farm bill, but it’s probably the only way we’ll get some stability for farmers and farm programs moving forward.”

Conner says there’s still a lot of work Congress must do in the reconciliation process and he’s not optimistic lawmakers will can pass a reconciliation package by Memorial Day.