News

Feenstra says partial shutdown hurting farmers, stalling farm bill progress

A U.S. Representative from Iowa says the partial government shutdown could linger for an extended period of time.

“We had a big conference call Tuesday morning. There’s no end in sight,” said Republican Randy Feenstra.

Feenstra tells Brownfield farmers will continue to be directly impacted.

“I just tell you how awful it is for our farmers,” he said. “Right now, as we know the FSA offices are closed. I’ve had a lot of farmers talking about their farm loans that are getting held up. Conservation dollars are getting held up, and we aren’t getting any market data.”

He says there could be some long-term implications for profitability.

“The harvest is 70% complete and now people want to do some of that conservation, and they can’t get access to those dollars,” Feenstra said. “That will all be held up and then all of a sudden you’ve got a big push next spring which really creates an even further problem.”

Feenstra says the shutdown is also preventing lawmakers from updating the expired farm bill.