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Lawmakers looking at last-minute farm bill options

Congressman Derrick Van Orden with a copy of the House Farm Bill package passed in May

A Wisconsin member of the House Agriculture Committee expects some farm-related legislation in the lame duck session of Congress, but not a full farm bill. Derrick Van Orden says, “I’ll be frank. That ain’t happening in this Congress.”

Van Orden tells Brownfield the House passed its version of a farm bill May 24^th, but the Senate just delivered its farm bill language after the election.

Van Orden says lawmakers are aware they need to do something before the end of the year to prevent farm policy from reverting to old law. “If something doesn’t happen by January 1st, the dairy industry, not just in Wisconsin, the entire country is going to disappear beause it will cost twenty-five dollars for a gallon of milk.”

Van Orden says an extension of the 2018 Farm Bill is one possibility, but another option is being considered. “There’s an emergency funding bill for all of these natural disasters that have been taking place everywhere, and there’s also a Farm Act, and then one of the things we’re floating is to take Title I and Title XI out of here (farm bill) and attach that to fund it.”

Van Orden expects one of those options to make it to the President’s desk by next Friday, but he says the 2018 Farm Bill is flawed.

Title One handles the commodity programs and Title Eleven is the section outlining crop insurance, two areas Van Orden says should be handled immediately to give farmers some certainty.

He says, “When our farmers have to go to bed at night wringing the skin off their hands because they don’t know if they’re going to be bankrupt, that’s not okay.”

Audio: Congressman Derrick Van Orden discusses the lack of a farm bill and possible options with Brownfield’s Larry Lee