News

One year extension not likely

Dr. Carl Zulauf, agricultural economist at The Ohio State University isn’t sure the Farm Bill will be completed this year, but at the same time he also doesn’t think a one year extension is likely either.

“The reason I say that is if we go with a one year extension we are then talking about another extension in the political campaign of 2014 and that’s not a good time, because of all the things that go on in a political campaign,” Zulauf said. “So I think Congress would say if we’re gonna do an extension we’ll do a two year extension so we bring it in to a non-election year.”

Dr. Zulauf also says than in the 33 years he’s been working on Farm Policy, this is the first time where there’s a chance there would not be a Farm Bill.

“I do think there is a chance, it’s very small, it’s less than 10 percent, but it’s not zero that we in fact would not do a Farm Bill, when we are supposed to do it,” said the OSU ag economist. “We might do one later, but a lapse could happen in the Farm Bill, because of just how divided we are as a country on just whole bunch of different topics.”

Audio: Carl Zulauf, Ag economist, The Ohio State University (11:15 mp3)