There are some mildly inconsistent accounts of what’s going on with the Farm Bill, based on what I could find this morning. This probably sums up the current state of affairs as well as anything. Having it wait until next year, with greater input from a Democratic House, would be better, but I rather doubt that that will happen.
Leaders of the House and Senate agriculture committees say they still hope to finish a farm bill this session, but they have not shown signs of reaching a final agreement. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley has hinted that the farm bill might be added to the appropriations bill so that House leadership would not have to bring it up as a separate piece of legislation. Meanwhile, Representative Collin Peterson of Minnesota, who will chair the House Ag Committee next year, says that if the bill does not pass, he wants to organize his committee quickly in January and bring up the farm bill in short order. - Hoosier Ag Today
A couple of related items:
According to officials from the Department of Agriculture (USDA), just $838 million of a promised $12 billion bailout program for farmers affected by tit-for-tat tariffs has been paid out since September, when the administration made half the funds available. The remaining $6 billion is expected to be made available in December.
Meanwhile, the (New York) Times notes, net farm income in the United States is expected to fall by $9.8 billion this year — a 13-percent decline from the same time last year. - Think Progress
Across the United States, grain farmers are plowing under crops, leaving them to rot or piling them on the ground, in hopes of better prices next year, according to interviews with more than two dozen farmers, academic researchers and farm lenders. It’s one of the results, they say, of a U.S. trade war with China that has sharply hurt export demand and swamped storage facilities with excess grain. - Reuters
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