Failure by the U.S. House of Representatives to pass a five-year farm bill before adjourning last month may mark the beginnings of a drought on U.S. agricultural exports...More
Agriculture groups are urging for farm bill inclusion of MAP and FMD programs. MAP helps to fund the federal share for export-market activities. FMD assists with development of new foreign markets....More
A series of workshops -- focused on “farm bill reauthorization, federal crop insurance, environmental regulation, and other current legal and policy issues of direct interest to producers,” -- have been scheduled around the Mid-South by the National Agricultural Law Center.
Workshops are currently scheduled for Clarksdale, Miss., on Nov. 1, and Stuttgart, Ark., on Nov. 6....More
On Nov. 6 join the National Agricultural Law Center for a workshop in Stuttgart, Ark., to learn what a reauthorized farm bill may mean to your operation, as well as crop insurance and other legal issues for row crop producers....More
"Failure to act on the farm bill will put tens of thousands of farmers in some degree of financial jeopardy, because farm lenders often base their lending decisions on federal farm policy."...More
October 1 is the first day of the 2008 farm bill’s expiration. Agriculture groups marked the occasion with a series of statements underlining the importance of new farm legislation for rural America. Democrats marked it by scolding House leadership for not bringing the legislation to a vote since it was passed out of the House Agriculture Committee in early July....More
A series of upcoming workshops -- focusing on “farm bill reauthorization, federal crop insurance, environmental regulation, and other current legal and policy issues of direct interest to producers” according to the National Agricultural Law Center -- are set for Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas....More
On Thursday morning (September 20), House Speaker John Boehner confirmed that the House will not take up the “farm bill issue” until after November elections. Current law is set to expire at the end of this month....More
Reports say that House leadership is canceling the chamber’s October work session. If that stands, it means the House will have been in session eight days from August 4 through mid-November....More
With less than a month left to pass the 2012 farm bill, commodity groups and farming organizations are banding together to pressure Congress that a new farm bill is necessary and doable....More
Having again failed to schedule floor time for a new farm bill despite expiration of current law on Sept. 30, House leadership is unlikely to be moved to action by a fellow lawmaker’s scathing critique. But that didn’t stop Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, from making such a harsh assessment during a Tuesday press call....More
Backed by 88 agriculture organizations and associations, the recently-formed Farm Bill Now coalition held a Wednesday rally on Capitol Hill aiming to push lawmakers to move a new farm bill. The legislation has stalled in the House with current law is set to expire September 30....More
Farmers face the prospect of not having a farm bill in 2012 or ever if Congress fails to seize the opportunity presented during the short business session before it returns to the election....More
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas is convinced that the nation’s farmers and ranchers will get a new farm bill. He stops short of predicting just when that will happen, however....More
Eight legislative days remain before the current farm bill expires on September 30. That’s scant time for the House – whose leadership, as of Monday (September 10), has again refused floor time for a farm bill passed out of the House Agriculture Committee in July -- to pass farm legislation and then conference with the Senate. Even a disastrous drought across much of farm country has failed to move the House to act on the legislation....More
During a Thursday morning (August 30) press conference, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack addressed Hurricane Isaac’s effect on Southern crops and held out hope that a new farm bill can be passed by Congress before current law expires on September 30....More
Over 40 agriculture and rural development groups sent Senate and House agriculture committee leadership a letter, dated August 30, urging passage of a new farm bill....More
Currently on their August break, lawmakers – particularly those in the House -- have been getting an earful from rural constituents about their inability to pass a new farm bill....More
A coalition of 39 of the nation’s foremost agricultural organizations has formed in an effort to raise public awareness of the need for Congress to pass a new, comprehensive, five-year farm bill before current farm programs expire in September....More
Thirty-nine days remain until the current farm bill expires.
While it may be a while before a farm bill is earnestly tackled by the full Congress, a new FAPRI study compares the programs already proposed by both the Senate and House....More
“We’re going to have to educate some folks in the banking industry and financial sector on what these new government programs will and won’t do,” says Keith Coble, professor of agricultural economics at Mississippi State University....More
Thirty years after the American Soybean Association opened its Beijing, China office, U.S. soybean exports to that country top $11 billion annually....More
Following a Tuesday (August 7) meeting with the White House Rural Council, President Obama ratcheted up pressure on Congress to pass a new farm bill calling the legislation “the single-best way that we can help rural communities … in the short term, but also in the long term.”...More
The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) is asking members of Congress, as they return home for the August congressional recess, to meet with struggling dairy farmers in their districts to discuss the perilous economic conditions affecting farmers, and the urgent need for Congress to pass a new farm bill yet in 2012....More
