Talk of extending current farm law is increasing, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa told Mike Adams on Farm Journal's "AgriTalk" program Wednesday. "There's a lot of talk about a two-year extension," Grassley said, adding that even without a new Farm Bill, "direct payments" to farmers would end because the votes are not there to continue them.
"With the budget problems we have and everything else, and farmers themselves with a new Farm Bill willing to give up direct payments, and the fact that you have a two-year Farm Bill, it’s almost a foregone conclusion, with the budget deficit, that money would go," said Grassley, a farmer. "Now, Southern agriculture isn’t going to like that, and of course, that’s why they’re after [basing subsidies on] planted acres, and after the higher target prices. But they kind of come from a philosophy it’s okay to farm the farm program rather than farm it according to the marketplace."
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a separate interview on the same program that the idea of extending farm law for a year or two is unrealistic, "There don’t appear to be the votes for an extension," he said, and even if there were, "It’s probably at the risk of losing direct payments, and if you lose direct payments without using some of the savings from losing direct payments to reconstruct a new safety net, you will find it very difficult, if not impossible, to fashion a new Farm Bill. So it’s clear to me that there’s really only one option here, and that is that they’ve got to get their work done.”
Vilsack also discussed the turmoil that would result if current farm law expired at year's end, reverting to a 1949 law whose dairy price supports could double the price of milk. "We have a pretty good sense of what we would need to do," he told Adams. "We’ve reached out to some of the folks, particularly in the dairy industry, to get their views about this. So we would be in a position, in short order—I don’t want to put a timeline on it—but in short order to get something done on the permanent-law side." For an unofficial transcript of the show, from FarmPolicy.com, click here.
"With the budget problems we have and everything else, and farmers themselves with a new Farm Bill willing to give up direct payments, and the fact that you have a two-year Farm Bill, it’s almost a foregone conclusion, with the budget deficit, that money would go," said Grassley, a farmer. "Now, Southern agriculture isn’t going to like that, and of course, that’s why they’re after [basing subsidies on] planted acres, and after the higher target prices. But they kind of come from a philosophy it’s okay to farm the farm program rather than farm it according to the marketplace."
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a separate interview on the same program that the idea of extending farm law for a year or two is unrealistic, "There don’t appear to be the votes for an extension," he said, and even if there were, "It’s probably at the risk of losing direct payments, and if you lose direct payments without using some of the savings from losing direct payments to reconstruct a new safety net, you will find it very difficult, if not impossible, to fashion a new Farm Bill. So it’s clear to me that there’s really only one option here, and that is that they’ve got to get their work done.”
Vilsack also discussed the turmoil that would result if current farm law expired at year's end, reverting to a 1949 law whose dairy price supports could double the price of milk. "We have a pretty good sense of what we would need to do," he told Adams. "We’ve reached out to some of the folks, particularly in the dairy industry, to get their views about this. So we would be in a position, in short order—I don’t want to put a timeline on it—but in short order to get something done on the permanent-law side." For an unofficial transcript of the show, from FarmPolicy.com, click here.
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