House ag bill undermines working farmers

Tractors from Klondike Farms in Brooklyn,
south of Madison, pull field cultivators and
soil conditioners known as "crumblers"
through a field being prepared for seeding. 

Republicans in the House are preparing to advance an agriculture appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2013 that cuts $365 million from the previous year’s appropriation and falls $1.7 billion short of President Obama’s request.

That's bad policy.

The cuts will make American farmers in general, and Wisconsin farmers in particular, less secure.

“The bill still contains unacceptable provisions that would effectively remove any possibility that rules to restore fairness for livestock and poultry producers could be implemented, including a clearer definition of competitive injury," says National Farmers Union president Roger Johnson. "These common sense regulations should be put in place immediately, and it is extremely disappointing that language to prevent that is in the subcommittee’s bill. This language should be removed before the appropriations bill becomes law.”

Worse yet, the bill as it was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies cuts $25 million from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. That's the agency that has been tasked with overseeing agricultural and financial markets under the the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

“Now is not the time to be cutting from an agency that has an important role to play in preventing the next financial meltdown. Our economy needs stronger rules and more referees – not fewer,” says Johnson. “The bill passed by the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee is in need of considerable improvement in order to better serve family farmers and ranchers.”

Johnson and the National Farmers Union are right in their assessment.

The Obama White House should adopt a tough negotiating position in dealing with the House Republicans on this one.

There are no advantages — political or economic — for the president or the country in rushing this farm bill to passage.

Obama should work with the NFU and responsible members of the House and Senate to enact a farm bill that serves working farmers — not the austerity agenda of those who would cut vital services, necessary agencies and essential oversight in order to satisfy fiscal fantasies.

Original Article Here