2012 Farm Bill Slow to Take Shape

There are two “Monster in the Closet” type situations that will dramatically affect the writing of the United States’ 2012 Farm Bill: record high commodity prices on one hand, and record high deficits on the other.

“Let’s be honest – this is an exceptional year,” said Congressman Frank Lucas (R-OK), Chairman of the House Ag Committee. “It didn’t rain on the Russians, it didn’t rain on the Chinese, it rained too much on the Australians, and it’s not raining in the Southwestern U.S. These are not normal commodity prices. If you write a five-year bill based on these numbers, it will not be what we need in five years’ time.

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“At the same time, we have record national deficits – a trillion-plus dollars out of balance for three years in a row. If we attempted to write a farm bill this year, the folks who I serve with – who have no understanding of agriculture – would simply say [to get rid of it completely]. There’s no need to do it.”

That’s why Lucas, who made his remarks at the 87th Annual American Cotton Shippers Association Convention held in Washington in May, believes there should be no rush to write a farm bill now, as some of his colleagues have suggested. It should be written, he said, within a specific timeframe. Provisions of the 2008 Farm Bill will begin to expire at the end of July 2012.

“If we write [a new farm bill] under regular order, we will not use the budget numbers from this year. We’ll use the budget numbers from the Budget Committee a year from now,” Lucas explained. “And I would hope that the national economy would start to pick up and provide some certainties. I would hope that in a more practical sense, we deal more with long-term prices next year.”

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The rules of Congress are such that in farm bill years, the Chairmanship of the Farm Bill Conference will alternately come from the House and Senate, and the chairmanship falls upon Lucas this time around.

“I have the privilege, I guess, of trying to work out the differences with our friends over on the other side of the building. It’s going to be a challenge – an absolute challenge,” he said. “But we will write a farm bill. And we will write a farm bill that will be in the best interest of rural America and production ag. I’m confident of that. What I’m telling my folks back home is that after two years of bad things happening to us, at least we’re not going to allow any more bad things to occur. And I think it will be a good time to be chairman when we write a farm bill that will start things going in the right direction.”

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