Lowering Farm Bill Expectations

With your Southeast Regional Ag News, I am Haylie Shipp. This is the Ag Information Network.

A top Senator says USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack’s call for the GOP to lower its farm bill expectations is “wrong.” Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley isn’t buying it, not given the state of U.S. agriculture today.

Asked about Secretary Vilsack’s call for Congressional Republicans to get practical and ‘lower their farm bill expectations,’ Grassley had this…

“It isn’t reasonable to expect the Agriculture Committee to lower those expectations below reflection of the inflation that’s happened in farming costs since 2018.”

Grassley says maybe Vilsack is right when he claims the House committee-passed farm bill uses “Harry Potter” style ‘invisible cloaking’ to hide its true costs.

Meantime, Grassley agrees with a growing perception that Senate farm bill talks have reached a stalemate…

“I applaud the House for moving where they have, and they may pass one, but I think we still have these big differences that we have to work out in the Senate.”

Prompting Grassley to again predict the need for another one-year extension of the outdated 2018 bill.