Congress has had a full agenda since the session began.
Getting a new Farm Bill across the finish line is top priority for South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds, with support for livestock producers.
“We’d like to throw some amendments in there that we think would improve things for a lot of our folks back in the Upper Midwest. Number one is that the Livestock Indemnity Program, the Lip program, does not get updated the way that it should. And so, what we’re trying to set in, and we’ve got a proposal. It’s a simple one. It simply says these payment rates should be based on a quarterly update so that we don’t have our farmers and ranchers getting old data in terms of what the value of their livestock is in the case of a loss.”
Livestock is big business in Oklahoma, and the Farm Bill is a top priority for producers there. Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins has been on a tour of farm country over the last week and made a stop in the Sooner State. Farm groups told Rollins the Administration has their support, but they have concerns about the financial impact of the current trade policy moving forward.
“There’s a lot of concern about surviving the short-term until getting to that long-term, and so we had some discussions along those lines of how to make it over those hurdles and how we can help crop farmers in particular, and talk about trying to get the price levels addressed, possibly in a reconciliation bill instead of waiting for the Farm Bill,” said Rodd Moesel.
Moesel says his big focus in the new Farm Bill is reference prices, saying they have been left untouched for too long.
