Talks over the 2023 Farm Bill are really starting to ramp up and one lawmaker says that he wants to see a focus on helping farmers through disaster.
Representative Dan Newhouse out of Washington says that the next Farm Bill must do a better job addressing catastrophic events, including the wildfires producers out west have faced in recent years that have impacted farmland.
According to Newhouse, “We’ve seen an unusual frequency of smoke-related damage to agricultural crops, many of these things have been kind of treated in kind of an ad hoc manner and so trying to do a better job of covering some of these things through the farm insurance programs that are available.”
He adds that lawmakers need to make those programs more sustainable to allow for predictability in farm country. He says that it is not appropriate for farmers to wonder if help will be available, they should know a safety net will be in place.
