House Ag subcommittee completes commodity hearings
May 17, 2012 | 08:41 PM
The House General Farm Commodities and Risk Management Subcommittee today completed its second and final day of hearings on the commodity title of the farm bill after testimony from the National Farmers Union, a number of commodity groups, and the crop insurance industry.
In a news release after the hearing, House Subcommittee Chairman Mike Conaway, R-Tex., said the Senate bill "creates a complicated new program that is so lopsided it actually locks in profits for some while denying any safety net at all to others."
Conaway said the Senate bill “would distort planting decisions while duplicating and competing with crop insurance.
“In short, the Senate farm bill fails farmers and taxpayers,” he said, “and it will not become law."
But House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., has said he plans to give farmers the option of the Senate "shallow loss" commodity program, or a program based on target prices and countercyclical payments.
House Agriculture ranking member Collin Peterson, D-Minn., said today that a new target price program would be based on planted acres rather than historic base acres, Reuters reported.
In a news release after the hearing, House Subcommittee Chairman Mike Conaway, R-Tex., said the Senate bill "creates a complicated new program that is so lopsided it actually locks in profits for some while denying any safety net at all to others."
Conaway said the Senate bill “would distort planting decisions while duplicating and competing with crop insurance.
“In short, the Senate farm bill fails farmers and taxpayers,” he said, “and it will not become law."
But House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., has said he plans to give farmers the option of the Senate "shallow loss" commodity program, or a program based on target prices and countercyclical payments.
House Agriculture ranking member Collin Peterson, D-Minn., said today that a new target price program would be based on planted acres rather than historic base acres, Reuters reported.
