Why is it so important to get a farm bill passed? National Pork Producers Council vice president for domestic policy Chase Adams says the answer is simple: Prop 12.
“The farm bill is the natural place for our fix for California Proposition 12,” Adams said during a political strategy panel at the Ohio Pork Congress. “On the positive side, the Republican Congress knows that rural America elected them, that they owe it to rural America to get the farm bill done. It is a topic of discussion all the way from the Speaker’s office down to the Ag Committee.”
Adams says the pork industry is well positioned because it knows where Chairman Glenn Thompson and Chairman John Boozman were on California Prop 12, foreign animal disease (FAD) funding and all the big issues the industry cares about in the last Congress.
Rollins Recognizes Challenges of Prop 12
NPPC CEO Bryan Humphreys says he is extremely hopeful about what USDA Secretary of Agriculture Nominee Brooke Rollins will do for U.S. agriculture and Prop 12 after hearing her comments during her testimony, specifically around the need for a farm bill.
“Her emphasis on working with and helping to protect American agriculture are all things that bring comfort to our industry,” Humphreys says. “She said something to the effect that agriculture is the lifeblood of America. That’s important.”
From a Prop 12 standpoint, Humphreys says Rollins’ comments were spot on.
“A couple of things I want to point out from what she said are 1) recognition of the damage that Proposition 12 has done for creating a patchwork of regulations. What Prop 12 has done to the logistics of our industry is incredibly challenging. I appreciate her recognition of that. 2) She mentioned she’s a Federalist. I think her recognition of the dangers of Prop 12 as a Federalist is exactly what the Supreme Court was getting at when it ruled that this is a problem, but Congress needs to fix it,” Humphreys says.
Prop 12 is a state’s rights issue that Congress needs to find a solution for because of the problems that it has created, he adds.
“The state of California should not be able to tell producers in Ohio how to raise their pigs,” Humphreys says.
Obstacles for the Farm Bill
The discouraging part for Adams is that there’s talk about taking care of farm bill provisions through vehicles outside of passing a full farm bill.
“My concern is that if we strip out key provisions of the farm bill, we don’t have anything to make it bipartisan,” Adams says. “This process has to be bipartisan to get a farm bill done.”
In short, Adams believes the farm bill has some factors going for it and some factors going against it right now.
“That’s why it’s so critically important that the pork industry demands that we get this farm bill done,” Adams says. “If we’re not asking for it, no one else will.”
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