By Clint Thompson
The Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance (SCFBA) applauded investments in the U.S. House Agriculture Committee’s Reconciliation draft. While the SCFBA prefers agriculture policy enacted in the context of a farm bill, it appreciated Chairman GT Thompson’s support of the industry.
Kam Quarles, CEO of the National Potato Council and co-chair of the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance (SCFBA), discussed the reconciliation process.
“This is the way Congress can go in and simply change the size of spending in their budget. They say, the budget today is ‘x’ and we want to go to ‘y’. Then they go to all the different committees, including the House and Senate Agriculture Committees, and say this is how much you’re going to have to contribute to get to that new number. The House Agriculture Committee, the work that they’ve been doing, they’re going to have to deliver very significant reductions, primarily from the nutrition programs in order to provide that new number,” Quarles said.
“This change in spending overall is largely dedicated to creating permanence for these tax provisions that may be expiring in the next few months to a year. It’s also to increase the debt limit; a variety of different things will be put into this huge package of reform. Recognizing that this may be the only train that leaves the station this year in Congress, the leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees have said, if we’re going to do these big changes in spending, we want to update the farm policy, spending items in farm policy. We can’t write new programs, but we can change the spending lines for existing programs to make them modern, reflecting today’s economy versus 2018.”
What Was Included?
Key investments included reducing barriers through trade deals and investing in export promotion that is vital to selling more agricultural goods, including specialty crops, abroad. Also, strategic investments in programs contained in Title I of the farm bill and in crop insurance that will support producers during challenging economic times.
While the entire budget reconciliation process may be enacted to law, the SCFBA stresses that work remains to be done. Senate rules prohibit many of the innovative policy initiatives from being included in the bill, specifically investments in mechanization and automation and reforms to crop insurance. An up-to-date bipartisan farm bill is needed to bolster the competitiveness of America’s specialty crop growers.
“It is shocking the amount of change that the U.S. fruit and vegetable industry, family farms that I talk to and go out and see all the time, it is amazing how different the world is now than it was when the last farm bill was signed in 2018,” Quarles said.
The farm bill is a piece of legislation that is renewed every five years. President Trump signed the current farm bill into law on Dec. 20, 2018.