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Balanced Reporting. Trusted Insights.
Wednesday, April 09, 2025
Caleb Crosswhite is joining the Republican staff of the Senate Ag Committee as the new chief counsel and James Glueck is taking a new job with the Corn Refiners Association.
Sen. Tina Smith remains optimistic that the farm bill can be approved by the end of the year, in part because of the progress the Senate is making on appropriations bills.
Fresh from visiting members of the House and Senate Ag Committee and their staffs, former House Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson says everyone seems to be working very well together, drafting each title, working through the issues “and that’s a good thing. The non-controversial stuff is well in hand.”
Lawmakers continue to struggle with what to do about commodity programs in a new farm bill, including how to pay for increases in reference prices. One idea is to require farmers to update their base acreage to reflect current plantings.
Senators were warned Wednesday that the EPA’s new regulations for plant-incorporated protectants will slow the breeding of new fruit and vegetable varieties that are more resistant to pests and diseases.
Leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture committees say the debt limit agreement should remove SNAP work requirements as a potential sticking point in the upcoming farm bill debate, but also said the deal takes away some potential funding.
The House Agriculture Committee is considering raising reference prices based on a commodity’s relative input costs, an approach that could benefit some southern crops over commodities such as soybeans and corn.
A key Senate lawmaker says the ongoing debate about raising the debt ceiling and a lack of farm bill legislative text should not prevent lawmakers from getting the 2023 bill done on time.
