While we await the Iraq Supplemental's speculated initial veto, renegotiation and final passage, farmers wait and listen. If you don't know the story, a whole bunch of emergency aid and programs were put into the Iraq War Supplemental bill, including two things that are held dear by the Ag. Committee: MILC and disaster aid relief for 2005-07 (you get to pick one of three years). While most of the projects are needed, they were put in to help add votes (a.k.a. to entice Republicans to vote) for the bill. For us, we sit and wait, not so much worried about the war (that is, we care about the war, but as a committee we have no opinion), but to see if our needed legislation will be passed. In the case of disaster aid, it will help a lot of the country, including our farmers in the Red River Valley as well as the Citrus farmers in California, (a full list can be found here, albeit from a Republican and critical perspective, but it was the only one I could find) but most of these projects are needs (at least in the political sense) for both sides, and especially for agriculture. Also, MILC would add a few billion more dollars to our baseline budget number, giving us a little more money to work with. There's a quick explanation of something we get speculative emails about in the office all the time, as the bill nears final passage.
The Farm Bill proposals are rolling in, and I have organized them by area, organization and title (of the Farm Bill) today. I guess you could say I have a pretty good idea of what the House Farm Bill is going to look like, but it would be really hard to explain. Basically, go to the website of every non-governmental organization affiliated with agriculture, find their proposal, and find happy mediums between all the arguments, then mix them with Mr. Peterson's stated opinions, and you have yourself a farm bill. We prepared for our hearing tomorrow on the crop proposals, and a few more next week (even two on Wednesday, that should be fun). Happy days!
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