Special Report

Farmers at Classic calling for timely Farm Bill

An American Soybean Association (ASA) director from Minnesota is among many in agriculture hoping the 2018 Farm Bill gets done this year.

George Goblish of Vesta says he’s been encouraged by recent comments from members of both the House and Senate Ag Committees.

“It looks (and) sounds like (progress is being made) and I want to be optimistic that we will get it done this year, but you never know.  There’s always some hurdles that get things caught up, and we’ll work our way through that.”

Speaking to Brownfield at last month’s Commodity Classic, he says ASA would like to see the Title 1 commodity programs—ARC and PLC– tweaked.

“If we could get something where it would combine the two together, and every year we could have a choice between crops, because all farmers don’t farm the same and we don’t think the same.  So what works for my neighbor probably doesn’t work for me every year.”

House Farm Bill negotiations hit a snag last week when Democratic members told Republican Chair Mike Conaway they were done negotiating until Republicans released the draft language.

The Democrats unanimously oppose reported changes to the SNAP program, including expanded work requirements for recipients.