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Ohio senator stresses importance of farm bill

An Ohio senator and farm bill conferee says the House and Senate will act on the final farm bill legislation in the next week or two.

Sherrod Brown says the 2018 Farm Bill needs to be passed sooner rather than later.

“It’s a farm bill, but it’s a food bill, a jobs and economic development bill, a broadband bill for rural Ohio, it’s a research bill, it’s all of the above,” he says. “We should get it to the President’s desk as soon as possible.”

He told reporters the bill largely preserves commodity and conservation programs.

The bill won’t include tighter work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, but there will be changes to the ARC and PLC program.

“The regions and the commodities were treated more equally,” he says. “We care more about soybeans and wheat and specialty crops and orchards care more about sugar, rice, cotton and peanuts and we think in this conference committee we established more regional equity.”

Details of the final legislation haven’t been released yet.

Brown says he continues to push for conservation funding and water quality and soil health improvement.