Farm Bill needs to pass now—if it doesn’t, we’ll have to wait until next summer or later for it to happen

More than 500 state and national ag groups sent a letter to chamber and agriculture committee leaders in the U.S. House and Senate, asking them to enact a new farm bill in the current Congress.

American Farm Bureau Federation Vice President and South Dakota Farm Bureau President Scott VanderWal tells Brownfield lawmakers need to come the table to work out their differences.

“We’re fairly satisfied with the House version and there’s some things the Senate has proposed we like as well. We’re just saying get it done. We need to get an updated farm bill done. They need to at least extend it.”

The letter says if a new farm bill isn’t enacted this year, it’s not likely a new farm bill would happen early in the next Congress. VanderWal says it could be next summer before lawmakers can give it their attention.

“There’s a new Congress with new people coming in getting used to the system and all that,” he says. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we’d be looking at June or July before they took up the farm bill again and of course, it all starts over.”

American Farm Bureau signed the letter, along with other ag groups including the National Farmers Union, National Pork Producers Council, state corn and soybean groups and more.