The Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry held its first hearing in preparation for the next farm bill. The hearing was held in Manhattan, KS.
Chairman Roberts (R-KS) and Ranking Member Stabenow (D-MI) held the hearing that included a welcome panel of Rep. Marshall (R-KS), the Kansas Secretary of Agriculture, and the president of Kansas State University. The second panel included 10 producers representing various commodities and livestock, including Tom Lahey, vice president of the Kansas Cotton Association, while the third panel included eight representatives of agribusiness, lending institutions, and other rural businesses.
In his introductory remarks, Chairman Roberts recognized the cotton industry in Kansas. In her opening remarks, Sen. Stabenow noted that both cotton and dairy policies need to be addressed in the next farm bill.
The general points made by many of the commodity representatives included protecting crop insurance, maintaining the Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage programs with some modifications, increasing funding for the Market Access Program and Foreign Market Development trade promotion programs, continuing funding for working lands conservation programs, reducing the regulatory burden on production agriculture, and promoting greater exports of agricultural products.
Lahey, a cotton and grain producer from Moscow, KS, focused on the critical need for cotton to be brought back into the Title I commodity policies of the farm bill and why crop insurance alone cannot provide effective risk management during prolonged periods of depressed market conditions, as cotton recently has experienced. He also highlighted industry concerns with any efforts to further tighten or restrict payment limit and program eligibility provisions, the importance of trade and exports to U.S. cotton and cotton textile products, the need for increased funding in market development programs, and the importance of the Conservation Stewardship Program and EQIP to producers across the Cotton Belt.
A replay of the hearing is at http://bit.ly/2luiWcn and Lahey's written testimony is at http://bit.ly/2l7Kqkl.
The Committee plans to hold its next field hearing in Michigan and then hold other issue specific hearings in Washington, DC, focused on the farm bill development.