Page 119 - Farm Bill Series_The 7 Things You Should Know

Not only did she say she’d support
SCRI, but said she wanted an entire
specialty crop title for the farm bill,
one lobbyist recalls from a pre-farm
bill meeting with the Michigan
Democrat.

As a result, SCRI ended up getting
$230 million in mandatory spending
for the life of the 2008 farm bill. It
wasn’t as much as the Johanns
proposal, but more than either the
Senate or the House proposed in their
respective bills.

Lawmakers doubled down on the
program in the 2014 farm bill, giving SCRI $80 million per year through 2018.

Competing with Title I (If you can’t beat them, join them)

When it comes to the farm bill, there’s just no competing with the safety net programs in Title I.
And when it comes to getting the attention of farm state lawmakers, there’s no better people to
do that than the heads of some of the largest farm groups in the country that represent America’s
farmers and ranchers.

“Some of the people in the commodity community are getting it,” Grumbly said. “It’s because
the leadership in those organizations are beginning to realize that they’re not going to be able to
continue to make the kind of innovations that are needed to drive down production costs in an
environmentally-sensitive way.”

In May of last year SoAR, announced several new board members including Neil Dierks, CEO
of the National Pork Producers Council; Chris Novak, CEO of the National Corn Growers
Association; Richard Wilkins, then- president of the
American Soybean Association and Farm Bureau
member; and Erik Olson, senior strategic director for the
Natural Resources Defense Council.

And it was just four months later that Duvall – leader of
the largest and most influential farming group in the
country – penned his op-ed that got immediate cheers
from the research sector.

“Whether our challenge of the day stems from a new
government edict that affects how we farm, another
nation’s decision to ban our products, or an unforeseen
disease outbreak, there is really only one solution on
which we hang our collective hat – cold, hard science,”
Duvall wrote. “Research has helped us increase yields, decrease inputs, and ward off plant and

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