Page 20 - Farm Bill Series_The 7 Things You Should Know

“The silence was deafening,” a source told Agri-Pulse. “Even with the drought, we weren’t
hearing from people. It was apparent that crop insurance was working as planned and that
this really might be the ticket to gain support.”

Just as the rally was
concluding, the Republican
Study Committee was holding
one of their regular press
conferences, dubbed
“Conversations with
Conservatives.” Hosted in
conjunction with the Heritage
Foundation, they lunched on
Chick-fil-A and talked about
things like downsizing federal
government and splitting the
farm bill.

Republicans Raúl Labrador of
Idaho, Steve King of Iowa,
Jim Jordan from Ohio, Tim
Huelskamp from Kansas and Mick Mulvaney from South Carolina (now director of the Office of
Management and Budget) were frequent participants in the news conferences.

It was another sign of how fast the politics of farm bills seemed to be changing. Sen. Moran, who
formerly represented the “Big First” district and covered a wide swath of Kansas, was rallying
supporters for passage while his successor, Rep. Huelskamp was trying to defeat the measure.

Sept. 30 came and went, but not without a lot of speculation about what it might mean to see a
farm bill actually expire.

Two of the biggest farm bill programs
– the Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (SNAP), more
commonly known as food stamps, and
federal crop insurance - were not
going to be impacted. SNAP had been
funded through March 2013 by a
recently passed Continuing
Resolution, pointed out Ferd Hoefner
with the National Sustainable
Agriculture Coalition. There was no
“sunset date” for crop insurance to
expire. With the exception of dairy, Republicans Raúl Labrador of Idaho and Tim Huelskamp from Kansas (center)
other commodities weren’t really frequently participated in these news conferences to talk about the need for
affected for a few more months. farm bill reforms.

18 www.Agri-Pulse.com