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“I fought off supply management for 23 years and Peterson knows that won’t change,” Boehner
               said. “I’m confident that the conference report will not include supply management provisions
               for the dairy program.”

               Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and Rep. David Scott, D-Ga., who had authored a successful
               amendment that would remove production limits in the House farm bill, sent a letter to top farm
               bill conferees.

               “More than 140 diverse groups have joined with 291 House Members, including 95 Democrats,
               in voicing their opposition to supply management,” Goodlatte wrote. “As the conferees continue
               their work, I urge them to remember the House vote and adopt the House-passed Goodlatte-Scott
               amendment as part of the final farm bill.”
               Jim Mulhern, president and chief executive officer of the National Milk Producers Federation,
               wanted conferees to support a safety net for dairy farmers that combined a margin insurance
               program with a market stabilization mechanism.

               “It’s unfortunate that misguided opposition to this program still lingers in some quarters,”
               Mulhern said “The dairy title’s market stabilization is a standby component that may never be
               triggered but is needed to protect dairy farmers should markets collapse again as they did in
               2008-09. It is a small matter in the overall scheme of this bill.”

               Logjam breaks
               On Jan. 24, 2014, the four principals announced a bipartisan agreement on a five-year farm bill
               that among other things would eliminate direct payments, revise commodity supports (calculated
               on base acres), enhance crop insurance, and streamline conservation programs. Everyone had
               given some and taken some. And leadership in both the House and Senate appeared to be on
               board.

               Boehner called the
               agreement “a positive
               step in the right
               direction…..While I
               hoped many of these
               reforms would go further,
               the status quo is simply
               unacceptable,” Boehner
               said. “This legislation,
               however, is worthy of the
               House’s support.”

               The “Agricultural Act of
               2014” passed in the
               House on Jan. 29, 251-
               166, and in the Senate on
               Feb. 4 by 68-32 margin. Obama and Stabenow flew to her alma mater on Feb. 7 for a bill signing
               ceremony on the campus of Michigan State University.

               30                                    www.Agri-Pulse.com
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