Page 32 - Farm Bill Series_The 7 Things You Should Know

“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