Archive for the "Farm Bill" Category

This article discusses four key elements to consider when choosing between Agricultural Risk Coverage at the County Level (ARC-CO) and Price Loss […]

This article discusses most of the bill’s provisions that pertain to limits on Title 1 crop program payments as well as the Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) eligibility criterion for payments by crop and other programs.

The 2014 Farm Bill’s commodity title requires producers to make an important decision: whether to sign up for one of two versions of the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) program or the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) program.

The Senate leadership has decided to “fast track” the Farm Bill. They will vote on Monday (02-03) to invoke “cloture” on the Farm Bill. Cloture is an odd term that I’ve only heard regarding the process of the US Senate. It basically means that we (members of the US Senate) have decided to no longer “windbag” the merits or problems of this legislation and we are hereby taking a “blood oath” to actually vote on it.

US House of Representatives this morning (01-29) passed the Farm Bill conference report on a bi-partisan vote of 251-166.

The public activity surrounding the Farm Bill has been near zero since the conference committee first met in October of 2013.

On Friday the 13th of December, the US House of Representatives threw in the towel and essentially called it “good enough” for 2013.  So, we again have a “hurry up and wait” situation for ending this Farm Bill ordeal.

We have all heard the phrase known as “the eleventh hour”… It is derived from the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 20 Verse 6. This parable is about a landowner that is hiring laborers to work in his vineyard. He hires some workers at daybreak, some at 9:00 AM or so and finally at “the eleventh hour” he finds some more available laborers hanging around the town square. He asks, “why have you been here standing idle all day?”

Amidst a partial US government shutdown and a robust round of finger pointing on raising the debt ceiling to avoid “default”, the US House of Representatives managed to “agree to go to conference” with the US Senate on the 2013 Farm Bill.

Thursday brought us news from Washington DC regarding the process of getting a Farm Bill to a conference committee and perhaps ultimately to President Obama for a signature.  But let’s not confuse “process” with “progress”.