Ag Attention Turns To Lame Duck Work on Farm Bill

With the midterm elections now in the books, attention among ag stakeholders is once again focused on the farm bill, which currently sits in a House-Senate conference committee.Thinking ahead of the election was that House Republicans had little to gain from capitulating on the SNAP issue before facing voters, and there remained hope the party might retain control of the lower chamber. With that now resolved, the calculus has changed considerably given the requirements (which could never have passed the Senate) would not be in any farm bill crafted by the next Congress, given Democrats will control the House.Incoming House Ag Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., has made it clear in initial post-election discussions that he is focused on wrapping up the farm bill during the lame duck, unwilling to even entertain the idea of going back to square one in the next Congress. Rather, Peterson is much more interested in starting off with oversight-related actions, such as examining USDA's controversial proposal to relocate the Economic Research Service (ERS) and National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA) outside of Washington, DC."I think we're relatively close," Peterson remarked about the farm bill during a post-election call with reporters. "I think we can work this out and get this done before this Congress adjourns. That is my number one priority, to get that accomplished."President Donald Trump even waded into the farm bill debate during a wide-ranging press conference Wednesday at the White House. "The problem is the Democrats are not giving us the 10 votes that we need," Trump said during a post-midterm news conference. "Everybody wants it, the farmers want it, but the Democrats are not approving the farm bill with work rules. We could have a very fast [bill] without the work rules. But we want the work rules in. And the Democrats just do not want to vote for that. So at some point, they'll have to pay maybe a price."