Super Committee Farm Bill Harms Real Deal

The following article is from the NAFB News Service:

The commodity group infighting that surfaced during the drafting of a farm bill proposal for the now-defunct “Super Committee” will make it more difficult to write the legislation in regular order. 

That’s according to veteran ag policy-watcher Jim Wiesemeyer, who looks for many of the features of the draft bill to ultimately find their way into law.

Wiesemeyer, Senior Vice President of Policy and Trade Issues at Informa Economics, says the most significant policy change in the draft farm bill was the re-coupling of government payments to production.

Wiesemeyer predicts budget-cutters will go after crop insurance premium subsidies after they whack the Commodity Title.  He says that’s because producer subsidies account for 60 percent of the nearly 9-billion federal dollars spent annually on crop insurance. 

Source:  NAFB News Service

Posted by Haylie Shipp