‘Early stages’ of farm bill negotiations with House, says Boozman
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell all but ruled out new funding for the 2023 farm bill on Tuesday while the lead Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee said "we're in the early stages of negotiations with the House" on the legislation. Neither committee has taken a step in public to write a successor to the 2018 farm law, which expires on September 30.
Farm bill should expand SNAP, test fruit and vegetable incentives — task force
Congress should expand SNAP, the premiere U.S. anti-hunger program, to all American territories in the new farm bill and test whether benefits tied to the purchase of fruits and vegetables would improve the diets of SNAP households, a high-powered task force proposed on Tuesday. The recommendations could add billions of dollars a year to SNAP outlays at a time when conservative Republicans want to cut its cost.
Trust the farmer, says Vilsack, as senators warn of food shortages
Republican senators slammed the Biden administration on Thursday for high inflation nationwide and said the USDA should free American farmers to plant as much land as they want to avert a potential food crisis. “We’re all hammered with” inflation, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell told Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
Premature to talk about next steps on climate change — Vilsack
The USDA will seek maximum impact from the $1 billion that it will put into climate-smart pilot projects, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Monday, but he demurred at discussing next steps for agriculture in mitigating global warming. "We'll see where the applications take us," he told the North American Agricultural Journalists meeting.
Senate Ag to kick off farm bill hearings in Michigan
The first Senate Agriculture Committee hearing on the 2023 farm bill will be held in Michigan on April 29, announced committee leaders on Wednesday. Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow has said field hearings in Michigan and Arkansas would begin the process of gathering ideas for the bill.
Boozman on Democrats: ‘Shattering the farm bill process’
The polarized debate over President Biden's $3.5 trillion "build back better" bill may imperil the drafting of the 2023 farm policy law, said the senior Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee on Wednesday. Arkansas Sen. John Boozman blamed Democrats for a breakdown in bipartisanship, saying they were "shattering the farm bill process and putting our farmers' futures in jeopardy."
Biden tax plan puts U.S. farms at risk, says Boozman
Farmers could face huge tax bills if President Biden succeeds in raising capital gains tax rates and eliminating a loophole for inherited assets such as farmland, said the senior Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee. The proposals are unpopular in farm country and some Democrats in …