By Blake Haas
BLOOMINGTON – According to a nationally known farm broadcaster, Congress could unveil a new farm bill in the coming months that could cause a domino effect to farms all across the state.
Max Armstrong, the host of This Week in Agribusiness, told WJBC’s Marc Strauss relationships between the House of Representatives and the Senate could hurt farmers all across the state.
“There have been some rumblings that some of the money to make (climate change) happen could come out of farm bill money. I tell you what has been really interesting to me, you know, historically over the year’s you’ve seen this camaraderie on the House and Senate Agriculture Committees in Washington. You know, they may be on different sides of the aisle, but by-golly they get together, and they hammer things out. That is getting to be a little more stressful, I think.”
Armstrong said money taken away from a farm bill to go to climate change issues is still up-in-the-air, but if money does leave the farm bill, that could leave holes.
“You know they’re going to start working on a new farm bill in the months ahead. They’ll start holding hearings and going through the process of trying to get the farm bill written. And boy, I don’t know, I fear that’s going to be a colossal mess. It wasn’t very pretty last time around, and I think it’s going to be harder to get that job done.”
Armstrong added that it’s vital that farmers stay engaged in organizations like commodity groups to pull together to have their voices heard.
Blake Haas can be reached at [email protected].
