Senator Kent Conrad

Congress is back on Capitol Hill today (Monday) and for agriculture - all eyes are on the farm bill. Last week (week of March 24) Senator Kent Conrad and House Ag Chair Collin Peterson were reportedly working together to build an agreement on funding. That has apparently received the support needed to at least keep moving forward. But there are a number of issues to deal with - like offsets. House Ag Ranking Member Bob Goodlatte wants to see those details before he gives his okay. If he doesn’t see those - it’s reported he’s ready to find alternatives.

Conrad and Senate Finance Chair Max Baucus were disappointed with an earlier framework that only allocated 2.24-billion dollars for the permanent disaster program. The new framework provides just over four-billion for permanent disaster. But to pay for it - less funding is available for conservation, direct payments, crop insurance, specialty crops, trade and energy.

Overall - National Sorghum Producers hears the farm bill budget number is at 10.855-billion above baseline. But just as negotiators search for the offsets to reach that figure - they’re also looking to reduce total funding over baseline to 10-billion. Here the idea of cutting direct payments comes up again. One proposal is to cut the direct payments by two to three-percent to pay for the 855-million dollar increase.