Agricultural News
Congressman Frank Lucas Stands with Producers on the Upcoming 2023 Farm Bill
Wed, 04 May 2022 12:48:04 CDT
Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster, Ron Hays was able to catch up with Congressman Frank Lucas at the Grain and Feed Association's annual meeting on May 3rd after the congressman had addressed the group. Lucas talks with Ron about the 2023 farm bill.
"I think there is going to be a realization come fall and early in the next year with the Ukrainian war situation going on with the Russians still disrupting their production," Lucas said. "We are going to see some continued substantial increases in export commodity prices that will be offset for producers by record-high inputs."
Producers are going to be under pressure, Lucas said, and consumers are going to feel it at the grocery store. Maybe for the first time in a long time, consumers won't just take us for granted on the farm, he added.
Lucas said a big issue throughout the years has been consumers assuming the food supply will always be there.
"That may not be the case for the next year or two," Lucas said.
Lucas said he will be back on the committee for the 2023 farm bill.
"Both parties reorganize after the election, so that will be after the first Tuesday in November this year," Lucas said. "The new assignments take effect the first of January."
Around that time, Lucas said the committee will begin to consider where we go with the next farm bill, which will take about six months.
"It will be kind of exciting for the underclassmen because when I walk in and sit down with my portrait behind me for having been chairmen in the past, the freshman, sophomores, and juniors will be a little thrilled," Lucas said. "It will be good for them. Our new chairman, I think, will be G.T. Thompson and he will be a pleasure to work with."
This time, Lucas said we don't have to recreate the farm bill from scratch.
"We just have to take the farm bill, that now for two farm bills in a row has been base policy," Lucas said. "We have to adjust it to the environment and economic circumstances we are in, and package it in a way that we can convince the majority of the house and the senate that it's in their best interest."
Lucas said he would argue that argue any farm bill that guarantees or helps assure a producer has the ability to raise the food and fiber that we need is in the consumer's best interest both at home and around the world.
There will be those, Lucas said, that will argue that with high grain prices, and say there doesn't need to be a baseline price on the farm bill for support.
"These prices may only be a year or two phenomena," Lucas said. "Thinking back to WWI and WWII, then we will have to go through a downward adjustment and then come back into equilibrium."
Lucas said making sure his producers survive the gyrations, both the input cost on the top side of the scale early on, and where cash prices may be in the outward years is a priority.
"I have a degree in agricultural economics, and I have been sewing wheat since 1977 on that piece of red ground in Roger Mills County," Lucas said. "It is the one industry that is everywhere in the third district, and it is the one industry that both Americans and the world can't survive without. If we don't raise the food, then people go hungry."
If the agriculture industry is not supported, Lucas said political instability and human suffering result.
"Right now, the present chairman of the committee is spending a lot of time on what you would describe is social and environmental justice," Lucas said. "I don't think those will be the major components of the next farm bill. It is going to come down to how much food and how much fiber can we raise."
Raising food and fiber in a safe, affordable way, Lucas said, while being compatible with the needs of our communities and farms will be of utmost importance in this next farm bill.
Click the LISTEN BAR below to hear Ron's conversation with Congressman Frank Lucas on the 2023 Farm Bill.
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