While attending the National Association of Farm Broadcasters Convention, Farm Director KC Sheperd caught up with the president of the National Farmers Union (NFU), Rob Larew to discuss lots of topics being covered after the presidential election.
“There are so many unknowns right now,” Larew said. “For farmers and ranchers, I think there is a lot of hope and optimism about what could be, and also some concern about some negative consequences out there. With all that uncertainty, the one thing that we know is that we continue to face high input prices, low prices for our goods, and so many challenges out there. We are looking for relief and certainty, so we are hoping to get a farm bill done by the end of the year.”
According to Larew, the farm bill must be completed during the current lame duck session. “A lot of the work is already done, but right now, we need the leaders at the highest levels to come together, and the make-it-or-break-it might be President-elect Trump signaling that we need to get this farm bill done before next year when he takes office because he has a lot of other things on his agenda. Let’s get this farm bill done,” Larew stated.
He emphasized that the need for a complete farm bill is preeminent, because, politically, next year there will be more discussions about extending tax cuts and various other policies so that there will be less money available for a farm bill.
“Trying to write a bill with fewer resources and a busy agenda is not a good recipe for getting farm policy done,” he commented.
Many of the people Trump is appointing to positions are not known to much of the ag industry. Larew admitted that it is difficult to sort through all of the rhetoric he is hearing to determine where the truth lies but said that there are policy positions that are strongly in favor of family farmers and others that are adamantly anti-agriculture so it is anyone’s guess at this point.
“As we look at all of these names that could be in the departments, whether it is at USDA or EPA, the point I want to make is that there is a lot of talk right now about deregulating and cutting back the federal system,” Larew pointed out. “As a farmer who is regulated by all of this, we want some regulatory relief. However, we also know that some of those wheels and cogs need to actually move. If you cut, slash, and burn, that can have ripple effects where we don’t get products cleared out of the government, where we have other regulatory roadblocks that prevent us from doing certain things. As we go forward with this, we need to make sure that we are being smart about it.”
Sheperd and Larew continued to speak about Senator John Thune’s appointment to Majority Leader and next year’s NFU Convention to be held in Oklahoma next March. Click the listen bar at the top of the page to hear the complete conversation.
