The recent passage of the federal budget reconciliation bill came as Congress has been grappling with a new or extended Farm Bill for a while.
Actually, “a while” is an understatement.
Kansas Second District Congressman Derek Schmidt and other Kansas lawmakers in Washington have been urging action on the Farm Bill for well over a year. Schmidt says conversations have been going on for even longer than that.
Schmidt also says the reconciliation process means certain aspects of the existing Farm Bill don’t have to be handled again.
To Schmidt, the main question going forward is how easy — or hard — it will be to reach bipartisan agreement on the remaining Farm Bill items.
The Farm Bill is important because it funds and sets policies for programs helping farmers and ranchers with different insurance programs in cases of losses or disasters. It has also helped ag producers conserve their land; support research and development; provide money for rural economic development ventures; and fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, long known as food stamps but now known as SNAP.
